Saturday, August 1, 2015

Eusebius of Caesarea: "Unlawful marriage"

WHEN EVILS of such magnitude had fallen on the whole world from the wicked and vile spirits and their king, and none of the guardian angels was able to defend them from the evils, that He, God the Word, the Saviour of the Universe, by the good will of His Father's love to man, that the human race so dear to Him might not be seethed in the gulf of sin, sent forth at last some few and watery rays of His own light to shine through the prophet Moses and the godly men before and after him, providing a cure for the evil in man by the holy Law. It is exactly this that the Word says to the race of the Hebrews when giving the law by Moses:

"Ye shall not do according to the devices of Egypt, in which ye dwelt, and according to the devices of the land of Canaan, into which I bring you shall ye not do, and ye shall not walk in their ordinances, ye shall observe my judgments, and ye shall keep my ordinances. I am the Lord your God." [Lev. xviii. 2.]

Then, having forbidden all unlawful marriage, and all unseemly practice, and the union of women with women and men with men, he adds:

"Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for in all these things the nations were defiled, which I will drive out before you. And the land was polluted, and I have recompensed (their) iniquity upon it, and the land is aggrieved with them that dwell upon it."

~Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 260 – c. 340 A.D.): Demonstratio Evangelica, Bk. IV, Chap. 10