The Shepherd of Hermas

I command you, he said, to keep purity and[*](Purity) let not any thought come into your heart about another man’s wife, or about fornication or any such wicked things; for by doing this you do great sin. But if you always remember your own wife you will never sin.

For if this desire enter your heart you will sin, and if you do other such-like wicked things you commit sin. For this desire is a great sin for the servant of God. And if any man commit this wicked deed he works death for himself.

See to it then, abstain from this desire, for where holiness

I said to him, Sir, allow me to ask you a few questions. Say on, said he. Sir, said I, if a man have a wife faithful in the[*](Man and wife) Lord, and he finds her out in some adultery, does the husband sin if he lives with her?

So long as he is ignorant, said he, he does not sin, but if the husband knows her sin, and the wife does not repent, but remains in her fornication, and the husband go on living with her, he becomes a partaker of her sin, and shares in her adultery.

What then, said I, sir, shall the husband do if the wife remain in this disposition? Let him put her away, he said, and let the husband remain by himself. But if he put his wife away and marry another he also commits adultery himself.

If then, said I, sir, after the wife be put away she repent, and wish to return to her own husband, shall she not be received?

Yes, said he; if the husband do not receive her he sins and covers himself with great sin; but it is necessary to receive the sinner who repents, but not often, for the servants of God have but one repentance. Therefore, for the sake of repentance the husband ought not to marry.[*](This mandate is really explaining the practical problem which arose from the conflict between the Christian precept against divorce (Mt. 10,11 f.) and the equally early precept against having intercourse with immoral persons. As the inserted clause except for the cause of fornication in the Matthaean version of Mk. 10,11f. (Mt. 19, 9; cf. Mt. 5,32 and Lc. 16,18) shows, the latter precept was regarded as more important, and immoral wives were put away, but Hermas and other writers always maintained that this was not strictly divorce, as the innocent party was not free to remarry in order to give the other the opportunity of repenting and of returning.)

Not only, said he, is it adultery if a man defile his flesh, but whosoever acts as do the heathen is also guilty of adultery, so that if anyone continue in such practices, and repent not, depart from him and do not live with him, otherwise you are also a sharer in his sin.

For this reason it was enjoined on you to live by yourselves, whether husband or wife, for in such cases repentance is possible.

I, therefore, said he, am not giving an opportunity to laxity that this business be thus concluded, but in order that he who has sinned sin no more,[*](Hermas is guarding against the imputation that he is lowering the standard of morality. This accusation was actually brought against him later by Tertullian.) and for his former sin there is one who can give healing, for he it is who has the power over all.