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Shorter Rules

St Basil the Great, tr. Lowther Clarke, 1925

Rule 67: What is Uncleanness and What is Lasciviousness ©? (R. 189)

The law showed what uncleanness2 is when it used the word of what happens unwittingly from physical necessity; but lasciviousness seems to me to be defined by Solomon, wisest of men, when he speaks of one soft and impatient of pain3; so that lasciviousness is the condition of a soul that has not, or cannot stand, the athlete4 s pains; just as it is excess when one has no control over the pleasures which beset it.

Notes

  1. ἀκαθαρσία . . . ἀσέλγεια.
  2. Gal. v. 26.
  3. Milligan-Moulton show that ἀκαθαρσία was used of a house which had not been cleaned.
  4. Prov. xiv. 23 LXX.

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