Now concerning the things of which you wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman.
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Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me. In answer to the questions you have put to me about the rights, use, and end of matrimony and the single life, I answer that it is good for a man not to touch a woman. Notice here from S. Anselm and Ambrose that certain false Apostles, in order to seem more holy, taught that marriage was to be despised, because of the words of Christ (S. Matthew 10:12), "There are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven"s sake," which they interpreted as applying to all Christians, especially since the act of fornication, which had been so severely condemned by the Apostle in the preceding chapter, is physically the same as conjugal copulation. The Corinthians, therefore, asked S. Paul by letter whether Christians ought to be so chaste, and ought to be so much free for prayer, godliness, and purity as to be bound, even though married, to abstain altogether from intercourse with their wives.
It is good for a man not to touch a woman. It is beautiful, exemplary, and excellent. The Greek here is καλὸν. So Theophylact. Good is not here the same as useful or expedient, as Erasmus turns it, but denotes that moral and spiritual good which of itself conduces to victory over passion, to piety, and salvation (cf. vers32 , 34 , 35). To touch a woman or to know is with the Hebrews a modest form of speech, denoting the act of conjugal copulation.
S. Jerome (lib.i. contra Jovin.) adds that the Apostle says touch, "because the very touching of a woman is dangerous, and to be avoided by every man." These are his words: "The Apostle does not say it is good not to have a wife, but "it is good not to touch a woman," as though there were danger in the touch, not to be escaped from by any one who should so touch her: being one who steals away the precious souls of men, and makes the hearts of youths to fly out of their control. Shall any one nurse a fire in his bosom and not be burnt? or walk upon hot coals and not suffer harm? In the same way, therefore, that he who touches fire is burnt, so when man and woman touch they feel its effect and perceive the difference between the sexes. The fables of the heathen relate that Mithras and Ericthonius, either on stone or in the earth, were generated by the mere heat of lust. Hence too Joseph fled from the Egyptian woman, because she wished to touch him; and as though he and been bitten by a mad dog and feared lest the poison should eat its way, he cast off the cloak that she had touched," Let men and youths take note of these words.
Cardinal Vitriaco, a wise and learned Prayer of Manasseh , relates of S. Mary d"Oignies that she had so weakened and dried up her body by fastings that for several years she felt not even the first motions of lust, and that when a certain holy man clasped her hand in pure spiritual affection, and thus caused the motions of the flesh to arise, she, being ignorant of this, heard a voice from heaven which said, "Do not touch me," She did not understand it, but told it to another who did, and thenceforward she abstained from all such contact.
S. Gregory (Dial. lib. iv. c11) relates how S. Ursinus, a presbyter, had lived in chastity separated from his wife, and when he was on his death-bed, drawing has last breath, his wife came near and put her ear to his mouth, to hear if he still breathed. Hebrews , still having a few minutes to live, on perceiving this, said with as much strength as he could summon, "Depart from me, woman—a spark still lingers in the embers; do not fan it into a flame." Well sung the poet:—
"Regulus by a glance, the Siren of Achelous with a Song of Solomon ,
The Thessalian sage with gentle rubbing slays:
So with eyes, with hands, with song does woman burn,
And wield the three-forked light of angry Jove,"
S. Jerome rightly infers from this (lib. i. contra Jovin.) that it is an evil for a man to touch a woman. He does not say it is sinful, as Jovinian and others falsely alleged against him, but evil. For this touching is an act of concupiscence, and of the depraved pleasure of the flesh; but it is nevertheless excused by the good of wedlock, but is wholly removed by the good of the single life.
It may be urged from Genesis , ii18 , where it is said that it is not good for a man to be alone, that it is therefore good to touch a woman. I answer that in Genesis , God is speaking of the good of the species, Paul of the individual; God in the time when the world was uninhabited, Paul when it is full; God of temporal good, Paul of the good of the eternal life of the Spirit. In this it is good for a man not to touch a woman.
