Question V

GRATIAN. PART I. That chastity cannot be taken away by violence is proved by the authorities of many. For it is a virtue of the mind, which does not experience violence. Indeed, force is brought upon the body, not upon the mind. Hence, although the body is violated by force, if chastity of mind is preserved unharmed, chastity is nevertheless doubled. Thus blessed Lucy is reported to have said to Paschasius: “If you cause me to be violated against my will, my chastity will be doubled for my crown.” For God judges concerning perceptions and wills. Hence Ambrose writes in Book V On Virgins:

It is more tolerable to have the mind virgin than the flesh. Both are good, if it is permitted; if it is not permitted, let us at least be chaste not for a human being but for God.

§ 1. A virgin can be prostituted; she cannot be made an adulteress. Wherever a virgin of God is, there is a temple of God. Brothels do not bring infamy upon chastity; rather, chastity abolishes even the infamy of the place.

The same, [To a Fallen Virgin, c. 4]. Truly, the flesh cannot be corrupted beforehand unless the mind has first been corrupted.

Likewise Augustine, The City of God, [Book I, c. 18]. Is there fear, then, that another’s lust may pollute someone? It will not pollute if it is another’s; but if it pollutes, it will not be another’s. But since chastity is a virtue of the mind and has fortitude as its companion, it determines to tolerate any evils rather than consent to evil. And since no magnanimous and chaste person has in that person’s power what is done to the flesh, but only what the mind assents to or refuses, who, then, being of sound mind, would think that one loses chastity if perhaps another’s lust, not one’s own, is exercised and satisfied upon one’s flesh after it has been seized or overpowered?

When the purpose of the mind remains—the purpose through which the body also merited to be sanctified—the violence of another’s lust does not take sanctity from the body itself, for the perseverance of its own continence preserves it. Or indeed, if some woman, corrupted in mind and having violated the purpose she vowed to God, proceeds to be violated by her seducer, do we still call her holy even in body while she proceeds, after the sanctity of the mind through which the body is sanctified has been lost and destroyed? Far be this error. And from this let us rather be admonished that the sanctity of the body is thus lost even when the body is untouched.

The same, [c. 19]. § 1. They extol Lucretia, a noble matron of ancient Rome, with great praises of chastity. When the violent son of King Tarquin had lustfully taken possession of her body, she disclosed the most wicked young man’s crime to her husband Collatinus and her kinsman Brutus, most illustrious and brave men, and bound them to vengeance. Then, sickened by and unable to endure the shameful deed committed against her, she killed herself. What do we say? Is she to be called an adulteress or chaste? Who will labor in this controversy? Someone declaiming on this matter excellently and truthfully said: “Wonderful to say: there were two, and one committed adultery.” Splendidly and most truthfully. For, looking in the mingling of two bodies at the most defiled desire of one and the most chaste will of the other, and attending not to what was done by the joining of bodies but to what was done by the diversity of minds, he says: “There were two, and one committed adultery.”

[PALEA.

Let your life not become wearisome to you who are faithful to Christ if your chastity was made a mockery by enemies. You have a great and true consolation if you retain a faithful conscience that you did not consent to the sins of those who were permitted to sin against you.

The same, in the book On Two Souls, [c. 10]. § 1. Sin is committed only by the will.]

The same, in Book I On Free Choice, [c. 5]. Concerning chastity, who has doubted that it is established in the mind, since it is a virtue? Hence it cannot itself be taken away even by a violent ravisher.

Likewise Jerome, on the Epistle to the Romans, Book I. § 1. It is impossible for anyone to commit adultery in the body unless that person first commits adultery in the heart.

[PALEA. The same, on Luke, Book II. § 2. Imagine that in a persecution some virgin has been prostituted. According to the Gospel she is received as a virgin, because she does not sin by her will; under the law she is repudiated as though corrupted.

The same, in the book Hebrew Questions, [on Genesis at c. 12]. § 3. Force does not stain a woman’s body, but the will.]

Likewise Augustine, in the book On Holy Virginity, [c. 8]. § 4. Just as no one uses the body immodestly unless wickedness has first been conceived in the spirit, so no one preserves chastity in the body unless chastity has first been implanted in the spirit.

The same, to Victorianus, [epistle CXXII]. He who is accustomed to be present to his own will surely be present to those of his own who groan to God. Either he permits nothing to be perpetrated upon their most chaste members by hostile lust, or, if he permits it, since their mind is stained by no shamefulness of consent, they defend even their own flesh from blame. Whatever the lust of the sufferer neither committed nor permitted in it will belong solely to the fault of the doer, and all that violence will be reckoned not as the shamefulness of corruption but as the wound of suffering. For the integrity of chastity has such great force in the mind that, while it remains inviolate, chastity cannot be violated even in the body whose members could be overcome.

Likewise Isidore, in the Synonyms, Book II, [c. 1]. The body cannot be corrupted unless the mind has first been corrupted. For flesh clean from contamination of the mind does not sin.

Likewise Augustine to Bishop Honoratus, [epistle CLXXX]. Let us fear more that the chastity of faith may perish when the interior perception has been corrupted than that women may be violated by force in the flesh, because chastity is not violated by violence if it is preserved in the mind. For it is not violated even in the flesh when the will of the sufferer does not use the flesh shamefully, but without consent endures what another does.

Likewise John Chrysostom, [that is, the author of the Incomplete Work], on Matthew, [homily XXXII on c. 19]. Just as a work does not make sin without the will, so also justice is not consummated from a work unless the will is present. For many indeed pursue chastity in the body but commit adultery by the will, since the Lord says: “He who looks upon a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Therefore, the will frequently sins without a work. That, therefore, is glorious continence—not one which the necessity of bodily weakness is unable to transgress, but one which the will of a holy purpose embraces.

Likewise Jerome, in the epistle to Eustochium, [On the Preservation of Virginity]. PART II. If the Apostle Paul, a vessel of election and prepared for the Gospel of Christ, on account of the goads of the flesh and incitements of vices restrains his body and subjects it to servitude, lest, while preaching to others, he himself be found reprobate, and nevertheless sees another law in his members fighting against the law of his mind and taking him captive in the law of sin; if, after nakedness, fasts, hunger, prisons, scourges, and torments, returning into himself he cries out, “Unhappy man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death?”—do you think that you ought to be secure? Beware, I ask, lest God at some time say also concerning you: “The virgin of Israel has fallen, and there is no one to raise her.” I will say boldly: although God can raise all things, he cannot make a virgin after a fall. He is indeed able to deliver her from punishment, but he is not able to crown one who has been corrupted.

§ 1. Let us fear lest that prophecy also be fulfilled in us: “And good virgins will fail.” Observe what he says: “And good virgins will fail,” because there are also evil virgins. “He who looks upon a woman to desire her,” he says, “has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Therefore, virginity also perishes in the mind. These are evil virgins: virgins in flesh, not in spirit; foolish virgins who, not having oil, are excluded by the bridegroom. But if even those who are virgins are nevertheless not saved by the virginity of their bodies because of other faults, what will happen to those who prostituted the members of Christ and changed the temple of the Holy Spirit into a brothel? Immediately they will hear the prophet saying: “Descend, sit upon the earth, virgin daughter of Babylon; sit upon the earth. There is no throne for the daughter of the Chaldeans; you will no longer be called tender and delicate. Take the millstone, grind flour, uncover your veil, bare your legs, cross the rivers; your disgrace will be revealed, your reproaches will appear.” And this after the bridal chamber of the Son of God, after the kisses of the kinsman and bridegroom. She concerning whom the prophetic discourse once sang, “The queen stood at your right hand in gilded clothing, surrounded with variety,” will be stripped, and her hinder parts will be placed before her face. She will sit by the waters of solitude and, after placing her vessel, will spread her feet to every passerby and be polluted up to the crown of her head. It would have been more right to have undertaken human marriage and walked upon level ground than, while striving for higher things, to fall into the depth of hell. Let not the daughter of Zion, I beseech, become a city that is a prostitute, lest, after the hospitality of the Trinity, demons dance there and Sirens and hedgehogs make their nests.

Likewise Augustine, On the Christian Faith. PART III. Concupiscence both seeks and is sought after by women not only by touch and affection but also by sight. Nor should you say that you have chaste minds if you have immodest eyes, because an immodest eye is the messenger of an immodest heart. And when, even while the tongue is silent, immodest hearts make themselves known to one another by mutual gaze and take delight in one another’s ardor according to the concupiscence of the flesh, chastity itself flees from their conduct even though the bodies remain untouched by unclean violation.

Likewise Gregory, [Morals, Book XXI, c. 9]. “He who looks upon a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” For since an adulterer is called moechus by a Greek word, when it is not another man’s wife but a woman whom one is prohibited from looking upon, the Truth openly shows that adultery is perpetrated even by sight alone when an unmarried woman is shamefully desired. Yet this is generally distinguished according to the place or order of those desiring, because an eager desire stains this person in sacred orders just as the fault of adultery stains that person; nevertheless, among persons not dissimilar the same guilt of lust is distinguished.

PART IV. GRATIAN. But although women overpowered by violence have not lost chastity, let them nevertheless not dare to equate themselves with uncontaminated virgins. Hence Pope Leo, [epistle LXXXV, otherwise LXXXVII, to the bishops of Africa, c. 5]:

But those handmaids of God who lost the integrity of their modesty through barbarian oppression will be more praiseworthy in humility and modesty if they do not dare to compare themselves with uncontaminated virgins. For although every sin is born from the will, and the unwilling mind could remain unpolluted by the corruption of the flesh, nevertheless this will harm them less if they grieve that they have lost in the body what they were able not to lose in the mind.

GRATIAN. Therefore, since this woman who suffered violence cannot be proved to have lost chastity, she is in no way established to have incurred the crime of fornication or adultery. For, as Augustine says in the book On the Good of Marriage, [c. 4]: “Adultery is committed when, either by the impulse of one’s own lust or by consent to another’s, one lies with another woman or man contrary to the marital covenant; and thus fidelity is broken, which in bodily and abject matters is a great good of the mind, and therefore it is certain that even bodily safety, by which this life also is sustained, ought to be placed after it.”

Likewise Isidore on Exodus, [c. 29]. “You shall not commit adultery,” that is, neither let anyone mingle with other women outside the covenants of marriage to satisfy lust. For one who approaches another woman besides his own commits adultery.

Likewise Augustine, On Adulterous Marriages, [Book II, c. 13]. I think no Christian disputes that a man is an adulterer who has been mingled with another woman while his own wife is either long ill, long absent, or desirous of living continently.

PART V. GRATIAN. Therefore, since none of these things is discovered to have been present in this woman—because she neither adhered to another by the impulse of her own lust, nor by consent to another’s, nor while her husband was ill, absent, or desirous of living continently, but, having been violently overpowered by another’s lust, suffered force—it appears that she can be called neither a fornicator nor an adulteress. Hence she cannot be put away on any ground. For when the Jews asked Christ whether it was lawful for a man to put away his wife for any cause, he answered them: “Have you never read that he who made them from the beginning created them male and female? Therefore, what God has joined, let man not separate.” Then he concluded his discourse by saying that no one can put away his wife except for the cause of fornication. Hence the Apostle says in the Epistle to the Corinthians: “To those who are joined in marriage I command—not I, but the Lord—that the wife is not to depart from the husband.” From this it is given to be understood that, whatever the husband and wife may be like, once they have adhered to one another with marital affection, they cannot thereafter depart from one another. Hence Ambrose writes in the Hexameron, under the title of the fourth day:

The husband who once was pleasing is horrible and uncultivated; is another husband therefore to be chosen? A horse loves its mate, and if another is substituted, it does not know how to draw the yoke with another’s mate and thinks itself not whole. You repudiate your yoke-mate and think that he must often be changed? Change him, and if he fails for one day, bring in a rival; and immediately, when the cause is unknown, do you prosecute an injury to modesty as though it were known?

Likewise Augustine, [On the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, Book I, c. 32]. If someone has a wife who is sterile, deformed in body, weak in her limbs, blind, deaf, lame, or anything else; or if she is worn down by diseases, labors, and pains; and whatever intensely horrible thing can be imagined, except fornication—let him sustain it for the sake of fellowship and fidelity.

Likewise Jerome to Oceanus, On the Death of Fabiola. The Lord commanded that a wife ought not to be put away except for the cause of fornication, and that, if she has been put away, she is to remain unmarried. Whatever is commanded to men consequently redounds to women. For an adulterous wife is not to be put away while an adulterous husband is to be retained.

Among us, what is not lawful for women is equally not lawful for men, and the same servitude is assessed under an equal condition.

Likewise from the Twelfth Council of Toledo, [c. 8]. PART VI. It is the Lord’s precept that a wife ought not to be put away by her husband except for the cause of fornication. Therefore, whoever leaves his wife on any ground apart from guilt of the aforesaid crime, because he has determined to separate what God joined, is to remain deprived of ecclesiastical communion and alien to the assembly of all Christians for as long as he does not sincerely embrace and foster fellowship with the spouse he left. Accordingly, those who, after already being admonished once, twice, and three times by a priest to correct themselves, are unwilling to return to fellowship with their spouse will by their own merits separate themselves also from an office of palatine dignity and, furthermore, will lose the testimony of noble dignity for as long as they remain in the fault, because they have delivered their own flesh to the throat of separation.

Nicholas in response to the inquiries of the Bulgars, [c. 96]. Whatever a woman has plotted against you, or if she has accused you, she is not to be rejected or utterly held in hatred, except for the cause of fornication.

PART VII. GRATIAN. But it is asked: since the condition of each is equal, why are men who have communion with adulterous wives not summoned, while, to the contrary, wives are seen to remain in fellowship with adulterous husbands? Concerning these matters Pope Innocent writes thus, [epistle III, to Bishop Exsuperius, c. 4]:

The Christian religion condemns adultery by equal reasoning in each sex. But women do not readily accuse their husbands of adultery, and hidden sins do not have punishment. Men, however, are accustomed more freely to report adulterous wives before priests, and therefore, when their crime has been disclosed, communion is denied to women; but when the deed of men lies hidden, no one is readily excluded on the basis of suspicions. He will certainly be removed if his shameful deed is uncovered. For since the case is equal, sometimes, when proof is lacking, the principle of punishment rests.