Homilies on Romans, Homily 4

“For this reason God gave them over to vile passions: for even their women exchanged natural intercourse for what is against nature: and likewise the men too, leaving natural intercourse with women, burned in their lust for one another.” All these passions, then, were vile, but especially the mad lust for males; for the soul suffers more from sins, and is more dishonored by them, than the body is by diseases. But notice how here too, as with their doctrines, he leaves them without an excuse by saying that the women “exchanged natural intercourse.” For no one, he means, can say that they reached this point because they were prevented from having legitimate intercourse, or that they were driven into this monstrous insanity because they had no way to satisfy their desire. An exchange implies that they already possessed something. He also said this when discussing their doctrines: “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie.” And again, he shows the same thing about the men by saying, “Leaving natural intercourse with women.” As with the women, he leaves these men with no possible defense, charging them not only with having the means of satisfaction and abandoning what they had to pursue something else, but also with dishonoring what was natural and running after what was contrary to nature. But what is contrary to nature involves discomfort and displeasure, so they could not fairly appeal even to pleasure. For genuine pleasure is what accords with nature. But when God has abandoned someone, everything is turned upside down. And so their doctrine was satanic, and their life too was diabolical. Now, when he was discussing their doctrines, he set the world and human understanding before them, telling them that, through the judgment God had given them, visible things could have led them by the hand, as it were, to the Creator; and that by refusing to follow, they were left without an excuse. Here, in place of the world, he sets pleasure that accords with nature, which they would have enjoyed with a greater sense of security and greater gladness, and so would have stayed far from shameful deeds. But they refused; and so they are entirely beyond pardon and have insulted nature itself. And it is even more disgraceful when women too seek these kinds of intercourse, since they ought to have a greater sense of shame than men. Here too Paul's judgment deserves admiration: faced with two conflicting aims, he achieves both with complete precision. For he wanted both to speak modestly and to sting his hearers. Now he could not accomplish both simply by wishing to, since one stood in the way of the other. For if you speak modestly, you will not be able to press your hearer hard. But if you intend to cut him to the heart, you are forced to lay the bare facts before him in plain terms. Yet his discerning and holy soul was able to do both precisely: by naming nature, he strengthened his accusation while also using it as a kind of veil to preserve the modesty of his description. And next, after first reproaching the women, he goes on to the men too and says, “And likewise the men too, leaving natural intercourse with women.” This is clear proof of the utmost corruption, when both sexes are depraved, and both the one appointed to instruct the woman and the woman told to become the man's helper act as enemies against one another. Reflect too on how much meaning his words carry. For he does not say that they fell in love with and lusted after one another, but that “they burned in their lust for one another.” You see that this whole desire comes from an excess that refuses to stay within its proper limits. For everything that violates the laws God has appointed lusts after monstrous things instead of ordinary ones. Just as many people abandon their desire for food and take to eating earth and small stones, and others, gripped by excessive thirst, often crave even mud, so these people too rushed into this boiling frenzy of lawless love. But if you ask, ‘Where did this intensity of lust come from?’ it came from God's abandonment. And where does God's abandonment come from? From the lawlessness of those who left Him: “men with men doing what is shameful.” Do not suppose, he means, because you have heard that they burned, that the evil lay only in desire. For most of it came from their self-indulgence, which also set their lust ablaze. That is why he did not say they were swept along or overtaken, an expression he uses elsewhere. What did he say? “Doing.” They made a business of the sin, and not just a business, but one they pursued eagerly. And he called it not lust, but what is shameful, and rightly so. For they both dishonored nature and trampled on the laws. And see the great confusion that arose on both sides. Not only was the head turned downward, but the feet were upward too, and they became enemies to themselves and to one another, introducing a destructive kind of conflict, even more lawless than any civil war, full of divisions and taking many forms. For they split it into four new and lawless kinds. Since (3 mss. whence) this war was not twofold or threefold, but fourfold. Consider this. The two were meant to be one, by which I mean the woman and the man. For it says, “the two will be one flesh.” (Gen. ii. 24.) The desire for intercourse brought this about and united the sexes to one another. But the devil took away this desire and redirected its course, and so separated the sexes from one another and made what was one into two parts, against God's law. For it says, “the two will be one flesh”; but he divided the one flesh into two. Here, then, is one war. Again, he provoked these same two parts to wage war both against themselves and against one another. For women too abused women; it was not only men who abused their own sex. And the men opposed one another and the female sex, as happens in a battle at night. You see a second and third war, and a fourth and fifth; there is also another, for besides those already mentioned, they also acted lawlessly against nature itself. For when the Devil saw that this desire above all draws the sexes together, he was determined to cut the bond and so destroy the race, not only by their failure to have lawful intercourse, but also by stirring them up to war and rebellion against one another. “And receiving in themselves the fitting repayment for their error.” See how he returns to the source of the evil, namely, the impiety that comes from their doctrines, and says that this is a reward for that lawlessness. For if he spoke of hell and punishment, it seemed that the ungodly, who deliberately chose such a life, would not believe him at present and would even mock him; so he shows that the punishment lay in this pleasure itself. (So Plato Theæt. p. 176, 7.) But if they do not perceive it and are still pleased, do not be surprised. For even people who are mad and afflicted with frenzy (cf. Soph. Aj. 265–277), while doing themselves great harm and making themselves such objects of pity that others weep over them, themselves smile and revel in what has happened. Yet this does not lead us to say that they are free from punishment; for this very reason, they suffer a more terrible vengeance, because they are unaware of their own condition. For we must seek the approval of people whose minds are sound, not those whose minds are disordered. Yet in earlier times this practice even seemed to have the standing of law, and a certain lawgiver among them ordered household slaves neither to use ointments when dry (i.e. except in bathing) nor to keep youths, reserving this place of honor—or rather, shame—for the free. Yet they did not consider it shameful. Instead, regarding it as a great privilege, too great for slaves, the Athenian people, the wisest of peoples, and Solon, so great among them, permitted it only to the free. And you can see many other books by the philosophers full of this disease. But we do not therefore say that the practice became lawful; we say that those who accepted this law were pitiable and deserved many tears. For these men are treated in the same way as women who work as prostitutes. Or rather, their condition is more miserable. For in the women's case, the intercourse, even if lawless, still accords with nature; but this is contrary to both law and nature. For even if there were no hell and no punishment had been threatened, this would be worse than any punishment. Yet if you say, “They found pleasure in it,” you are telling me what adds to the vengeance. For suppose I saw someone running naked, his body smeared all over with mud, and yet making no attempt to cover himself, but delighting in it. I would not rejoice with him, but would instead mourn that he did not even realize he was acting shamefully. But so I can show the atrocity more clearly still, bear with me through one more example. Now if someone condemned a virgin to live confined in dens (θαλομευομένην) and to have intercourse with irrational beasts, and she then took pleasure in such intercourse, would she not deserve tears especially for this, since she could not be freed from this misery because she did not even recognize it? Surely this is plain to everyone. But if that would be terrible, this is no less so. For being degraded by one's own kin is more pitiable than being degraded by strangers. These people, I say (5 mss. “I consider”), are even worse than murderers, since even dying is better than living under such abuse. For the murderer separates the soul from the body, but this man ruins the soul along with the body. Name whatever sin you like: you will name none equal to this lawlessness. And if those who undergo such things understood them, they would accept ten thousand deaths to avoid suffering this evil. For there is not, there surely is not, a more terrible evil than this degrading treatment. For if, when discussing sex outside marriage, Paul said, “Every sin a person commits is outside the body, but whoever has sex outside marriage sins against his own body” (1 Cor. vi. 18), what are we to say of this madness, which is so much worse than sex outside marriage that words cannot express it? For I would not merely say that you have become a woman, but that you have lost your manhood, and have neither changed into that nature nor kept the nature you had. Instead, you have betrayed both at once and deserve to be driven out and stoned by both men and women, since you have wronged both sexes. And to help you understand the full force of this, if someone came and assured you that he would turn you from a man into a dog, would you not flee from him as from a plague? But look! You have turned yourself from a man into an animal more disgraceful than a dog. For a dog is useful for service, but someone who has given himself over in this way is useful for nothing. Or again, if someone threatened to make men go into labor and give birth, would we not be filled with indignation? But look! Those who have plunged into this frenzy have now done something more terrible to themselves. For changing into the nature of women is not the same as remaining a man and yet becoming a woman—or rather, neither description fits. But if you want to understand the enormity of the evil on other grounds, ask why lawmakers punish those who make men eunuchs, and you will see that it is for absolutely no other reason than that they mutilate nature. Yet the wrong they do is nothing compared with this. For some who were mutilated were useful in many ways after their mutilation. But nothing can be more worthless than a man who has prostituted himself. For not only the soul but also the body of someone treated in this way is disgraced, and he deserves to be driven out of every place. How many hells will be enough for such people? But if you scoff when you hear of hell and do not believe in that fire, remember Sodom. For we have seen, surely we have seen, even in this present life, a likeness of hell. For since many would utterly disbelieve what comes after the resurrection when they hear of an unquenchable fire, God brings them to their senses through present things. Such is the burning of Sodom, that great blaze! Those who have been to the place know it well: they have seen with their own eyes that divinely sent scourge and the effects of the lightning from above. (Jude 7.) Consider how great that sin is, to have forced hell to appear even before its time! For while many mocked His words, God showed them an image of hell through His deeds in a new way. For that rain was extraordinary because the intercourse was contrary to nature, and it flooded the land because lust had flooded their souls. That is also why the rain was the opposite of ordinary rain. It not only failed to stir the womb of the earth to produce fruit, but even made it unable to receive seed. For such was also the men's intercourse, making a body of this kind more worthless than the very land of Sodom. And what is more detestable than a man who has prostituted himself, or what more accursed? Oh, what madness! Oh, what frenzy! Where did this lust come from, reveling obscenely and doing to human nature everything enemies could do—or even worse, by as much as the soul is better than the body? Oh, you who were more senseless than irrational creatures and more shameless than dogs! For such intercourse never takes place among them, but nature recognizes her own limits. Yet you have dishonored our race beneath irrational creatures by these indignities that you inflict on one another and suffer from one another. What, then, gave birth to these evils? From luxury; from not knowing God. For as soon as people cast out the fear of Him, everything good immediately falls into ruin. Now, to keep this from happening, let us keep the fear of God clearly before our eyes. For nothing, surely nothing, ruins a person so much as slipping away from this anchor, just as nothing does more to save us than keeping our eyes constantly on it. For if having another person before our eyes makes us more reluctant to sin, and we often avoid doing anything wrong even out of embarrassment before servants of better character, consider how safe we will be with God before our eyes! For the Devil will never attack us in this condition, since his efforts would be wasted. But if he sees us wandering about and going around without a bridle, once he gains a foothold within us he will be able to drive us wherever he likes. It is like thoughtless servants at the market who neglect the necessary tasks their masters have entrusted to them, attach themselves at random to whoever happens to cross their path, and waste their free time there. This also happens to us when we depart from God's commandments. For we soon stand around admiring wealth, physical beauty, and other things that are none of our business, just as those servants watch beggars performing juggling tricks and then arrive late and receive a severe beating at home. And many go past the road laid out for them by following others who behave in the same shameful way. But let us not do this. For we have been sent to take care of many urgent matters. And if we leave them and stand gaping at these useless things, all our time will be wasted to no purpose or benefit, and we will suffer the severest punishment. For if you want something to occupy you, you have things you ought to marvel at and gaze at all your days, things that call for wonder and abundant praise, not laughter. Someone who admires ridiculous things will often become ridiculous himself, even more so than the person who provokes the laughter. And so that you do not fall into this, break away from it at once. For why, tell me, do you stand gaping and getting excited at the sight of wealth? What do you see that is so wonderful, so capable of holding your gaze? These horses with their gold harnesses, these attendants, some barbarians and some eunuchs, these costly clothes, the soul growing utterly soft amid all this, the haughty brow, the bustle, and the noise? And how do these things deserve wonder? How are they better than the beggars who dance and play pipes in the marketplace? For these people too, suffering from a terrible famine of virtue, dance a more ridiculous dance than the beggars, led and carried around now to costly tables, now to prostitutes' lodgings, and now to a swarm of flatterers and a crowd of hangers-on. But if they wear gold, that is why they are the most pitiable: the things that have nothing to do with them are what they desire most eagerly. Please, do not look at their clothes, but open up their soul and consider whether it is not full of countless wounds, clothed in rags, destitute, and defenseless! What use, then, is this madness for display? For it would be much better to be poor and live virtuously than to be a king and live wickedly. The poor man enjoys all the delights of the soul within himself and, because of his inward riches, does not even notice his outward poverty. But the king, living in luxury amid things that do not belong to him at all, is punished in what matters most to him: his soul, his thoughts, and his conscience, which will go with him to the other world. Since, then, we know these things, let us put aside our clothes decorated with gold and take up virtue and the pleasure that comes from it. For in this way, both in this life and the next, we will come to enjoy great delights, through the grace and love for humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom, and with Whom, be glory to the Father, with the Holy Spirit, forever and ever. Amen.