Chrysostom: Homily 4 on Romans

Excerpt from Homily 4 on Romans

By St. John Chrysostom

Romans I. 26, 27

"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one towards another."

"ALL THESE AFFECTIONS then were vile, but chiefly the mad lust after males; for the soul is more the sufferer in sins, and more dishonored, than the body in diseases. But behold how here too, as in the case of the doctrines, he deprives them of excuse, by saying of the women, that "they changed the natural use." For no one, he means, can say that it was by being hindered of legitimate intercourse that they came to this pass, or that it was from having no means to fulfil their desire that they were driven into this monstrous insanity. For the changing implies possession. Which also when discoursing upon the doctrines he said, "They changed the truth of God for a lie." And with regard to the men again, he shows the same thing by saying, "Leaving the natural use of the woman." And in a like way with those, these he also puts out of all means of defending themselves by charging them not only that they had the means of gratification, and left that which they had, and went after another, but that having dishonored that which was natural, they ran after that which was contrary to nature. But that which is contrary to nature has in it an irksomeness and displeasingness, so that they could not fairly allege even pleasure. For genuine pleasure is that which is according to nature. But when God has left one, then all things are turned upside down. And thus not only was their doctrine Satanical, but their life too was diabolical. Now when he was discoursing of their doctrines, he put before them the world and man's understanding, telling them that, by the judgment afforded them by God, they might through the things which are seen, have been led as by the hand to the Creator, and then, by not willing to do so, they remained inexcusable. Here in the place of the world he sets the pleasure according to nature, which they would have enjoyed with more sense of security and greater glad-heartedness, and so have been far removed from shameful deeds. But they would not; whence they are quite out of the pale of pardon, and have done an insult to nature itself. And a yet more disgraceful thing than these is it, when even the women seek after these intercourses, who ought to have more sense of shame than men. And here too the judgment of Paul is worthy of admiration, how having fallen upon two opposite matters he accomplishes them both with all exactness. For he wished both to speak chastely and to sting the hearer. Now both these things were not in his power to do, but one hindered the other. For if you speak chastely you shall not be able to bear hard upon the hearer. But if you are minded to touch him to the quick, you are forced to lay the naked facts before him in plain terms. But his discreet and holy soul was able to do both with exactness, and by naming nature has at once given additional force to his accusation, and also used this as a sort of veil, to keep the chasteness of his description. And next, having reproached the women first, he goes on to the men also, and says, "And likewise also the men leaving the natural use of the woman." Which is an evident proof of the last degree of corruptness, when both sexes are abandoned, and both he that was ordained to be the instructor of the woman, and she who was bid to become an helpmate to the man, work the deeds of enemies against one another. And reflect too how significantly he uses his words. For he does not say that they were enamoured of, and lusted after one another, but, "they burned in their lust one toward another." You see that the whole of desire comes of an exorbitancy which endures not to abide within its proper limits. For everything which transgresses the laws by God appointed, lusts after monstrous things and not those which be customary. For as many oftentimes having left the desire of food get to feed upon earth and small stones, and others being possessed by excessive thirst often long even for mire, thus these also ran into this ebullition of lawless love. But if you say, and whence came this intensity of lust? It was from the desertion of God: and whence is the desertion of God? From the lawlessness of them that left Him; men with men working that which is unseemly. Do not, he means, because you have heard that they burned, suppose that the evil was only in desire. For the greater part of it came of their luxuriousness, which also kindled into flame their lust. And this is why he did not say being swept along or being overtaken, an expression he uses elsewhere; but what? Working. They made a business of the sin, and not only a business, but even one zealously followed up. And he called it not lust, but that which is unseemly, and that properly. For they both dishonored nature, and trampled on the laws. And see the great confusion which fell out on both sides. For not only was the head turned downwards but the feet too were upwards, and they became enemies to themselves and to one another, bringing in a pernicious kind of strife, and one even more lawless than any civil war, and one rife in divisions, and of varied form. ..."

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St. John Chrysostom

Clerical Celibacy

Ante-Nicene and Post-Nicene Church on Clerical Celibacy

+ "Let bishops, priests, an deacons, and in general all the clergy who are specially employed in the service of the altar, abstain from conjugal intercourse with their wives and the begetting of children; let those who persist be degraded from the ranks of the clergy."
─Council of Elvira, Canon 33. (ca. 305)

+ "If a priest marry, he shall be removed from the ranks of the clergy; if he commit fornication or adultery, he shall be excommunicated, and shall submit to penance."
─Council of Neocaesarea, Canon 1. (ca. 314─325)

+ "Now the Lord Jesus, when He illumined us by His appearing, declared in the Gospel that He was come to fulfil the law, not to abolish it. And so He desired that the Church, whose Bridegroom He is, should have her visage shining with the splendor of chastity, that in the day of judgment, when He comes again, He may find her without spot or blemish, as He ordained by His apostle. Hence all we priests and Levites (deacons) are bound by the unbreakable law of those instructions to subdue our hearts and bodies to soberness and modesty from the day of our ordination, that we may be wholly pleasing to our God in the sacrifices which we daily offer."
─Pope Siricius: "Decretal Letter to Himerius, Bishop of Terragona," 10. (Feb. 10, 385)

+ "We advise ('suademus') that priests and Levites (deacons) should not live with their wives."
─Council of Rome, Canon 9. (According to decretal letter of Pope Siricius to bishops of Africa) (386)

+ "Bishops, priests, and deacons must remain unmarried."
─Council of Rome, Canon 3. (402)

+ "Although they who are not within the ranks of the clergy are free to take pleasure in the companionship of wedlock and the procreation of children, yet, for the sake of exhibiting the purity of complete continence, even subdeacons are not allowed carnal marriage; that "both they that have wives be as though they had none" (1 Cor. 7:29), and they that have not may remain single. But if in this order, which is fourth from the head, this is worthy to be observed, how much more is it to be kept in the first, second, and third, lest anyone be reckoned fit for either the deacon's duties or the presbyter's honorable position, or the bishop's pre-eminence, who is discovered as yet having bridled his uxorious desires."
─Pope St. Leo I: "Letters," 14. (Norm for Western Church.) (5th cent.)

+ "Since it is declared in the apostolic canons that of those who are advanced to the clergy unmarried, only lectors and cantors are able to marry, we also, maintaining this, determine that henceforth it is in nowise lawful for any subdeacon, deacon, or presbyter after his ordination to contract matrimony; but if he shall dared to do so, let him be deposed. And if any of those who enter the clergy wishes to be joined to a wife in lawful marriage before he is ordained subdeacon, deacon, or presbyter, let it be done."
─Quinisext Council of Constantinople, Canon 6. (Norm for Eastern Church.) (692)

CHASTITY

+ "If anyone is able to preserve in chastity to the honor of the flesh of the Lord, let him do so in all humility."

─St. Ignatius of Antioch: "Letter to St. Polycarp," 5. (2nd cent.)

+ "We Christians regard a stain upon our chastity as more dreadful than any punishment, or even than death itself."

─Tertullian: "Apologeticus" (2nd. cent.)

"We are taught that chastity has three forms─one that of married life, a second that of widowhood, and a third that of virginity. We do not so extol one form as to exclude the others. In this, indeed the Church is rich, in that it has those whom it can rank before others, but none whom it rejects."

─St. Ambrose: "Concerning Widows," 23. (4th cent.)

+ "Let each one study his own powers, whether he can fulfil the precepts of virginal modesty. For of itself chastity is charming and attractive to all. But one's forces must be considered, that he who can may take it. The Lord's word is as it were an exhortation, stirring on His soldiers to the prize of purity. 'He that can take it, let him take it': let him who can, fight, conquer and receive his reward."

─St. Jerome: "Commentary on St. Matthew," 19:12. (5th cent.)

+ "The chastity of widows of widows and virgins is above the chastity of marriage."

─St. Augustine: "On the Good of Marriage." (5th cent.)

+ "Do not say that you have chaste minds if you have unchaste eyes, because an unchaste eye is the messenger of an unchaste heart."

─St. Augustine: "Letters 211." (His Rule.) (5th cent.)

+ "To love chastity."

─St. Benedict: "Rule," 4. (One of his "tools of good works") (6th cent.)

+ "Now, though the era of persecution is gone, yet our peace has its martyrdom, because though we bend not the neck to the sword, yet with a spiritual weapon we slay fleshly desires in our hearts."

─Pope St. Gregory the Great: "Hom. in Evang.", 1, 3, 4. (6th cent.)

Artwork: Allegory of Chastity (detail), by GIOTTO di Bondone. Fresco, c. 1320.
Lower Church, San Francesco, Assisi.

Ephrem: Prayer to the Most Holy Mother of God

"But, O Virgin lady, immaculate Mother of God, my lady most glorious, most gracious, higher than heaven, much purer than the sun’s splendor, rays or light . . . budding staff of Aaron, you appeared as a true staff, and the flower is your Son our Christ, my God and my Maker. You bore God and the word according to the flesh, preserving your virginity before childbirth, a virgin after childbirth, and we have been reconciled with Christ God your Son.”

~St. Ephrem the Syrian (ca. 306–373 AD): from Prayer to the Most Holy Mother of God.

Augustine on Heretics

"FOR WHILE the hot restlessness of heretics stirs questions about many articles of the Catholic faith, the necessity of defending them forces us both to investigate them more accurately, to understand them more clearly, and to proclaim them more earnestly."

~St. Augustine: The City of God, Bk. 16, Chap. 2. (5th cent.)

Isidore of Seville on Heresy

"THEREFORE, heresy is so called from the Greek word meaning 'choice', by which each chooses according to his own will what he pleases to teach or believe. But we are not permitted to believe whatever we choose, nor to choose whatever someone else has believed. We have the apostles of God as authorities, who did not themselves of their own will choose what they would believe, but faithfully transmitted to the nations the teaching received from Christ. So, even if an angel from heaven should preach otherwise, he shall be called anathema."

~St. Isidore of Seville: Etymologies, 8, 3. (7th cent.)

Cyprian on Heresy

"WHOEVER has been separated from the Church is yoked with an adulteress, is separated from the promises made to the Church. Nor shall he who leaves Christ's arrive at Christ's rewards. He is a stranger, he is sacrilegious, he is an enemy. Who has not the Church for mother can no longer have God for father."

–On the Unity of the Catholic Church, 6.

"NEVERTHELESS, the Lord allows and suffers these things to be, while each man's will free, so that while our hearts and minds are tested in the crucible of truth, the sound faith of those that are approved may shine forth clear and undimmed."

–On the Unity of the Catholic Church, 10.

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Augustine: Happiness

“NO one is really happy merely because he has what he wants, but only if he wants things he ought to want.”

~St. Augustine: In Ps. 26, Enarr., 2, 7.

Jerome: "To be a Christian"

“TO be a Christian is the great thing, not merely to seem one. And somehow or other those please the world most who please Christ least.”

~St. Jerome: Letters, 58, 7.

On St. Augustine

“WE have ever had in communion with us Augustine of holy memory for the sake of his life and merits; never has the breath of evil suspicion tarnished his name. We have always kept him in memory as a man of such great learning that my predecessors ranked him with the foremost masters. Unanimously they held him in high esteem, for all loved him and paid him honor.”

~Pope St. Celestine I


“CATHOLICS venerate you as the restorer of the ancient faith, and while they look up to you, the heretics—an even more testimony—detest you.”

~St. Jerome: Letter to St. Augustine (No. 195 among letters of St. Augustine).

Gregory I: Scripture

“I beg you, and meditate daily on the words of your Creator. Learn the heart of God in the words of God, that you may sigh more eagerly for things eternal, that your soul may be kindled with greater longings for heavenly joy.”

~Pope St. I: Letters, 5, 46.

Assumption of Our Lady

Assumption of the Virgin, by Andrea Del Sarto.
Oil on wood, 1526-29;
Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florence.

“THE grave and death could not retain the Mother of God, who is unceasing in prayers, our stalwart hope by her protection; for as she is the Mother of Life, He Who dwelt in the ever Virgin hath taken her away unto life.” 

—Byzantine Menaea, Kontakion for the Feast. (ca. 6th cent.)

“MARY hath been taken to heaven; the angels rejoice; they praise and bless the Lord.” 

—Roman Breviary, Antiphon at Lauds for the Feast. (Liber Respons., 7th cent.)

“AS the most glorious Mother of Christ, our Savior and God and the Giver of life and immortality, has been endowed with life by Him, she has received an eternal incorruptibility of the body together with Him Who has raised her up from the tomb and has taken her up to Himself in a way known only to Him.”

—Homily on the Assumption, 14. (Attr. to St. Modestus of Jerusalem; 7th cent.)

“IT was fitting that she, who had kept her virginity intact in childbirth, should keep her own body free from all corruptibility even after death. It was fitting that she, who had carried the Creator as a Child at her breast, should dwell in the divine tabernacles. It was fitting that the spouse, whom the Father had taken to Himself, should live in the divine mansions. It was fitting that she, who has seen her Son upon the Cross and who had thereby received into her heart the sword of sorrow which she had escaped in the act of giving birth to Him, should look upon Him as He sits at the right hand of the Father. It was fitting that God’s Mother should possess what belongs to her Son, and that she should be honored by every creature as the Mother and as the Handmaid of God.”

—St John of Damascus: Homily 2 on the Assumption, 14. (8th cent.)

The Fathers on Prayer

“THOSE prayers quickly ascend to God which the merits of our works urge upon God.”
(St. Cyprian: On the Lord’s Prayer, 33.) 

“OUR Father, Who hast exhorted us to pray, Who also bringest about What Thou hast asked of us; since we live better when we pray to Thee and are better: hear me as I tremble in this darkness and reach out Thy hand to me. Hold Thy light before me and recall me from my strayings, that with Thee as my guide I may return to myself and to Thee.  Amen.”
(St. Augustine: Soliloquies, 2, 6, 9.)

“NOR should we imagine, as some do, that prolonged prayer is the same thing as ‘much-speaking’; many words are one thing; long-continued feelings of devotion quite another.”
(St. Augustine: Letters 130. (To Proba on prayer))

“HE who asks of God in faith things needful for this life is sometimes mercifully heard and sometimes mercifully not heard. For the Physician knows better than the patient what will avail for the sick man.”
(St. Prosper of Aquitaine: Sententiae ex Augustino delibatae, 212.)

“IN a single day I have prayed as many as a hundred times, and in the night almost as often.”
(St. Patrick: Confessio.)

“BUT before all things it is good to begin with prayer, as thereby giving ourselves up to and uniting ourselves with God.”
(Pseudo-Dionysius: On the Divine Names, 6, 1.)

“MEN by petitioning may merit to receive what almighty God arranged before the ages to give them.”
(Pope St. Gregory I: Morals, 35, 21.)

Ambrose: "Abide in the Lord"

“We must needs abide in the Lord and not depart from Him. For, if the Lord be our protector and helper, we are able firmly to endure every contest; but if we neglect and forsake the Lord, we make our adversary stronger.”

~St. Ambrose: In Ps. 43 Enarr. 94.

Cyril of Alexandria: Mary as Mediatrix

I salute you, O Mary, Theotókos: through you the prophets speak out and the shepherds sing God’s praises . . . , the angels dance and the archangels sing tremendous hymns . . . , the Magi prostrate themselves in adoration . . . , the dignity of the twelve apostles . . . , John exulted while still in his mother’s womb, and the lamp adored the everlasting light . . . , grace ineffable came forth . . . , the true light came into the world, our Lord Jesus Christ . . . , light shone on those sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death . . . .

Because of you the Gospels proclaim, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” (Lk 19:38); through you, the churches of those who possess the orthodox faith have been founded in the cities, in the villages, in the isles . . . , the Conqueror of death and Destroyer of hell has come forth. . . . He has come, the Maker of the first creation, and he has repaired the first man’s falsehood, he who governs the heavenly kingdom. . . .

Through you, the beauty of the Resurrection flowered, and its brilliance shone out . . . , the tremendous baptism of holiness in the Jordan has shone out . . . , John and the river Jordan are made holy, and the devil is cast out. . . .

Through you, every faithful soul achieves salvation.

~St. Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444): Homily 11

Augustine: "The authority of the Catholic Church”

“BUT SHOULD you meet with a person not yet believing the Gospel, how would you reply to him were he to say, I do not believe? For my part, I should not believe the Gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church.”

~St. Augustine: Against the Epistle of Manichaeus Called Fundamental, Chap. 5.

Vincent of Lérins: The Tradition of the Catholic Church

“I HAVE often then inquired earnestly and attentively of very many men eminent for sanctity and learning, how and by what sure and so to speak universal rule I may be able to distinguish the truth of Catholic faith from the falsehood of heretical pravity; and I have always, and in almost every instance, received an answer to this effect: That whether I or any one else should wish to detect the frauds and avoid the snares of heretics as they rise, and to continue sound and complete in the Catholic faith, we must, the Lord helping, fortify our own belief in two ways: first, by the authority of the Divine Law, and then, by the Tradition of the Catholic Church.

“But here someone perhaps will ask, Since the canon of Scripture is complete, and sufficient of itself for everything, and more than sufficient, what need is there to join it with the authority of the Church’s interpretation? For this reason—because, owing to the depth of Holy Scripture, all do not accept it in one and the same sense, but one understands its words in one way, another in another. . . . Therefore, it is very necessary, on account of so great intricacies of such various error, that the rule for right understanding of the prophets and apostles should be framed in accordance with the standard of Ecclesiastical and Catholic interpretation.

“Moreover, in the Catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For that is truly and in the strictest sense ‘Catholic’ which, as the name itself and the reason of the thing declare, comprehends all things universally. This rule we shall observe if we follow universality, antiquity, and consent. We shall follow universality if we confess that one faith to be true, which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity, if we in nowise depart from those interpretations which it is manifest were notoriously held by our ancestors and fathers; consent, in like manner, if in antiquity itself we adhere to the consentient definitions and determinations of all, or at least of almost all priests and doctors.”

~St. Vincent of Lérins: Commonitory, Chap. 2


“HE IS the true and genuine Catholic who loves the truth of God, who loves the Church, who loves the Body of Christ, who esteems divine religion and the Catholic Faith, above every thing, above the authority, above the regard, above the genius, above the eloquence, above the philosophy, of every man whatsoever; who sets light by all of these, and continuing steadfast and established in the faith, resolves that he will believe that, and that only, which he is sure the Catholic Church has held universally and from ancient time.”

~St. Vincent of Lérins: Commonitory, Chap. 20

St. John of Damascus: God the Father

"(We believe) in one Father, the beginning, and cause of all: begotten of no one: without cause or generation, alone subsisting: creator of all: but Father of one only by nature, His Only-begotten Son and our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ, and Producer of the most Holy Spirit. And in one Son of God, the Only-begotten, our Lord, Jesus Christ: begotten of the Father, before all the ages: Light of Light, true God of true God: begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father, through Whom all things are made: and when we say He was before all the ages we show that His birth is without time or beginning: for the Son of God was not brought into being out of nothing, He that is the effulgence of the glory, the impress of the Father's subsistence, the living wisdom and power (1 Cor 1:24), the Word possessing interior subsistence, the essential and perfect and living image (Heb 1:3) of the unseen God. But always He was with the Father and in Him, everlastingly and without beginning begotten of Him. For there never was a time when the Father was and the Son was not, but always the Father and always the Son, Who was begotten of Him, existed together. For He could not have received the name Father apart from the Son: for if He were without the Son, He could not be the Father: and if He thereafter had the Son, thereafter He became the Father, not having been the Father prior to this, and He was changed from that which was not the Father and became the Father. This is the worst form of blasphemy. For we may not speak of God as destitute of natural generative power: and generative power means, the power of producing from one's self, that is to say, from one's own proper essence, that which is like in nature to one's self."

~St. John of Damascus: Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book 1, Ch. 8

St. John of Damascus: The Fall of Man

“THE ENVY of the devil then was the reason of man’s fall. For that same demon, so full of envy and with such hatred of good, would suffer us to enjoy the pleasures of heaven, when he himself was kept below on account of his arrogance, hence the false one tempts miserable man with hope of the Godhead, and leading him up to as great a height of arrogance as himself, he hurls him down into a pit of destruction just as deep.”

~St. John of Damascus: Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, 2, 30.

God the Father

”THE Father is the principle of the whole Deity.”

~St. Augustine: De Trinitate, 4, 20.

“GOD is therefore truly the Father, inasmuch as He if Father of truth; He does not create the Son from outside Himself, but generates Him from His own substance. That is to say, being wise, He generates Wisdom, being just, Justice, be eternal, the Eternal, being immortal, the Immortal, being invisible, the Invisible. Because He is Light, He generates Brightness, and because He is Mind, the Word.”

~Rufinus: Commentary on the Apostles’ Creed, 4. (5th cent.)