THE VICE OF THE ADULTEROUS We ought industriously to avoid everything that might be an occasion of the sin of adultery or a step towards it, for it is destructive of all the seeds of virtue of the soul and those who are entangled in it have but a step between them and hell. Farther exhortations to acquire wisdom, 1, 2. The character of a loose woman, and the ruinous consequences of attachment to such, 3-14. Exhortations to chaveity and moderation, 15-21. The miserable end of the wicked, 22, 23. The evils of licentiousness. (1-14).1 Remedies against licentiousness, The miserable end of the wicked. (15-23).2 1. The evils of licentiousness. (1-14) 5:1 My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow your ear to my understanding: Drop as a honey-comb — She uses the most deceitful, flattering, and alluring speeches: as the droppings of the honey out of the comb are the sweetest of all. 5:1 For it is written, My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my prudence, that You mayest guard thy thoughts (Proverbs 5:1). For, indeed, nothing is more fugitive than the heart, which deserts us as often as it slips away through bad thoughts. For hence the Psalmist says, My heart hath failed me (Psalm 39:13). Fr. Gregory (the Great), Pastoral Rule, 14. 5:2 That you may regard discretion, and that your lips may keep knowledge. 5:2 He admonishes us to use indeed, but not to linger and spend time with, secular culture. For what was bestowed on each generation advantageously, and at seasonable times, is a preliminary training for the word of the Lord. “For already some men, ensnared by the charms of handmaidens, have despised their consort philosophy, and have grown old, some of them in music, some in geometry, others in grammar, the most in rhetoric.” St. Clement of Alexandria: Stromata 1:5. 5:3 For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: 5;3,4 Therefore one gives this admonition; “Observe not the beauty of a strange woman, and meet not a woman addicted to fornication. For honey distills from the lips of an harlot, which at the time may seem smooth to thy throat, but afterward You wilt find it more bitter than gall, and sharper than a two-edged sword.” For the harlot knows not how to love, but only to ensnare; her kiss hath poison, and her mouth a pernicious drug. And if this does not immediately appear, it is the more necessary to avoid her on that account, because she veils that destruction, and keeps that death concealed, and suffers it not to become manifest at the first. St. John Chrysostom: Concerning the Statues, 14:10. But the gestures s of a harlot seem to you agreeable. I know it. For the Scripture says, “The lips of a strange woman drop honey.” (Proverbs 5:3.) For on this account I take all this trouble, that ye may have no experience of that honey, for it straightway https://coptic-treasures.com/ Proverbs 5 2 turns into gall. And this also the Scripture says, “Who for a season is smooth to thy throat, but afterwards You shalt find her more bitter than gall, and sharper than a twoedged sword.” (Proverbs 5:3, 4, Sept.) St. John Chrysostom: Homilies on 1 Thessalonians, hom. 5. 5:4 But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. She first, like a serpent, infuses her poison, by which the whole constitution of her paramour is infected, which soon or late brings on death. First, the death of the body; and then the damnation of the soul. These are the tendencies of connections with such women. 5:5 Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell. 5:6 Lest you shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that you canst not know them. 5:7 Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth. 1:7 Well then, he has begun to fear the day of judgment: by fearing let him correct himself, let him watch against his enemies, i.e. his sins; let him begin to come to life again inwardly, and to mortify his members which are upon the earth, as the apostle says. St. Augustine: On the Epistle of St. John, hom. 9:2. 5:8 Remove your way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house: For this is the advice the writer of the Proverbs gives us, when he speaks about the harlot: “Spring away,” he says, “tarry not, neither go You near to the door of her house” (Proverbs 5:8): this same thing I would say to you about the love of money. For if by entering gradually you fall into this ocean of madness, you will not be able to get up out of it with ease, and as if you were in whirlpools, struggle as often as ever you may, it will not be easy for you to get clear; so after falling into this far worse abyss of covetousness, you will destroy your own self, with all that belongs to you. (Acts 8:20.) And so my advice is that we be on our watch against the beginning, and avoid little evils, for the great ones are gendered by these. St. John Chrysostom: Homilies on Romans, 12. 5:9 Lest you give your honor unto others, and your years unto the cruel: 5:9 For who are aliens from us but malignant spirits, who are separated from the lot of the heavenly country? And what is our honor but that, Yough made in bodies of clay, we are yet created after the image and likeness of our Maker? Or who else is cruel but that apostate angel, who has both smitten himself with the pain of death through pride, and has not spared, Yough lost, to bring death upon the human ace? He therefore gives his honor unto aliens who, being made after the image and likeness of God, devotes the seasons of his life to the pleasures of malignant spirits. Fr. Gregory (the Great), Pastoral Rule, 12. 5:10 Lest strangers be filled with your wealth; and your labors be in the house of a stranger; 5:11 And you mourn at the last, when your flesh and your body are consumed, 5:12 And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof; 5:13 And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me! 5:14 I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly. https://coptic-treasures.com/ Proverbs 5 3 2. Remedies against licentiousness, The miserable end of the wicked. (15-23) 5:15 Drink waters out of your own cistern, and running waters out of your own well. 5:15 Good, then, is this water, even the grace of the Spirit. Who will give this Fount to my breast? Let it spring up in me, let that which gives eternal life flow upon me. Let that Fount overflow upon us, and not flow away. For Wisdom says: “Drink water out of thine own vessels, and from the founts of thine own wells, and let thy waters flow abroad in thy streets.” How shall I keep this water that it flow not forth, that it glide not away? How shall I preserve my vessel, lest any crack of sin penetrating it, should let the water of eternal life exude? Teach us, Lord Jesus, teach us as You didst teach Thine apostles, saying: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where rust and moth destroy, and where thieves break through and steal.” (Matt. 6:19). St. Ambrose: Of the Holy Spirit, 1:16:182 5:15 “Ye that thirst, go to the waters,” (Isa. 55:1) says Esaias, And “drink water from thine own vessels,” Solomon exhorts. Accordingly in “The Laws,” the philosopher who learned from the Hebrews, Plato, commands husbandmen not to irrigate or take water from others, until they have first dug down in their own ground to what is called the virgin soil, and found it dry. For it is right to supply want, but it is not well to support laziness. St. Clement of Alexandria: Stromata 1:1. 5:15-17 If You shalt look unchaveely, and shalt desire thy neighbor’s wife, Io! thy portion shall be with the adulterers, and thy hell with the fornicators. Let thine own fountain be for thyself, and drink waters from thy well. Let thy fountains be for thyself alone, and let not another drink with thee. Require purity of thy body as You requirest of thy yoke-fellow. You wouldst not have her commit lewdness, the wife of thy youth, with another man; commit not You lewdness with another woman, the wife of a different husband. St. Ephraim the Syrian: Three Homilies, On admonition and repentance, 8. 5:15-17 Let them hear what is written, Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord (Proverbs 16:5). For, surely, when in the Word of God he seeks his own glory, he invades the right of the giver; and he fears not at all to postpone to his own praise Him from whom he has received the very thing that is praised. Let them hear what is said to the preacher through Solomon, Drink water out of thine own cistern, and running waters of thine own well. Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and divide thy waters in the streets. Have them to thyself alone, and let not strangers be partakers with thee (Proverbs 5:15-17). For indeed the preacher drinks out of his own cistern, when, returning to his own heart, he first listens himself to what he has to say. He drinks the running waters of his own well, if he is watered by his own word. And in the same place it is well added, Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and divide thy watery in the streets. For indeed it is right that he should himself drink first, and then flow upon others in preaching. For to disperse fountains abroad is to pour outwardly on others the power of preaching. Moreover, to divide waters in the streets is to dispense divine utterances among a great https://coptic-treasures.com/ Proverbs 5 4 multitude of hearers according to the quality of each. And, because for the most part the desire of vain glory creeps in when the Word of God has free course unto the knowledge of many, after it has been said, Divide thy waters in the streets, it is rightly added, Have them to thyself alone, and let not strangers be partakers with thee. He here calls malignant spirits strangers, concerning whom it is said through the prophet in the words of one that is tempted, Strangers are risen up against me, and strong ones have sought after my soul (Psalm 53:5). He says therefore, Both divide thy waters in the streets, and yet have them to thyself alone; as if he had said more plainly, It is necessary for thee so to serve outwardly in preaching as not to join thyself through elation to unclean spirits, lest in the ministry of the divine word You admit thine enemies to be partakers with thee. Thus we divide our waters in the streets, and yet alone possess them, when we both pour out preaching outwardly far and wide, and yet in no wise court human praises through it. Fr. Gregory (the Great), Pastoral Rule, 24. 5:16 Let your fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. 5:16 Open, then, this porch of thy heart to the Word of God, Who says to thee: “Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it.” St. Ambrose: Of the Holy Spirit, 3:17:120. 5:16,17 For all who love not God, are strangers, are antichrists. And Yough they come to the churches, they cannot be numbered among the children of God; not to them belongeth that Fountain of life. To have baptism is possible even for a bad man; to have prophecy is possible even for a bad man. St. Augustine: On the Epistle of St. John, hom. 7:6. 5:17 Let them be only your own, and not strangers’ with you. Let them be only thine own — The off-spring of a legitimate connection; a bastard brood, however numerous, is no credit to any man. 5:17 Let thy fountain of water, it says, be only thine own, and let no stranger share it with thee; and, let the colt of thy favors and the stag of thy love company with thee; do You then take care not to be a strange river, nor to please others better than thine own wife. But if You be carried elsewhere, then You makest a law of lewdness for thy partner also. St. Gregory Nazianzen: Oration 37:8. 5:18 Let your fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of your youth. :19 Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy you at all times; and be you ravished always with her love. Let her breasts satisfy thee — As the infant is satisfied with the breasts of its mother; so shouldst You be with the wife of thy youth. 5:20 And why wilt you, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger? 5:21 For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he ponders all his goings. 5:22 His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins. 5:22 For You harmest no man, but each one is bound by the bands of his own sins. St. Augustine: On the Psalms, 18:26. 5:22 https://coptic-treasures.com/ Proverbs 5 5 “Let a trap come upon them which they know not of” (ver. 8). A magnificent retribution, nothing more just! They have hidden a trap that I might know not: let a trap come upon them which they know not of…“The wicked shall be holden with the cords of his own sins.” Thereby are they deceived, whereby they would deceive. Thence shall come mischief to them, whence they endeavored mischief. For it follows, “And let the net which they have hidden catch themselves, and let them fall into their own trap.” As if any one should prepare a cup of poison for another, and forgetting should drink it up himself: or as if one should dig a pit, that his enemy might fall thereinto in the darkness and himself forgetting what he had dug, should first walk that way, and fall into it... St. Augustine: On the Psalms, 25:8. 5:22 For the very pleasures which we enjoy become a torment to us, and the delights and enjoyments of this flesh, turn like executioners upon their originator. St. John Cassian: Conference 24:24. 5:23 He shall die wiYout instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray. 5:25 “As cold water is to a thirsty soul so is good news from a far country.” Honored brother, I really hunger for affection. The cause is not far to seek, for iniquity is multiplied and the love of many has grown cold. St. Basil the Great: Letter 91:1.
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