Fornication

“ III. Fornication is of the natural man. IV. Fornication is lust, but not the lust of adultery. V. With some men the love of the sex cannot without hurt he totally checked from going forth into fornication. VI. Therefore in populous cities public stews are tolerated. VII. The lust of fornication is light, so far as it looks to conjugial love, and gives this love the preference. VIII. The lust of fornication is grievous, so far as it looks to adultery. IX. The lust of fornication is more grievous, as it verges to the desire of varieties and of defloration. ”

“ Wherefore, brother beloved, I counsel thee to flee fornication: for it will conceal itself, where thou wouldest do good. By all means flee young women, lest thou put trust in their religious zeal; for St. Augustine saith: “The more religious people are, the more inclined are they to luxury; and under the cloak of religion lurks the craft and poison of fornication.” Dearly beloved, know this, that the conversation of such subverteth many who could not be deceived or defiled by the conversation of the world. On no account permit women to enter thy house ”

“ But if I rallied him on his effeminacy, he would at once proceed to give most convincing proof of his virile power. No married embrace ever conferred such rapture. Fornication, that becomes so insipid when lawful, is so delicious when stolen. ”

“ Covetousness indeed, and adultery, and envy, and hostile designs, and everything of this sort can, from love of one’s neighbor, be stopped; but how fornication? he said. I therefore told him, that even this can love stop. For if a man should love a woman that commits fornication, he will endeavor both to draw her off from other men, and not himself also to add to her sin. So that to commit fornication with a woman is the part of one exceedingly hating her with whom he commits the fornication, but one who truly loved her would withdraw her from that abominable practice. ”

“ For not only is it allowed to put away a wife who commits fornication; but whoever puts away that wife even by whom he is himself compelled to commit fornication, puts her away undoubtedly for the cause of fornication. ”

“ Sacrilege, of course, aggravates every other kind of carnal sin, and thus there is sacrilegious sodomy, sacrilegious adultery, sacrilegious incest, etc.
2523. Fornication.—Fornication is the copulation of an unmarried man with an unmarried woman who is not a virgin.
(a) It is copulation, or sexual intercourse suited for generation of children. Thus, it differs from lewdness, which consists in unconsummated acts, and from sodomitic intercourse, which is consummated but unsuited for generation. Onanism is an aggravating circumstance of fornication, or rather a new sin of unnatural intercourse. ”

“ Here there arises a second question, when the Lord allows a wife to be put away for the cause of fornication, in what latitude of meaning fornication is to be understood in this passage,—whether in the sense understood by all, viz. that we are to understand that fornication to be meant which is committed in acts of uncleanness ”

“ I once inquired of those in the spiritual world who did not regard adulteries as sins, whether they knew a single distinction between fornication, keeping a mistress, the two kinds of concubinage, and the several degrees of adultery? ”

“ Women that follow such practices, by their looks offer themselves for prostitution. “For the light of the body is the eye,” says the Scripture, by which the interior illuminated by the shining light appears. Fornication in a woman is in the raising of the eyes. [725]
“Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, and concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: for which things’ sake cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience,” [726] cries the apostle. ”

“ Filthy lusts must be suppressed, in order to the supporting of holy love. Walk in love, and shun fornication and all uncleanness. Fornication is folly committed between unmarried persons. All uncleanness includes all other sorts of filthy lusts, which were too common among the Gentiles. ”

“ The moral of the story is that the temptations of the flesh are pernicious and malignant. Let us not rest our glance too long on our neighbor's wife, however gratified our senses may be by her beauty. Fornication is a very libertine thought. ”

“ Chapter 5
1 It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife.
2 And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you. ”

“ When he saw that such talk would not prevail upon her, he adopted a different plan, and said—
“Alas, my daughter, I must make known to you my extreme need. I have an infirmity which all the physicians hold to be incurable unless I have pleasure with some woman whom I greatly love. For my part, I would rather die than commit a mortal sin; but, when it comes to that, I know that simple fornication is in no wise to be compared with the sin of homicide. So, if you love my life, you will preserve it for me, as well as your own conscience from cruelty.” ”

“ Every one that divorces his wife, even though it be for fornication, and marries another violates Mark 10:11 and Luke 16:18. A man may put away his wife for fornication, and not transgress a single text in the Bible. Fornication is the only just cause for man to put away his wife, or the wife the husband.
Some have fallen into the dangerous error of putting away the wife because the Scriptures say, “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.” ”

“ Thus, ordinary fornication is that which is committed with a woman who is neither a harlot nor a concubine. This sin is in itself the least grave of the three, since it is not so harmful as whoremongering, nor so enduring as concubinage. Ordinary fornication also has its degrees of bad and worse: thus, engaged persons who sin together habitually are worse than those who sin only occasionally, and circumstances such as artificial onanism and abortion add to the guilt. ”

“ Some state legislatures make a distinction between adultery and fornication, using the word adultery to apply to immorality on the part of married people, and the word fornication to apply to the same sort of sin on the part of unmarried people. ”

“ Besides, what is the thing which takes place in all men and women to produce marriage and fornication? Commixture of the flesh, of course; the concupiscence whereof the Lord put on the same footing with fornication. “Then,” says (some one) , “are you by this time destroying first—that is, single—marriage too?” And (if so) not without reason; inasmuch as it, too, consists of that which is the essence of fornication. [3] Accordingly, the best thing for a man is not to touch a woman; and accordingly the virgin’s is the principal sanctity, [4] because it is free from affinity with fornication. ”

“ First, in so far as a circumstance draws a sin from one kind to another: thus fornication is the intercourse of a man with one who is not his wife: but if to this be added the circumstance that the latter is the wife of another, the sin is drawn to another kind of sin, viz. injustice, in so far as he usurps another's property; and in this respect adultery is a more grievous sin than fornication. ”

“ The fornicator is said to sin against his own body, not merely because the pleasure of fornication is consummated in the flesh, which is also the case in gluttony, but also because he acts against the good of his own body by an undue resolution and defilement thereof, and an undue association with another. Nor does it follow from this that fornication is the most grievous sin, because in man reason is of greater value than the body, wherefore if there be a sin more opposed to reason, it will be more grievous. ”

“ If when they suggest fornication they find him calmly submitting to the attack of lust, or see him perturbed in body, or at any rate not groaning as he ought under the wantonness of an impure suggestion, they know that the dart of lust is already fixed in his very soul. ”

“ A man should rather break his vow of celibate, than once commit fornication, if there were a necessity that he must do the one. Because fornication is a sin which no vow will warrant any man to commit.
11. A man should rather break his vow of celibate, than live in such constant or ordinary lust, as unfitteth him for prayer, and a holy life, and keepeth him in ordinary danger of fornication, if there were a necessity that he must do the one. ”

“ But for this, no passion for conservatism, no reverence for a liturgy endeared by centuries of use, could induce us to tell every bride as she stands before God's altar that it is one of her functions to provide an outlet for her husband's passion and a safeguard against fornication. Lust is at least as degrading in married life as it is outside it. ”

“ In the lust of fornication all those look to adultery who do not believe adulteries to be sins, and who think similarly of marriage and of adulteries, only with the distinction of what is allowed and what is not ”

“ And the old man said, “Fornication is worse.” The brother said unto him, “How can this be?” And the old man said unto him, “Calumny is a wicked thing, but it receiveth healing quickly, and the calumniator repenteth, saying, ‘I have spoken evilly many times’; but fornication in the body is death in [its] nature.”
586. There was in Scete a certain monk who strove hard [against sin] , and the Enemy sowed in him the remembrance of a certain woman with a beautiful face, and he troubled him greatly through her. ”

“ Holy Scripture teaches us that fornication is a grave sin, for " fornicators shall not possess the kingdom of God." [52] " No fornicator hath inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God." [53] It is a grave sin not merely because it is forbidden by positive law, but because it is intrinsically wrong and contrary to the law of nature. Innocent XI condemned the following proposition: " It seems so clear that fornication in itself is not wrong, and is only evil because it is forbidden, that the contrary is altogether against reason." ”

“ And therefore, under the category of the adultery mentioned in this section, we must understand all fleshly and sensual lust. For when Scripture so constantly speaks of idolatry as fornication, and the Apostle Paul calls avarice by the name of idolatry, [10] who doubts but that every evil lust is rightly called fornication, since the soul, neglecting the higher law by which it is ruled, and prostituting itself for the base pleasure of the lower nature as its reward (so to speak) , is thereby corrupted? ”

“ A pox upon your nurse; she frighted me so, when I was young, with stories of the devil, I was almost fourteen ere I could prevail with reasons to unbind my reason, it was so slaved to faith and conscience. She made me believe wine was an evil spirit, and fornication, like the whore of Babylon, a fine face, but a dragon under her petticoats, and that made me have a mind to peep under all I met since.
Wid. Fie, fie! for shame, do not talk so: are you not ashamed to glory in sin, as if variety of women were none?
Jolly. Madam, we do not glory in fornication ”

“ That you should abstain from fornication (v. 3) , by which we are to understand all uncleanness whatsoever, either in a married or unmarried state. Adultery is of course included, though fornication is particularly mentioned. And other sorts of uncleanness are also forbidden, of which it is a shame even to speak, though they are done by too many in secret. All that is contrary to chastity in heart, speech, and behaviour, is contrary to the command of God in the decalogue, and contrary to that holiness which the gospel requires. ”