Know you not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of a harlot? God forbid.
Read Chapter 6
Clement Of Alexandria
AD 215
"Nor "as Paul says, "is it meet to make the members of Christ the members of an harlot; nor must the temple of God be made the temple of base affections."
Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? For ye yourselves, and consequently your body and soul, are members of the Church of Christ. S. Augustine (Serm18. in hæc Verb.) says beautifully: "The life of the body is the soul, the life of the soul is God. The Spirit of God dwells in the soul, and through the soul in the body, so that our bodies also are a temple of the Holy Spirit, whom we have from God."
Shall I then . . . make them the members of an harlot? God forbid. Take here is not to pluck off and separate from Christ, for a fornicator remains a member of Christ and His Church so long as he retains the true faith. But it means, as S. Thomas says, unjustly to withdraw these members, that were given for generation, from the obedient service of Christ, whose they are. For whoever of the faithful commits fornication filches as it were his body and his organs of generation, which body is a member of Christ, from their lawful owner, and gives them to a harlot. He takes, th...
Or know ye not that he who is joined together with an harlot is one body? for two shall be in one flesh. But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.".
Hence also he says the same thing: "That the members of Christ must not be joined with the members of an harlot."
Having passed on from the fornicator to the covetous person, he comes back to the former from the latter, no longer henceforth discoursing with him but with the others who had not committed fornication. And in the act of securing them lest they fall into the same sins, he assails him again. For he that has committed sin, though you direct your words to another, is stung even in that way; his conscience being thoroughly awakened and scourging him.
Now the fear of punishment indeed was enough to keep them in chastity. But seeing that he does not wish by fear alone to set these matters right, he uses both threatenings and reasons.
Now upon that other occasion, having stated the sin, and prescribed the punishment, and pointed out the harm which intercourse with the fornicator brought upon all, he left off, and passed to the subject of covetousness: and having threatened the covetous and all the rest whom he mentioned with expulsion from the kingdom, he so concluded his discourse. But...
Paul seeks to shame the fornicator by saying that if he really belongs to Christ he ought to know better than to indulge in such demeaning behavior. He speaks in graphic terms about the prostitute in order to startle his hearers and fill them with alarm. Nothing could be better suited to strike them with horror than this expression.
Other sins like anger and greed come from the soul, but fornication has its roots in the flesh. Paul makes special mention of it here because it was the problem which he had to deal with at the time. Fornication is not selfevidently the worst sin of all. .
Does not permit "the members of Christ to be joined to a harlot.".
In the body will He raise us, because the body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And suitably does he add the question: "Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? ".
He makes our bodies "the members of Christ; ".
Less commingles "the members of Christ "with the members of an adulteress.
"Taking away the members of Christ, shall I make (them) members of an harlot? Know ye not, that whoever is agglutinated to an harlot is made one body? (for the two shall be (made) into one flesh): but whoever is agglutinated to the Lord is one spirit? Flee fornication."
