One Flesh


The lecture hall of Titius Justus was quite crowded by the time we got there, with a lot of students - including Lucias and Alexander, one or two philosophers who sat next to Athenodorus and looked supercilious, and a surprising number of common people whose rough clothes and rougher hands proclaimed that they were artisans. There were several Jews, conspicuous in their foreign garments, and a crowd of rugged men I decided were sailors.

Our slaves carried in the chairs we had brought and set them down near the front, then ranged themselves with all the other common people at the back and around the walls. Cartimandua had a stool next to my mother, who sat with the other women on the right side of the hall. The buzz of conversation died down abruptly when Paul stood up at the front and beckoned with his raised fingers.

"Greetings and peace to you all, in the name of God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus whom He has sent."

He waved at the sailors. "Dober dan, prijatelji, i dobro dosli u Corinthu."

"What's he saying?" Lucius muttered beside me.

"I think he's talking to the sailors," I told him. "Aren't they from Sarmatia or the Crimea?"

Paul turned back to us. "We are all gathered here because we believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christos, the Messiah, appointed by God to deliver us from our sins and to judge those who remain in their sins when He comes again.

"It is appropriate, therefore, that we consider what is sin. Sin, we might say, is those actions or that course of action which are displeasing to God, yet we must ask, Which God? The priests of Cybele castrate themselves247, an action which is pleasing to their goddess, but displeasing to most other deities. In fact, the God of our Lord Jesus declares that no-one who is castrated can enter His temple in Jerusalem. It follows, then, that for us Christians, sin is that which is displeasing to the God revealed in the Scriptures.

"It is my purpose to expound to you what God requires of those who worship Him and today I wish to consider one particular action or set of actions which are very common in the society of this city, but which are displeasing to God.

"I have already spoken to some of you and told you that our bodies are the temple of God, for God, by His Spirit, dwells in us. Indeed, we might say that our bodies are the limbs and organs of the Christos Himself, for it is through our bodies that He works and is active in the world today. For this reason I declare to you that your bodies are not meant for sexual immorality. They are meant for the Lord's service, even as the Lord gave Himself to ransom your bodies.

"Our bodies are sacred; for just as God, by His almighty power, raised the Lord from the dead, so He will raise us also. Shall I take these sacred bodies, these limbs of the Christos, and join them to the body of a common prostitute? Or even worse, to the body of a prostitute dedicated to some other god? May God forbid such a thing!

"Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? It is said in our Scriptures: 'The two will become one flesh248,' yet you who are united with the Lord are really 'one flesh' with Him.

"Flee, therefore, from sexual immorality. All other sins a man may commit are outside his body, but he who sins sexually is sinning aginst his own body. Remember, your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God. You are not your own: you have been bought by the blood of the Christos, a very high price indeed, so make sure that you honour God with your body as well as your spirit."

It's funny how you can listen to a string of words for ages and not see any particular significance in them and then suddenly, wham! the meaning hits you. I was listening intently to what Paul was saying without really understanding him and then the meaning of his words struck so abruptly that I gasped out loud. He meant that my visit to Charite was a sin!

For a moment I tried to persuade myself that I had misunderstood him, for the idea was ridiculous. Everyone visited the girls up at the temple. No one, not even the priests or the philosophers, thought that it was wrong. On the contrary, such visits were natural, normal, even healthy249 . Yet as Paul continued to speak he made it very clear that this new God I was considering regarded casual sex as a very serious sin.

"The wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God," Paul declaimed as his oration drew to a close. "The sexually immoral and adulterers have no place in God's kingdom. I thank my God that you have been washed from the guilt and uncleanness of these sins and through the power of the indwelling Spirit you can have strength to maintain your purity."

That set me off on another train of thought. What about Cartimandua? Was it right for me to continue to sleep with her, or should I get rid of her? She was no longer a virgin, but even so she would fetch quite a good price with that yellow hair of hers. I was still pondering this question when Paul's lecture came to an end.

"This is my first lecture," Paul spoke in a quieter voice. "I wish, therefore, to invite you all to partake of a simple meal with me. We Christians call it the Love Feast, when we share bread and wine, the ordinary food that we all eat, in memory of the last meal that the Christos ate with His followers. We," Paul's gesture took in Aquila and Priscilla as well as his two helpers, "have provided enough for all of you, but for next week we invite you to share your food with us, so that we may show that there is no barrier between us. Jews, Greeks and barbarians, all eating together, all sharing their food in common.

"Our meal together is a holy meal, which only those who have accepted the Christos and been baptised can eat without sacrilege. If anyone eats or drinks unworthily, he is condemned by his eating and drinking, and judgement is sure to follow."

Several people got up and left the hall when Paul said that, including a whole family of Jews. Alexander caught my eye and mouthed the word "Crispus" at me behind their backs. Priscilla carried a large bag down to the front and handed it to Paul and he took out six or seven large loaves of bread and set them down on a small table beside him. Timothy disappeared through a curtained doorway and came back with a stack of cheap pottery cups which he handed round and after him came Silas with an amphora of well watered wine. Meanwhile Paul tore pieces off the loaves of bread and handed them to Aquila, who distributed them to us.

When everyone had been given the bread and wine - and Alexander, my mother and I didn't take any - Paul raised his hands and went through the same ritual, using the same words, as he had done when Athenodorus and Cartimandua were baptised. I glanced across at Cartimandua as she raised the cup to her lips and she flashed me a beaming smile of pure happiness. It occurred to me that it would be neither easy nor pleasant to send her off to the market. I had become used to her - you could almost say that I liked her.

A lot of people wanted to speak to Paul after the lecture, but I hung around chatting to Lucias and Alexander, and after them to Timothy, until they had all gone. Paul looked at me and smiled.

"Did you want to speak to me too, Arxes?"

"Yes, please, sir."

I excused myself from Timothy and went over to Paul.

"Sir, my father bought me a slave a couple of weeks ago when he felt that I was becoming a man." I felt my face colouring. "A female slave. Naturally, I've been sleeping with her: that's what we bought her for. Am I doing wrong?"

Paul looked at me gravely. "My advice is this: in many ways it is better for a person who wants to serve the Lord not to marry, for if they marry, their whole concern is on how to please their marriage partner. A married man cannot give himself completely to the Lord because his interests are divided - and the same goes for a woman. Nevertheless, there is so much immorality in this world that it is better and safer for each man to have his own wife and each woman her own husband.

"So where does that leave you, Arxes? I presume that your parents don't intend for this slave girl to be your wife?"

"Oh no," I assured him. "I think my father has his eye on the daughter of one of his fellow merchants, a man called Aristippus250 . I've seen the girl once or twice; she'll do."

"And yet," Paul pointed out, "in a sense you are already married to this slave girl. You are already 'one flesh' with her."

"But she is only a slave!" I protested.

"I'm not saying that what you are doing is wrong," Paul assured me. "Our father Abraham slept with his slave girl, as did Jacob, but it is not God's ideal. The more wives or concubines you have, the more trouble you have and the less time to serve God, to the extent that I do not appoint anyone to lead out in a Christian assembly if he has more than one wife."

"So should I get rid of Cartimandua? She's the yellow-haired girl you baptised the other night. She's probably still worth something in the market."

Paul shook his head. "No. According to our law - which is God's law - if you have slept with a slave girl you may not sell her, though you can let her go free if you wish. If you were a Christian my advice would be for you to marry this girl: if nothing else, she is herself a Christian - which the daughter of Aristippus isn't - but in any case among Christians there is no difference between barbarian and Greek."

"My father would never allow it," I told him. "I think he's rather counting on the dowry251 this other girl would bring."

"You'll have to talk to him," Paul shrugged. "But I definitely don't think you should sell your slave girl."

Cartimandua looked as startled as my parents when I recounted this conversation over dinner but then she blushed and casually rested her hand on my ankle in a gesture that was very pleasing. My father said nothing, but the look on his face was enough to tell me what he thought of Paul's advice. Rather to my surprise, my mother spoke up in Cartimandua's favour.

"He could do worse, Lycurgus. You know very well what that Aristippus is like. If he ever finds what he thinks is a better match he'll take his daughter back252 without a thought."

"And what about the dowry253?" my father growled. "Am I to have it said that I married my son to a slave because I couldn't find a better match for him?"

"Money, always money," my mother sighed. She looked across at Cartimandua and winked. "Never mind, dear. At least you know that I'm on your side."

As we lay in bed that night Cartimandua snuggled up to me and nuzzled my ear.

"Thank you, my lord. I very much like be your wife."

"My father will never allow it." I told her.

"I praying to Jesus the Christos," Cartimandua whispered. "Paul say the Christos can do anything."

247 The stronghold of the worship of Cybele was in Asia Minor, which may have been at the back of Paul's mind when he exclaimed, "As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!" (Galatians 5:12) Return

248 Many have puzzled as to how it can be said that a married couple are "one flesh" and explanations are often ingenious and unconvincing. There is a possibility, however, that the phrase should be taken literally. There is a growing body of evidence to show that during sexual intercourse the woman's body actually absorbs some of the man's semen. This not only triggers an immune response, but it is possible that some of the man's genetic code might be incorporated in the woman's genes. Those who remark that an old couple have grown to look like one another may have unwittingly stumbled upon a profound truth. Return

249 As Socrates remarked to his son in Xenophon's Memoirs of Socrates, "You don't imagine that people have children just for sexual satisfaction; the streets and brothels are full of potential suppliers of that need." (p. 110) This is not to say that the Greeks gloried in lust, any more than they gloried in hunger. They simply recognised it as a normal human drive, the undue pursuit of which was to be deplored. In another conversation Socrates remarked, "Don't you think that it is shameful for a man to be affected in the same way as the stupidest of creatures? I am thinking of the way in which adulterers walk into the snare, although they know that an adulterer is in danger not only of incurring the penalty threatened by the laws, but of having a trap set for him and, if he is caught, of suffering physical violence. When the adulterer is liable to all these serious and shameful consequences - and there are plenty of means to relieve his sexual appetite with impunity - nevertheless to rush headlong into the paths of danger, isn't that the very acme of infatuation?" (p. 101) Return

250 In his Confessions St Augustine tells how, while he was living in Milan, he decided to get married. In VI.xiii he says: "The plans for my marriage were pushed ahead and the girl's parents were asked for their consent. She was nearly two years too young for marriage, but I liked her well enough and was content to wait." In VI.xv he describes the break-up of his long-term relationship with his mistress: "The woman with whom I had been living was torn from my side as an obstacle to my marriage and this was a blow which crushed my heart to bleeding, because I loved her dearly. She went back to Africa, vowing never to give herself to any other man and left with me the son whom she had borne me." One cannot help but feel that St Augustine might have become a more attractive figure had he married his mistress. Return

251 In his Natural History XVI.lx, Pliny describes the various uses of the Cypress tree. "Both the male and the female are allowed to grow up so as by having their branches lopped off to form poles or props, which after twelve years' growth sell for a denarius apiece, a grove of cypresses being a most profitable item in one's plantation account; and people in old days used commonly to call cypress nurseries a dowry for a daughter." Return

252 Greek women were always under the control of their fathers whose rights even over-ruled those of their husbands. In a fragment from an unknown play Menander has a wife making a speech:

"Perhaps I am a silly woman: quite possibly. But I assure you, father, however silly in general a woman may be, she usually shows sense when it comes to her own business.
"Suppose you are right: what harm is he doing me, pray? The established rule for husband and wife is that he should always cherish his wife and that she should do what pleases her husband. He has been to me all that I asked and what he wants, I want, father. He is a good husband to me, but he's fallen on hard times and now you want, so you say, to give me instead to a rich man, so that I shan't suffer the pain of poverty. But all the money in the world will never give me as much happiness as my husband does, father. And it is surely right and proper for me to share his poverty as I shared his prosperity.
"Suppose this second husband I am to have - which god forbid, it will certainly not happen with my consent and if I can prevent it - suppose he loses his money: will you then marry me to a third? And then to a fourth, if the same thing happens to him? How far will you try to play Providence in my life, father? When I was a young girl it was right for you to look for a husband for me: the choice then was yours. But now that I am married, father, it is for me to make these decisions. And that is reasonable, for if I make a mistake, I shall be the one to suffer for it. That's the truth. So don't, I beg you by the god of hearth and home, rob me of the husband to whom you gave me. I ask this as a favour, father, but it is a reasonable request for an act of human kindness. If that is not possible, you have the power to do what you will and I shall try to bear my lot with proper dignity and not disgrace myself."

(p. 250) Return

253 In Plautus' A Three-dollar Day (p. 280) a father and his son are discussing the problems of a neighbour who, in his father's absence, has run through all the family money.

Lysiteles: You know his family?
Philto: I do; and I know it to be an excellent family
Lysiteles: Well, he has a sister, grown-up, unmarried. I want to marry her, father, without a dowry.
Philto: Marry a wife without a dowry!
Lysiteles: Yes, father. This is the way in which you can do him a real kindness and it won't cost you a penny. You couldn't find a more convenient way of helping him.
Philto: You want me to let you marry a wife without a dowry?
Return