Exodus 20

Before the first verse

Every woman is either under a husband, and is subject to the laws of her husband, or is a harlot, and uses the liberty of sinning. He who goes in to a harlot knows that he has gone in to one prostituted and open to all, and therefore he cannot be indignant about the others. He who uses lawful marriage does not suffer his wife to sin, but is kindled with jealousy to keep the chastity of the marriage, that he may be able to become a lawful father. So every soul is either prostituted with demons, and has many lovers that they may come in to her, now the spirit of fornication, now avarice, and after this will come the spirit of pride and very many others; yet the one does not envy the other, nor is moved with jealous rivalry, but they invite one another in turn; whence, *he brings with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself,* etc. So the soul that is prostituted to demons suffers no jealous rivalry of her lovers; but if she has been joined to a lawful husband, that is, to Christ, even if at some time she has been a sinner, he does not suffer her to sin further, nor can he bear that she should dally with adulterers; his jealousy is stirred up over her, and he defends the chastity of the marriage; but if he sees her violating the rights of the marriage, and seeking an occasion of sinning, he gives her a bill of divorce; whence Isa. L: *For your iniquities has he put away your mother;* and he who speaks this is both jealous and, moved by jealousy, says this. There is also this new kind of his goodness, that he receives her even after adultery when she returns and repents with her whole heart. Whence: *If a woman go out from her husband, and sleep with another man, shall she return again to her own husband?* etc. And elsewhere: *And after thou hast committed fornication in all these things, I said: Return,* etc. Here, therefore, if God being jealous requires and desires thy soul to cleave to him, if he keeps it, rebukes and is indignant, using as it were a certain jealous rivalry toward thee, know that there is hope of salvation for thee. But if thou despise the rebuke, his jealousy departs from thee, according to that: *Therefore my jealousy departs from thee,* etc. See the mercy and the loving-kindness of God; when he wishes to have mercy, he says that he is indignant and is angry, as he says by Jeremiah: *Thou shalt be chastised with sorrow and with the scourge, O Jerusalem, that my soul depart not from thee*. *For he scourges every son whom he receives*. But this is a terrible thing, this is the utmost, if we are not rebuked for our sins: for when we exceed the measure of sinning, even the jealousy of God will be taken from us, and he is angry no more. *Visiting the iniquity,* etc. Rendering the sins of the fathers upon the sons, etc. The heretics say that it is not the word of a good God, who says that one is punished for the sins of another; yet they say that the God of the law is just, and they cannot show how he is unjust, if he punishes one when another sins. But our inward man is said either to have God for father, if he lives according to God; or the devil, if he does his will; whence John VIII: *You are of your father the devil, and you will do the desires of your father.* As, therefore, the seed of God is in us, when, keeping the word of God, we do not sin, according to that of I John III, *He who is of God sins not, because the seed of God abides in him;* so when we are persuaded by the devil to sin, we receive his seed; when we do what he persuades, he has now begotten us, for we are born his sons through sin. But because we scarcely ever sin without a helper, as no one commits adultery alone, it is necessary that a partner in the adultery be made, and if not more, it is necessary that some man or woman be joined to the service of the crime: all of whom, as it were one from another, begotten according to the order of the persuasion, draw their offspring from the devil; as in the betraying of the Lord the devil entered into the heart of Judas, and begot the first son of sin, who could not do this alone; he went therefore to the Scribes and the Pharisees and the chief priests; there is born, therefore, from Judas a third and a fourth generation of sin. Let us see, therefore, how God renders the sins of the fathers upon the sons unto the third and the fourth generation, and not upon the man himself. For of the fathers nothing is said. The devil, therefore, because he has already exceeded the measure of sinning, like a garment clotted in blood, will not be clean in this world; he is not scourged for sin; for all things are kept for him unto the future. whence Matth. VIII): *Why art thou come to torment us before the time?* But the sins are rendered upon the sons whom he has begotten through sin, who, being set in the flesh, are scourged. *God wills not the death of the sinner, but rather that he be converted and live*. Mercifully, therefore, he renders the sins of the fathers upon the sons, because the devil and his angels, who are also made the fathers of sin, are unworthy to be rebuked in the present: their sons, and those who through them have been taken into the fellowship of sin, receive in the present what they have done, that, being purged, they may not be made partners with the devil in punishment. Whence in psalm LXXXVIII: *I will visit their iniquities with a rod,* etc., *but my mercy I will not take away from them.* For God is jealous, and the soul which he betroths to himself in faith he wills not to remain in the defilement of sin, but to be quickly purged. But if she will not be purged, he will laugh at their destruction, saying to them, Matth. XXV: *Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire,* etc. Let us know, therefore, that we are rebuked in the present, that in the future we may rest. Whence: *When we are chastised, we are rebuked by the Lord, that we be not condemned with this world.* In this saying the heretics are wont to reproach us, that it is not the word of a good God, who judges one for the sins of another. But those who shall say that the God of the law who commands these things is not good, yet call him just: nor indeed can they themselves show how it should seem agreeable to justice if, when one sins, another is punished. The first commandment forbids stealthy deceit; the second, error; the third slays the love of the world; the fourth, impiety; the fifth, cruelty; the sixth, fornication; the seventh, rapacity; the eighth destroys falsehood; the ninth, the coveting of the world; the tenth, the thought of adultery. And it is to be noted that as the Egyptians are struck with ten plagues, so the tables are written with ten precepts, by which the people of God may be ruled and the demons slain. For the law was written on two tables that the two Testaments might be signified: or because there are two precepts of love, of God and of one's neighbour, *on which the whole law hangs, and the prophets*. For on the one are three precepts, which pertain to the love of God; on the other seven, which pertain to the fellowship of one's neighbour. But the tables were of stone, because the heart of the Jews was stony and unfeeling, hard and dull; whence Ezech. XXXVI: *I will take away the stony heart, and will give them a heart of flesh.* And the Apostle says: *Not in tables of stone, but in the fleshly tables of the heart,* which, that is, may perceive and understand.