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Translated by Bl. Jackson.
St Basil the Great Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 128 Pages
Page 81
On the other hand acts done in the attacks of war or robbery are distinctly intentional, and admit of no doubt. Robbers kill for greed, and to avoid conviction. Soldiers who inflict death in war do so with the obvious purpose not of fighting, nor chastising, but of killing their opponents. And if any one has concocted some magic philtre for some other reason, and then causes death, I count this as intentional. Women frequently endeavour to draw men to love them by incantations and magic knots, and give them drugs which dull their intelligence. Such women, when they cause death, though the result of their action may not be what they intended, are nevertheless, on account of their proceedings being magical and prohibited, to be reckoned among intentional homicides. Women also who administer drugs to cause abortion, as well as those who take poisons to destroy unborn children, are murderesses. So much on this subject.
IX. The sentence of the Lord that it is unlawful to withdraw from wedlock, save on account of fornication, [2636] applies, according to the argument, to men and women alike. Custom, however, does not so obtain. Yet, in relation with women, very strict expressions are to be found; as, for instance, the words of the apostle "He which is joined to a harlot is one body" [2637] and of Jeremiah, If a wife "become another man's shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted?" [2638] And again, "He that hath an adulteress is a fool and impious." [2639] Yet custom ordains that men who commit adultery and are in fornication be retained by their wives. Consequently I do not know if the woman who lives with the man who has been dismissed can properly be called an adulteress; the charge in this case attaches to the woman who has put away her husband, and depends upon the cause for which she withdrew from wedlock. [2640] In the case of her being beaten, and refusing to submit, it would be better for her to endure than to be separated from her husband; in the case of her objecting to pecuniary loss, even here she would not have sufficient ground. If her reason is his living in fornication we do not find this in the custom of the church; but from an unbelieving husband a wife is commanded not to depart, but to remain, on account of the uncertainty of the issue. "For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband?" [2641] Here then the wife, if she leaves her husband and goes to another, is an adulteress. But the man who has been abandoned is pardonable, and the woman who lives with such a man is not condemned. But if the man who has deserted his wife goes to another, he is himself an adulterer because he makes her commit adultery; and the woman who lives with him is an adulteress, because she has caused another woman's husband to come over to her.
[2636] Matt. v. 32.
[2637] 1 Cor. vi. 16.
[2638] Jer. iii. 1.
[2639] Prov. xviii. 22, LXX.
[2640] The Ben. note is, Sequitur in hoc canone Basilius Romanas leges, quas tamen fatetur cum evangelio minus consentire. Lex Constantini jubet in repudio mittendo a femina haec sola crimina inquiri, si homicidam, vel medicamentarium, vel sepulcrorum dissolutorem maritum suum esse probaverit. At eadem lege viris conceditur, ut adulteras uxores dimittant. Aliud discrimen hoc in canone uxores inter et maritos ponitur, quod uxor injuste dimissa, si ab alia ducatur, adulterii notam non effugiat; dimissus autem injuste maritus nec adulter sit, si aliam ducat, nec quae ab eo ducitur, adultera. Caeterum Basilius ante episcopatum eodem jure uxorem ac maritum esse censebat. Nam in Moral. reg. 73statuit virum ab uxore, aut uxorem a viro non debere separari, nisi quis deprehendatur in adulterio. Utrique pariter interdicit novis nuptiis, sive repudient, sive repudientur.
[2641] 1 Cor. vii. 16.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/basil/letters-2.asp?pg=81
