No ferás fornicacio
The Nature and Command of Purity
The author defines fornication as a defiling lust and explains that God commands purity to protect the body and the soul's capacity to reflect divine virtue.
Son, fornication is lust, which is the uncleanness of body and mind; and because of that uncleanness, chastity and virginity are chosen. My son, do you know why God commands you not to commit fornication? It is so that, through obedience and purity of body and mind, you will fight in your heart every day against the pleasures of the flesh, which are defiled by filthy matter that is a horrible thing even to name.1 Consider, my son, the purity that is in the flower of youth and in a virtuous soul, and think about the great foulness in the act of lust—which I dare not name or write, so that you won't read words that name it or spell it out.23 God has commanded, son, that you not commit fornication, for fornication destroys the body that God has created, and it destroys the riches that God has entrusted to you, and it destroys the understanding of the soul, which is the mirror in which God shows his virtues and his works.4
The Destructive Fruits of Lust
Lust is shown to be a source of spiritual alienation, social ruin, and worldly conflict, leading to the final exhortation to embrace chastity as a path to divine glory.
Lust drives out of a man's heart loyalty and truth, and God, and the angel God has given him to guard him; and it puts into that heart falsehood and lying and the devil.✦56 Through lust, women fall under the anger of God and of their husbands and their fathers, and through lust they make their children less respected among people. Dear son, lust makes peoples go to war and men kill and wound one another; and women have towns and castles destroyed and laid waste, and wrongfully make bastards inherit. I could neither manage nor know how to tell of all the evils that come from lust; and because lust does so much harm and is the occasion of so many failings, our Lord God has commanded man to be an enemy of lust and a lover of chastity, through which he may be called into the glory of God.
Read the original Latin
Fill, fornicacio es luxuria qui es sutzetat de cors e de pensa, per la qual sutzetat es eleta castedat e vergenitat.
Amable fill, ¿saps per que Deus mana que tu no fasses fornicacio? per so que ab obediencia e ab nedetat de cors e de pensa combates ton cor tot jorn contra lo delit de la carn, qui es ensutzada de sutza materia que orrible cosa es de esser nomenada.
Aesma, fill, la nedetat qui es en la flor e en l anima vertuosa, e cogita la gran sutzetat qui es en la obra de luxuria, la qual yo no gos nomenar ne escriure, per so que leges paraules qui sien no anomen ne escriva.
Deus ha manat, fill, que no fasses fornicacio, car fornicacio destruu lo cors que Deus ha creat, e destruu les riqueses que Deus ta comanades, e destruu lenteniment de l anima, qui es lo mirall en lo qual Deus demostra ses vertuts e ses obres.
Luxuria gita del coratge del home leyaltat e veritat e Deu e l ángel que Deus ha donat a hom per guardar; e met en aquell coratge falsetat e mentida el demoni.
Per luxuria vénen les fembres en la ira de Deu e de lurs marits e lurs pares, e per luxuria fan esser menys preats lurs enfants entre les gents.
Amable fill, luxuria fa les gents guerrejar e los homens auciure e nafrar; e les fembres fan les viles e los castells destroyr e eremar, e fan los borts enjuriosament heretar.
No poria ne sabría dir los mals qui vénen per luxuria; e per so car luxuria fa tant de mal e es occasio a tants de falliments, per assó ha manat nostro Senyor Deus a hom que sia enamich de luxuria e amador de castedat, per la qual sia apellat en la gloria de Deu.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Ps.91.11 — For he will command his angels concerning you, to guard you in all your ways.
Notes
- 1 ↩qui es ensutzada is feminine and most naturally agrees with la carn (the flesh), not lo delit (masculine); rendered as referring to the flesh.
- 2 ↩Medieval Catalan flor here is taken as the bloom/flower of youth (and its chastity), paired with l'ànima virtuosa; a more bare rendering would be simply 'the flower.'
- 3 ↩Purpose clause is compressed: speaker refuses to name or write the filthy act so the child's reading stays free of those words. Alternative construal: 'so that the words you read are ones I neither name nor write.'
- 4 ↩Normalized as t'ha comanades: riches God has entrusted/committed to you (not merely 'commanded').
- 5 ↩Medieval Catalan coratge here means the heart/spirit as the seat of moral dispositions, not modern English 'courage'.
- 6 ↩el demoni is taken as a third thing lust puts into the heart (parallel to falsetat e mentida), not as a new subject of met; the clause continues with luxuria as subject.
Doctrine for Children — Opening companion
Rule yourself daily, not just on retreat
Chosen Portion turns the mirror into a daily practice — a short reading and examining question each morning before you lead anyone.
Chosen Portion makes the mirror daily: the ruler-formation questions this collection preserves become a two-minute morning examination in the app.
- A daily formation reading drawn from centuries of counsel to those in authority
- One pointed examination question a day — two minutes, before the meetings start
- Track your practice over weeks and watch the examined life become a habit