Thelyphthora/Volume 1/Chapter II

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CHAP. II.

Of Whoredom and Fornication.

WHEN God, the Creator and Lord of all, was pleased to ordain and establish the means by which His creatures were to increase and multiply, and replenish the earth, in which primary command His reasonable creatures were equally interested with the brute part of the creation, and in some respects, if we consider this world as connected with another, infinitely more, and therefore the command was particularly addressed to them, Gen. i. 28.—it could not be but that the act, whereby mankind was to be propagated, must be totally innocent in itself: otherwise it could not have been consistent with the state [1] of ​innocence in which man was when marriage was first ordained. But that this act, innocent in itself as any other function of the body, might be kept within due bounds of order and decency, and all confusion and disorder avoided; God enacted certain [2] positive laws for this very purpose, to confine within such bounds as seemed good to Himself to limit, that natural, but violent passion, which, for the great purpose of propagating the human species, was made an inseparable adjunct to the human frame.

Those who imagine that this appetite is in itself sinful, either in the desire or act, charge God foolishly, as if He could ordain the increase and multiplication of mankind by an act sinful in itself: an absurdity little short of blasphemy! Sin, we are told, on the most infallible authority, is the transgression of the law, 1 John iii. 4;—and where no law is, there is no transgression, Rom. iv. 15:—when ​therefore this act is done agreeably to God's will, it is like all other acts so done, good and not evil. In order to make it evil, it must be done against some precept of God's law, otherwise it is as innocent as satisfying our hunger with eating, or our thirst with drinking. These may become sinful by their abuse or excess; so may the other; but in itself, and in its lawful use, it is as perfectly innocent as the two former.

We have observed before, that where a man and woman become personally united to each other, they are one flesh, and are forbidden to put each other away. This is the [3] ordinance of marriage, and the only one which is revealed in the scriptures; therefore we may call it the only one which God ever ordained.

But when men corrupted their ways upon the earth, Gen. vi. 12, this ordinance of marriage, sanctified by God's blessing, Gen. i. 28, and ratified by His own express command, Gen. ii. 24, was, as every other divine institution, corrupted, perverted, and abused; and men, to satisfy their desires at as cheap a rate as possible, without the incumbrance of a wife and family, or confining themselves to the sober duties of maintaining, taking care ​of, or providing for their households, chose to have intercourse and commerce with women, like brute beasts, for the sake of mere appetite, and then to leave the women for the service of the next comer. Something of this sort may not improbably be the meaning of Gen. vi. 2, where it is said, that they took them נשים women of all which they chose. For though this word, in certain connexions, denotes what we call wives (as Deut. xxi. 15.) yet it signifies primarily the female sex, or women in general. Such traffic was offensive to God, an abuse of His ordinance, (see 1 Cor. vi. 15, 16.) and tending to destroy the marriage-obligation, not only by rendering the bond which was created by it ineffectual, but by inducing mankind to despise it, and set it at nought. All genealogies must be confounded, inheritances obscured, and relationship itself destroyed; for who could ascertain these things, so necessary to the existence of all civil society, in the commerce with harlots? Confusion, and every evil work, must ensue; and therefore the all-wise Governor of the universe forbad whoredom and fornication on pain of death temporal and eternal. See 1 Tim. i. 8, 9, 10.

The Hebrew word זנה is particularly appropriated to this offence in the Old Testament, as πορνεια is in the New Testament; and we shall never find it mentioned but with the divine abhorrence. We have no law to enforce the punishment which God annexed to it, or to treat an harlot or whore as a ​capital offender; but it is nevertheless offensive to God, and will now, as ever, meet with marks of His displeasure. Know ye not, saith Paul, 1 Cor. vi. 9, that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers,—&c.—shall inherit the kingdom of God.

So odious is whoredom in God's sight, that it is not only said to defile the parties who are guilty of it, but the very land itself was said to be defiled thereby, Jer. iii. 9. Though this text may perhaps primarily relate to idolatry, which is spiritual whoredom, yet it serves to shew the malignant nature of whoredom; otherwise this would not be made use of, as adultery is in the same verse, in a figurative sense, to denote the other.

God expressly commanded, that there should not be a whore of the daughters of Israel, Lev. xix. 29. Deut. xxiii. 17; and ordained, that a woman playing the whore, if the daughter of a common person, should be stoned to death, Deut. xxii. 21. but if the daughter of a priest, she was to be burned with fire, Lev. xxi. 9. I mention these things as proofs of the sinfulness of an act, innocent in itself, when committed against a divine positive law. No human power or custom can alleviate its guilt, or make it less offensive to God than His word has made it; the person's conscience that thinks otherwise is sadly deceived.

Though what has been already said may serve as a definition of this offence, yet, to save the ​Reader the trouble of looking back, as well as to be still more explicit upon the subject, I would define זנה, or whoredom, to be "a woman's giving her person to a man, without any intent of marriage, but either for the mere gratification of lust, or for gain or hire, and departing from that man to others for the same [4] purposes." This is being what the Hebrew scriptures call זונה, an harlot or whore. See Gen. xxxviii. 15, 16. The radical idea of the Hebrew זנה seems to be, to encompass, encircle, infold, enclose; and denotes unlawful embraces between the sexes. Hence we render it, to commit whoredom. See Parkh. Heb. and Eng. Lex. sub voc.

As whoredom is generally used in our translation, as denoted by the word זנה, and seems rather appropriated to signify the woman's share in the offence; so the term [5] fornicacation, which is expressed by the same word in the original, seems to be the name given ​to the offence which the man commits in such illicit commerce. Though this observation may not hold in all cases, yet it is the best reason which occurs to me, for our using different words, to denote an offence of the same kind.

I readily confess, that the revival of God's antient laws against whoredom, amongst us, would be very dreadful, and indeed unjust, unless the whole consistent scheme which God has laid down was all to be revived together. The women, under God's law, could force their seducers to take them as their wives; or rather were deemed so actually married, as not to be put away. A woman had but to summon her seducer before the judges, to prove the fact against him, and their sentence, which must have been according to the law, must have been obeyed on pain of death. Deut. xvii. 12. Unless this were (as it ought to be) the case among us, it would be oppressive, unjust, and cruel to the last degree, to punish women with death, for being, by the treachery and villainy of men, forced into a way of life (however abhorrent in itself, or culpable) which is the natural, and, in most instances, the inevitable consequence of their being deserted by those who ought to have protected them, but against whom they have no remedy, or means to make them act the just and honourable part.

Under this head of forbidden lewdness, I would mention the practice of taking an ​harlot to keep for a time, and then, when pleasure or conveniency prompts, dismissing her. This is usually called keeping a mistress; but as there is no intention of marriage, and this is only done for the mere gratification of lust, it is not only a very evil example to others, and a defiance of the laws and good order of society, but doubtless comes under the condemnation, as it must be ranked under the description, of fornication and whoredom.

This was not the situation of the פילגשים or [6] concubines amongst the Jews; these seem to have been looked upon as wives, though, in some respects, of an inferior rank. They were so far considered as wives, that the man who took them had such a propriety in them, as to make it a very great offence, if not adultery itself, to violate them; as appears in the case of Jacob's concubine Bilhah. Reuben, the eldest son of Jacob, had lain with her; and ​Jacob, Gen. xlix. 4. calls it "going up to his bed and defiling it." For this crime Reuben was disinherited, and put from the right of the first-born. Compare Gen. xlix. 3, 4. with 1 Chron. v. 1.

Though the children of the concubine did not inherit as the children of the wife in most cases, yet in one very remarkable one we find they did, and that by the disposal of God Himself. Leah and Rachel, are called the wives of Jacob; Bilhah and Zilpah were his concubines (as may appear from Gen. xxxv. 22.); yet the children of these inherited the land of Canaan equally with the children of the former.

I confess myself not master enough of the subject, to define exactly the difference between אשה a wife, and פילגש a concubine, in all respects; neither have I been fortunate enough to meet with so precise a definition in any author, as to warrant a determination of the question. What I have found upon the subject, I submit to the Reader, in the notes below [7], and in the appendix to this ​chapter, which he will see at the end of this volume.

This is certain, no mark of disapprobation is set upon concubinage in the scriptures, though they speak so severely against whoredom; which, to me, is an evident and conclusive proof, that there is some specific difference between them. Indeed we find the owner of the concubine called her husband; she his wife. So the text, Judges xix. 1. A certain Levite took to him אשה פילגש uxorem pellicem. Mont.; a wife concubine: and in ​verse 3. he is called אישה vir ejus. Mont.; her husband, as we translate it. So the Fr. of D. Martin, son mari; and this translation seems to be very proper, because, the damsel's father is called, ver. 4. his (the Levite's) חתן father-in-law; and ver. 5. the Levite is called חתנו his (the damsel's father's) son-in-law; each of these relations by marriage being expressed by the word חתן. Surely this affords a conclusive proof, that the concubines, in those days, were in some sense wives; but, in what sense, it may be very difficult to determine exactly. The root חתן signifies to contract affinity by marriage. Gen. xxxiv. 9. Josh. xxiii. 12. In this last passage, the LXX render it by ἐπιγαμίας ποιε̃ιν, to make marriages. So that though we cannot state the precise difference between the wife and the concubine in every particular, yet there was too great a similarity between them, not to be both widely different from what we call a kept mistress, in whom the man claims not a jot more property, than in an horse hired for a day's journey, nor is more care or concern usually taken about them, when once the fancy or humour of the keeper leads him to resolve upon dismission.

The remedy of this mischief depends on that of the others which have been mentioned; all must stand or fall together.

  1. ↑ We are told, Gen. i. 31. that God saw every thing that He had made, and behold it was טוב מאד very good. We cannot, consistently with this account of things, doubt that every endowment of the human nature, whether of body or mind, came under this description; consequently, that those desires which were necessary to lead man to the propagation and continuance of his species, were without any evil whatsoever. We cannot sufficiently abhor the folly and blasphemy of Jerome and some others, who say, that "Adam's desire to know his wife, was the first sin which made God repent that He had made man, and was the occasion of turning him out of Paradise." Coitûs præmium mors—says Jerome contr. Jovinian.

    No inconsiderable difficulty awaited this scheme, which arose from the question—"How then was the world to be peopled, if not by natural generation?" But this was easily solved, by imagining that "the earth would have been supplied with men, as the heavens are with angels, by the immediate creative power of God, without the interference of any generation whatsoever." See Du Pin's Eccl. Hist. Eng. Trans. Cent. 5. p. 31, where St. Chrysostom delivers himself to this effect.

    When such monstrous opinions can have been maintained by those who, in their day, were looked upon as fathers of the church, let it warn thee, Reader, against searching for truth any where but in the blessed word of God; dread as much to leave it for an instant, as a blind man would dread to walk amidst pits and precipices without a guide, or a mariner to sail among rocks and shoals without a pilot. Remember what the Psalmift says, Ps. cxix. 105. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

  2. ↑ Conjunctio maris cum fæminâ, per quam propagatur genus humanum, dignissima res est legum curâ. Grot. de Verit. lib. ii. § 13. "The conjunction of the male with the female, by which the human race is propagated, is a matter most worthy the care of laws."
  3. ↑ Unless we agree in defining the terms made use of, no argument can be properly understood, or satisfactorily concluded. I would therefore here repeat, what I have already said—"that, as in God's sight, by marriage-ordinance I mean, that, by which the parties become one flesh—and by marriage, the actually becoming so." This was, is, and ever must be one and the same, in all ages, times, and places, however mankind may differ about the adventitious circumstances of human ceremony—whether Jewish, Popish, Protestant, Mahometan, or Heathen.
  4. ↑ After reading the above, it is hardly to be conceived with what eyes people have red this book, and yet charge the author with giving no definition of whoredom.
  5. ↑ Our English word fornication, seems to be derived from the Latin fornix; which literally signifies an arch or vault in houses—and by a metonymy—a brothel-house, because these were in vaults under ground. Ainsworth. Hor. Epist. 14. l. 21, 22. says to his steward—
      ———Fornix tibi, & uncta popina;
    Incutiunt urbis desiderium, video.

    "For well I know, a tavern's greasy steam,
    "And a vile stew, with joy your heart inflame."

    Francis.

    Hence the haunters of those places were called fornicators. See Johnson's Dict. Hor. Sat. lib. i. Sat. 2. l. 30, 31.

  6. ↑ Dr. Johnson, in his Dictionary, makes a concubine signify—"a woman kept in fornication, a whore, a strumpet:" but no such meaning of the word פילגש is to be found in the scriptures. It is greatly owing to such interpretations of words which are used in our translation, that we are led to have very false conceptions, not only of words, but of whole passages, in the sacred volume.

    So the word adultery—instead of keeping to the unvaried use of the Hebrew נאף, we make it signify every thing which our ideas have annexed to the English term adultery. At this rate, the truth of scripture can never be fixed, but must alter with the languages into which it may happen to be translated, or with the ideas which change of times, or opinions, may affix to certain words in those languages.

  7. ↑ The authors of the Univ. Hist. (vol. iii. p. 141.) call the נשים wives of the first rank, and the פילגשים wives of the second rank; "which last, say they, though most versions render by the word concubines, harlots, and prostitutes, yet in none of those places of scripture where the word is used, which are about thirty-six in number, is any such sinister sense implied." However, they state a two-fold difference between these and the wives of the first rank. "First—that the latter were taken with the usual ceremonies, and the former without. Secondly, with respect to their authority, and the honour paid to them and their children."

    This is very clear, that the sacred tongue, made use of by the Holy Ghost in the scriptures, makes distinctions, which amount to demonstration of there being no foundation for confounding the פילגשים with whores or harlots. The words אשה and פיליגש are sometimes used for the same person. See Gen. xxv. 1. 6. (xxx. 4. with xxxv. 22.); but פילגש and זונה are never thus used.

    Calasio defines פילגש as—Ancilla unita & addicta viro absque scriptura, i. e. contractu dotali & sponsalibus. "An handmaid united and devoted to a man, or husband, without writing—i. e. without any contract for dower or espousals."

    Busbequius expressly affirms, "that a wife is distinguished from a concubine, in Turkey, merely by a dowry, which seems also to have been the distinction among the Jews." See Outlines of a new Commentary on Solomon's Song, (a most ingenious and excellent work) p. 21. written by an author to whom the world is highly indebted, for "Observations on divers passages of scripture," in two volumes—a work, which, by laying before us the manners and customs in the East, elucidates the scriptures of the Old Testament beyond any other comment that has yet appeared. It may be truly said of Mr. Harmer, that he has the happy art of making "dark things plain," in a way, which, at the same time that it instructs, highly entertains the reader.

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