Homilies on Romans 4

For this cause God gave them up unto passions of dishonour.

For even their women changed the natural use into that which is against nature.

And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another.

Now all the passions are dishonourable, but most of all the madness against the males;

for in sins the soul suffers more and is put to greater shame than the body does in its diseases.

Observe how here too he deprives them of all excuse, just as in the matter of their doctrines; for concerning the women he said, They changed the natural use.

For no one can say, he means, that being hindered from lawful intercourse they came to this, nor that being unable to fulfil their desire they ran aground upon this monstrous frenzy;

for to change belongs to those who possess.

This too he said when discoursing concerning their doctrines:

They changed the truth of God into a lie.

And concerning the males again he indicated the same thing in another way, saying:

Leaving the natural use of the woman.

And in like manner as with those women, he casts these men also out of all defence, accusing them not only because they had enjoyment, and, forsaking that which they had, went after another, but because, having dishonoured that which is according to nature, they ran after that which is against nature.

But the things against nature are more difficult and more distasteful, so that they could not even plead pleasure;

for the genuine pleasure is that which is according to nature.

But when God forsakes a man, everything is turned upside down.

For this reason, not only was their doctrine satanic, but their life also was devilish.

Now when he was discoursing concerning their doctrines, he set forth the world and the human understanding, saying that by the intelligence given them by God they were able, through the things that are seen, to be led by the hand toward the Creator, but that then, being unwilling, they remained without excuse.

But here, in place of the world, he has set the pleasure that is according to nature, which they might have enjoyed with greater freedom from fear, and

with greater gladness, and been rid of all shame;

wherefore they are outside all pardon, having done outrage even against nature itself;

and what is yet more dishonourable than these things, when even women seek after these unions, which they ought to have been more ashamed of than the men.

And here too it is worthy to marvel at the discernment of Paul, how, having fallen upon two contrary matters, he accomplished both with all exactness.

For he wished both to speak with gravity and to sting the hearer;

yet both of these were not possible together, but the one hinders the other.

For if you speak with gravity, you will not be able to reach the hearer to the quick;

but if you wish to lay hold of him vehemently, you are under necessity to lay bare too plainly what is being said.

But the prudent and holy soul was able to accomplish both with exactness, in the mere word 'nature' both heightening the accusation, and also using it, as it were, like a kind of veil for the decency of the narrative.

Then, having first laid hold of the women, he proceeds also against the men, saying:

'And in like manner also the males, leaving the natural use of the female';

which is a proof of the uttermost ruin, when either sex is corrupted, and both he who was appointed to be the woman's teacher, and she who was bidden to become the man's helper, work the deeds of enemies against one another.

But observe how emphatically he also uses the words.

For he did not say that they loved and lusted after one another, but, 'They were inflamed in their lust one toward another.'

Do you see that the whole of the lust comes from an excess which will not endure to abide within its own bounds? For everything which transgresses the laws appointed by God lusts after monstrous things, and not after those that are lawful.

For just as many oftentimes, having let go the desire for food, eat earth and little stones; and others, held fast by a fierce thirst, oftentimes even long for mire;

so also those men were cast out toward this lawless passion.

But if you say, And whence comes this intensity of the lust? From the forsaking by God.

And whence comes the forsaking by God? From the lawlessness of those who forsook Him;

'Males with males working that which is unseemly.'

For do not, he says, because you have heard that 'they were inflamed,' suppose the disease to be of lust alone;

for the greater part of it is from their slothfulness, which also kindled the lust.

Therefore he did not say 'Being swept along,' or 'Being caught beforehand,' which he says elsewhere, but what? 'Working.'

They made sin their work, and not simply a work, but even one earnestly pursued.

And he did not say 'Lust,' but 'Unseemliness,' and that properly;

for they both put nature to shame, and trampled upon the laws.

And behold the great confusion that arises from both sides.

For not only did the head become the feet, but also the feet the head; and they became enemies of themselves and of one another, introducing a grievous strife, more lawless than any civil war, manifold and of many divisions.

For they divided this warfare into four kinds, empty and lawless;

for this war was not twofold and threefold only, but even fourfold.

The two ought to have been one, the woman and the man, I mean;

'For the two,' he says, 'shall be one flesh.'

Now the desire for intercourse used to effect this, and united the sexes to one another.

But the devil, having taken away this desire and diverted it to another manner, thus severed the sexes from one another, and made the one to become two parts, contrary to the law of God;

for the one says, 'The two shall be one flesh';

but the other divided the one into two.

Again he set these very two parts at war both against themselves and against one another;

for the women again outraged women, not the men only, and the men stood both against one another and against the female sex, as in some battle fought in the night;

have you seen a second and a third war, and a fourth and a fifth? There is yet another;

for besides the things already mentioned, they also transgressed against nature itself.

For since the devil saw that this desire, above all, brings the sexes together, he was zealous to cut through the bond, so that not only

by the race no longer being propagated according to the law did he dissolve it, but also by having set the race at war and in faction against one another.

'And receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was due.'

See how again he comes to the fountain of the evil, the impiety that springs from their doctrines, and says that this was the reward of that lawlessness.

For since, when he spoke concerning hell and punishment, he seemed at the present not to be credible in the eyes of the ungodly and of those who choose to live in this manner, but even worthy of ridicule, he shows that in this very pleasure itself their punishment already resides.

But if they do not perceive it, and instead take pleasure in it, do not be astonished;

for the mad also, and those held fast by the disease of delirium, though they do themselves much wrong and act in pitiable ways over which others weep for them, yet laugh and delight in the very things that befall them.

But not on this account do we say that they are freed from punishment; rather, for this very reason they are in a more grievous torment, that they do not even know the state in which they are.

For it is not from the sick, but from the healthy, that we must take the votes.

Since indeed, in ancient times the practice was even reckoned a law, and a certain lawgiver among them commanded that household slaves should neither anoint themselves dry nor practice pederasty, granting this precedence to the freeborn—or rather, this indecency.

Yet nevertheless they did not consider the thing to be an indecency, but as something honorable and too dignified to be within the station of slaves, they permitted it to the freeborn.

And this the wisest people of the Athenians did, and the great Solon among them.

And one might find many other books of the philosophers also teeming with this disease;

but we do not on that account say that the thing is lawful; rather, that those who received this as law are pitiable and worthy of many tears.

For what harlot women suffer, these men also suffer;

or rather, things more wretched than theirs.

For with those women, the union, though unlawful, is at least according to nature;

but this is both unlawful and contrary to nature.

For even if there were no hell, and no punishment were threatened, this very thing would be worse than every punishment.

But if they take pleasure in it, you are only telling me of an added measure to their punishment.

For neither, if I saw someone running about naked, his whole body smeared with filth, and then not hiding himself but even preening in it, would I rejoice with him; rather I would lament for him all the more, because he does not even perceive his own disgrace.

But that I may show the outrage yet more clearly, bear with me in yet another example.

For if someone had condemned a virgin kept in the bridal chamber to be coupled with irrational beasts, and then she took pleasure in that union, would she not for this very reason be most worthy of tears—that she could not even be delivered from this disease, precisely because she does not even perceive the disease? To everyone, surely, this is evident.

But if that case is grievous, this one is no less than it;

for to be outraged by one's own kindred is more pitiable than to be so treated by strangers.

These men I declare to be even worse than murderers;

for indeed it is better to die than to live thus outraged.

For the murderer severs the soul from the body, but this man destroys the soul together with the body.

And whatever sin you may name, you will name nothing equal to this transgression;

and if those who suffer it perceived what was being done, they would accept ten thousand deaths rather than suffer this.

For there is not, there is not anything more irrational and more grievous than this outrage.

For if Paul, discoursing about fornication, said, 'Every sin that a man may do is outside the body,'

'but he who commits fornication sins against his own body,'

what shall we say concerning this madness, which is worse than fornication by so much as cannot even be expressed? For I do not merely say this—that you have become a woman—but that you have destroyed even your being a man, and neither did you pass over into that other nature, nor did you preserve the one you had; but you became the common betrayer of both, worthy to be driven out and stoned by both men and women, seeing that you have wronged both sexes alike.

And that you may learn how great a thing this is: if someone came and promised to make you from a man into a dog, would you not flee him as a destroyer? But behold, you have made yourself not a dog out of a man, but an animal more dishonorable than this;

for the dog at least is fit for use, but he who has prostituted himself is not.

And what, tell me, if someone threatened to make men bear children and be delivered in childbirth—would we not be filled with wrath? But behold, now those who rage after such things have wrought upon themselves things yet more grievous;

for it is not the same thing to be changed into a woman's nature, as, while remaining a man, to become a woman; or rather, to be neither the one nor the other.

But if you wish to learn from yet another quarter the excess of the evil, ask for what reason the lawgivers punish those who make eunuchs, and you will learn that it is for no other cause whatsoever than that they mutilate nature.

And yet those men do no such great wrong;

for those who have been mutilated proved, even after the mutilation, useful in many respects;

but nothing could be more useless than a man who has been prostituted;

for not only the soul, but even the body of one who has suffered such things is dishonored and worthy to be driven out from every quarter.

How many hells will suffice for these men? But if, on hearing of hell, you laugh it to scorn and disbelieve, call to mind that fire of the Sodomites.

For we have seen, we have seen even in this present life an image of hell.

For since many were likely to disbelieve the things that come after the resurrection, when they now hear that the fire is unquenchable, God brought them to their senses by means of things present.

Of this kind, at any rate, is the burning of Sodom and that great conflagration.

And they who were present know it, and they too who beheld with their own eyes that God-sent plague and the work of the thunderbolts from on high.

Consider how great a sin it was, so as even to force hell to appear before its time.

For since many made light of words, God displayed to them the image of that place by means of deeds, in a certain strange and novel manner.

For that rain was indeed strange, since the intercourse also was contrary to nature;

and it flooded the earth, since lust had also flooded their souls.

Wherefore the rain also was the very opposite of the customary;

for it not only failed to stir the womb of the earth toward the bringing forth of fruits, but even rendered it useless for the very receiving of seed.

For such was the intercourse of the men of the land of Sodom, rendering their very body more useless still.

For what is more abominable than a man who has given himself to fornication? What more polluted? Oh, the madness of it!

Whence did this lust burst in like a reveller, treating human nature as enemies would, nay rather more cruelly than they, in proportion as the soul is better than the body? O you who are more senseless than the brute beasts, and more shameless than dogs!

For nowhere is there such intercourse among them, but nature recognizes her own bounds;

but you have made your own race more dishonourable than the brute beasts, by thus outraging it.

Whence, then, were these evils born? From luxury, from not knowing God;

for when men cast out the fear of Him, then all good things forthwith depart.

In order, then, that this may not happen, let us keep before our eyes an exact fear of God.

For nothing, nothing so destroys a man as to fall away from this anchor;

just as nothing so saves as to look thither continually.

For if, having a man before our eyes, we become more reluctant to sin, and often, put to shame even by our servants, do nothing amiss and grow more moderate, consider how great a security we shall enjoy when we have God before our eyes.

For in no way will the devil set upon us when we are thus disposed, seeing that he labours to no purpose;

but should he see us straying outside and roaming about without a bridle, then, taking his beginning from ourselves, he will thereafter be able to lead us away astray in every direction.

And what the slothful among servants suffer in the marketplace, leaving the necessary services for which they were sent by their masters, and idly and at random glueing themselves to whatever chances to come their way, and there squandering their leisure, this we too endure whenever we depart from the commandments of God.

For henceforth we stand gaping in wonder at wealth, and at bodily beauty, and at the other things that are nothing to us, just as those servants attend to the beggars who perform tricks; then, coming home late, they suffer the utmost stripes.

And many have even passed by the road that lies before them, following others

who behave in such unseemly ways.

But let us not do this;

for we have been sent to accomplish many pressing tasks; and if, leaving those aside, we stand gaping at these unprofitable things, and all our time is spent by us in vain and to no purpose, we shall pay the uttermost penalty.

For even if you wish to occupy yourself, you have things which you ought to admire, and at which to stand gaping the whole time long;

things which are worthy not of laughter, but of wonder and much praise; whereas he who admires the ridiculous things will himself become such, and worse than the buffoon who raises the laugh;

and that you may not suffer this, leap quickly away.

For why, tell me, do you stand there gaping at wealth and all a-flutter over it? What do you see that is wonderful and able to hold your eyes fast? The horses adorned with gold, and the servants—some barbarians, some eunuchs—and the costly garments, and the soul grown soft amid these things, and the eyebrow lifted high, and the running to and fro, and the tumults? And where in these is anything worthy of wonder? And in what do these differ from the beggars who dance and pipe in the marketplace? For these too, held fast by a great famine of virtue, dance a dance more ridiculous than theirs, being led and dragged about, now to costly tables, now to the resort of harlot women, now to swarms of flatterers and a throng of parasites.

And if they wear gold, for this very reason are they most to be pitied, because the things that are nothing to them are of more account to them than themselves.

For do not look at their garments, but uncover their soul, and consider whether it is not full of countless wounds, and clad in rags, and desolate and unprotected.

What profit, then, is there in this outward madness? For it is far better to be a poor man living in virtue than a king living in wickedness.

For the poor man enjoys within himself all the luxury that belongs to the soul, and does not even perceive the poverty that is without, because of the wealth that is within;

but the king, revelling in the things that in no way belong to him, is punished in the very things that most nearly concern him—in soul and in reasonings and in conscience, which are the things that journey with him to the world beyond.

Knowing these things, then, let us put off the golden garments, and take up virtue and the pleasure that comes from it.

For thus shall we enjoy much delight both here and there, and shall attain the good things that have been promised, by the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father and to the Holy Spirit be glory, honour, and might, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.