Marriage and the Fall of the Woman

The Lord. It is truly so; for just as the sun is not defiled by filth when casting its own rays, but on the contrary clothes itself in the present joy without being insulted itself, so also Christ, as the sun of righteousness (Malachi 4:2), seizes every impure and profane place, and consumes the malodorous sin with his rays of goodness, undergoing no insult, no diminution, no stain, according to the nature of the divinity. Therefore, he easily sympathized with the Pharisee who was calling, being calm, silent, and leaving his life unexamined.

First, in order to sanctify those called, the one who called the woman arranged the arrangement of the house and the abundance of food; then showing that the incarnation was not a phantom, from the reclining, the eating, the drinking, and the expenditure on provisions. Furthermore, because the harlot was about to approach and show that fervent and fiery way of repentance, for this reason, in calling the Pharisee, he sympathizes quickly, so that, having theatrically exposed the domestic evils before the eyes of scribes and Pharisees, he might teach them how sinners, loathing at sins, must be honored by God. Behold, he says, a woman in the city, who was a sinner (Luke 7:37). Woman: the easily deceived nature, the first net of the devil, the introduction to error, the teacher of transgression, having become a helper indeed but having been revealed as a war, having been born good according to nature but having been shown evil by choice, the bringer of death, she who showed the beauty of the tree and lost the whole paradise. And behold, a woman, he says, in the city, who was a sinner, bearing the burdens of Eve, being covered by many evils. And I shall speak of the abundance of her former evils, so that you may know the abundance of her repentance.

God, having taken a bone from the side of Adam and having clothed this in flesh, made Eve, whom having called woman, he gave as a helper to Adam (Genesis 2:22). But after sinning and transgressing the law and being cast out of paradise and receiving death as the penalty, so that the race might not be lost by spending itself away by death immediately, marriage wages death, so that one may sow and another reap, one may cut and another may sprout (2 Corinthians 9:6). And that after being subjected to death, the grace of marriage was given, is evident from the fact that Adam, after the departure from paradise, was joined to Eve.

For it is written that after the exit from paradise, then Adam knew his woman (Gen 4:1). Before the sin, therefore, virginity was keeping the garment of nature unstained, but after the transgression, after the decision of death, marriage was given in response, so that by drawing from death he might overcome, and by ripening while being defeated, he might conquer.

Since the law of marriage was given for the succession of the race and the increase of nature, it introduced pleasure to the man, but made the female a creature of desire; not so that they might incite one another toward sexual mixing in a companionable way, but so that they might join together for marriage according to law. Therefore, the lawful mixing of marriage is precious before God, but that which is performed for the sake of pleasures is subjected to death. For marriage and the bed are precious and without blame; but God will judge prostitutes and adulterers.

Therefore, those who mix with men lawfully for the sake of upbringing are blameless, just like Sarah and Rebekah and Rachel, and if there is any other from them; but those who, by the word of pleasure, stir up the young toward lawlessness, as if they were destroying the temple of God (1 Cor 6:19), are delivered to corruption. For if anyone, he says, destroys the temple of God (1 Cor 6:19), God destroys this one.

And this one also was once one, the sinful one after the hand marriage. For, capturing nature and coloring the cheeks with external paints and striving to appear beautiful by art, she dragged the young toward lawlessness, unexpectedly turning them into the abyss of prostitution. And I say these things not to make a comedy of her before which she acted, but to praise her because of what she has become suddenly; for I say what she was, in order to show what she has become now; I say the stumbles of her sin, in order to show the achievements of repentance.

But this one, having used the body not without fault before, some by the lure of charms, some by the medicine of tears, some by the enchantment of ointments, calling all from everywhere toward the feast of lawlessness, transforms the shameful and pleasurable desire of it into a divine and heavenly filter. For as he saw Jesus, at times conversing with the Samaritan woman without a husband, at times approaching the Canaanite, at times announcing the theft when the blood was flowing, and in one way eating with tax collectors, and in another way the Pharisees seizing the houses, he reasoned: If prostitutes and sinners and...