Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Tertullian: Part Fourth/On Modesty/Chapter 4

Chapter IV.&#8212;Adultery and Fornication Synonymous.

Having defined the distinction (between the kinds) of repentance, we are by this time, then, able to return to the assessment of the sins&#8212;whether they be such as can obtain pardon at the hand of men.&#160; In the first place, (as for the fact) that we call adultery likewise fornication, usage requires (us so to do).&#160; &#8220;Faith,&#8221; withal, has a familiar acquaintance with sundry appellations.&#160; So, in every one of our little works, we carefully guard usage.&#160; Besides, if I shall say &#8220;adulterium,&#8221; and if &#8220;stuprum,&#8221; the indictment of contamination of the flesh will be one and the same.&#160; For it makes no difference whether a man assault another&#8217;s bride or widow, provided it be not his own &#8220;female;&#8221; just as there is no difference made by places&#8212;whether it be in chambers or in towers that modesty is massacred.&#160; Every homicide, even outside a wood, is banditry.&#160; So, too, whoever enjoys any other than nuptial intercourse, in whatever place, and in the person of whatever woman, makes himself guilty of adultery and fornication.&#160; Accordingly, among us, secret connections as well&#8212;connections, that is, not first professed in presence of the Church&#8212;run risk of being judged akin to adultery and fornication; nor must we let them, if thereafter woven together by the covering of marriage, elude the charge.&#160; But all the other frenzies of passions&#8212;impious both toward the bodies and toward the sexes&#8212;beyond the laws of nature, we banish not only from the threshold, but from all shelter of the Church, because they are not sins, but monstrosities.