Responsio 12b: sodomy and lesbian nuns

[p 178] Nevertheless, St Augustine in the second book to Count Valerius about marriage and desire writes: ‘But what the Apostle says about the shameless, ‘with natural use of woman abandoned, they burned in their desires in turn, males working shame in males, he did not say ‘conjugal use’, but wanting it to be understood as ‘natural use’ which happens with body parts created for this, so that through them each sex would be able to couple for procreation. And by this, also when someone with the same body parts is coupled with a prostitute, the use if natural, although not laudable, but culpable. In truth if someone also uses his wife, from this part of the body, which is not instituted for generation, it is against nature and shameful. For the same Apostle said earlier about women: For their women changed natural use into use against nature, then about males working shame in males, with natural use of women abandoned. Marital intercourse is not praised about that name, that is natural, but yet the crimes are noted as more unclean and worse than if they were used women illicitly, but yet naturally.’ And again in the book about the good of marriage: ‘When indeed the husband should want to use his wife’s body part conceded not for that use, the wife is more shameful if it should be allowed to happen in her rather than in others.’

And in the second book about adulterous marriages: ‘But if he may not be continent he may licitly marry, lest he procreate shamefully, or more shamefully not procreate when lying together. Although the last things that I said, also some licitly married do. For one can lie together illicitly and shamefully even with a legitimate wife, as Onan the son of Judah did and the Lord killed him because of this.’

Thus also sometimes and only from this view [?] adultery is perpetrated, when one lies together shamefully or unmarried. As St Gregory says in the Book 21 of the Morals: ‘which for the most part, is discerned from the position or order of those desiring, since thus eager desire stains this one in holy order, just like the fault of adultery in that one [?].’ And again, in the epistle to Sabinus, the regional subdeacon: ‘Since for the most part, what is a fault in the layman, this may be a crime in those constituted in holy orders, let him who uses zeal of righteousness not be ignorant, how much more the shameful crime should be punished in them with particular strictness.’ And again in the aforesaid book: ‘Yet in not dissimilar persons, the same guilt of luxury is distinguished, in whom the fault of fornication is, since it is distinguished from the guilt of adultery, as the tongue of the distinguished preacher [Paul] testifies, saying: Neither fornicators nor those serving idols, not adulterers will possess the kind of God. Which he put under the guilt of a separated sentence, since he shows it differs greatly in itself.’ And Augustine in the book about the good of marriage: ‘Fornication is evil, adultery is worse, - for it is worse to violate someone else’s marriage than to adhere to a prostitute, and incest is worse, because it is worse to lie together with one’s mother than with another’s wife. And always from bad to worst, until one arrives at that, which, just as the Apostle says, is shameful to say.’

And St Ambrose in the book about Abraham: ‘Holy Lot offered the honour of his daughters. For even if that impurity was shameful, yet it was less to couple according to nature than to sin against nature.’ And again in the letter to the Corinthians: ‘Yet if a man should apostasise or should seek to pervert the use of his wife, neither can the woman marry another nor be returned to him.’

These things are collected for the enlarging [?] of the crime, so that hence is collected, how evil incest of brother with sister is and also with male sodomitical lying together, if perhaps the case is this, which both, perpetrated on their own are punished in the Heptateuch by death, at the Lord’s order.

And may the very evil assertion of those be destroyed, who add [?] that it is not the sodomitical sin, unless one fornicates within the body, that is in the member of the obscene part of the body [?], that is inside the belly, abusing badly and improperly the Apostolic witness: Every sin whatever that a person should do is outside his body, but he who fornicates sins in his body.’ But pollution of this kind, they say, is such, even if [?] someone should rub dirt from his finger with his hand or between his thighs and should wash his hand clean from the same dirt. Similarly, also this woman, is inwardly washed from this pollution after a bath. Those who say this should be held not as Catholics but Cynics, that is heretics because of the uncleanliness of dogs, just as St Jerome demonstrates in the letter to the Ephesians, explaining the statement of the Apostle, in which he says: ‘Let not fornication or any uncleanliness or avarice be named in you, just as befits saints.’ ‘For unless,’ Jerome says ‘there had been a certain philosopher Kynicus, who taught that every titillation of the flesh and flow of semen coming rubbed away from whatever touch was not to be avoided in time, and some wise of the world had consented to this shameful heresy, to be blushed at, the holy apostle writing to the Ephesians would never have joined every uncleanliness to fornication. Just as befits saints, he says, from which whoever is found in some uncleanliness and greed of desire apart from fornication, in which he delights, cannot be called saint. For know this, says the Apostle, that every fornicator or unclean or avaricious, which is the service of idols does not have an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.’ And again in book 2: ‘Who despairing, all gave themselves into working of shamelessness, uncleanliness in avarice. Despairing, he says, they gave themselves to the vanity of irrational beasts submerging into filth and the whirlpool, working shameless deeds and luxuries, whatever the body should want, the mind should desire, lust should suggest. [p 180] And since in general they omitted nothing that might be unclean, they did all this in avarice. Since they are never satiated by luxuriating, nor does their desire have an end, or certainly they ascended to greater things beyond the conceded marriage of a man to a woman, male working shame in male.’ For it is a disgrace, as the same doctor explains in the third book of the same epistle ‘with thought left behind, when the sense is inflamed to lust and the soul lit up is kindled by titilation of the flesh and in no way reined in by fear of God and judgement of the mind.’ Whence it agrees that, just as the same Apostle says to the Romans, it is uncleanliness when males work shamefulness in males, or women in women, or males in women, or whoever by themselves in whatever way works shamefulness, which separates the one doing it from the kingdom of God and plunges into the infernal regions, just as the same Apostle says: ‘Every fornicator or unclean one does not have an inheritance in the kingdom of God.’

Whence also Isidore in the second book of Sentences says: ‘Every unclean pollution is called fornication, although each one is prostituted by the desire of diverse ugliness. For varied crimes are born from the delight of fornicating, by which the kingdom of God is closed and man separated from God.’ And St Prosper in the book about virtues and vices: ‘And so that flux of the body which may happen without fault in those sleeping, meanwhile may happen to those awake from fault. In the former, the fullness of humours is expelled naturally, in the latter, it is shamefully brought forth by concupiscence. But this concupiscence calls forth this flux in those awake, in those in whom it has moved a sordid appetite via filthy speech.’ Women also have this sordid appetite, as Ambrose says explaining the Apostle ‘working shamefulness in women’, who put flesh to flesh, (not by putting the genital organ of one into the body of the other, since nature prevents this), but changing the natural use of this part of the body into a use which is against nature. Since they are said to use certain instruments of diabolical work nevertheless for boiling up desire. And thus fornicating, they sin in their own bodies. Similarly also males working shame in males (that is evaporating ardour of lust and fulfilling the desire of the flesh, which pleases them) who are called by the Apostle those lying with men and effeminate, who voluptuously succumb to this shamefulness. But also he who takes the organs of Christ, makes them organs of a whore, adhering to the whore, with whom he is made one flesh. And he fornicates who sins shamefully with a woman consecrated to God, or a relative, or her whom a relative has, or with the wife of another or with a beast, or with a woman against nature, or who pollutes himself manually or by whatever other means, fulfilling the ardour of lust. And the more anyone should sin more wickedly in his body against nature, the more damnably he will be tormented and therefore the more painful in punishments, if he should not do worthy penance. Since, as St Augustine and other doctors explain, in the fulfilment of fornication the fleshly mind may be thus be absorbed deeply with the body, so that it is actually then able to think of nothing else. [p 181] And this sin not so much touches, but more possesses body and soul by polluting, from which, when the act passes away, the guilt still remains. So that also they are accustomed among the sighs of penitence itself, to be miserably excited by the stimulus of the first delight. And the perpetrators of all such crimes, just as the Apostle testifies, will be excluded from the kingdom of God, unless they should take care before they exit the body to wash away the stains of such great crimes through mournful confession and profuse tears and largesse of arms and the worthy fruits of penance with much affliction of flesh and contrition of spirit.