Ezechiel 18:6
And hath not eaten upon the mountains, nor lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel: and hath not defiled his neighbour's wife, nor come near to a menstruous woman:
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- in montibus non comederit, et oculos suos non levaverit ad idola domus Israël : et uxorem proximi sui non violaverit, et ad mulierem menstruatam non accesserit :
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἐπὶ τῶν ὀρέων οὐ φάγεται, καὶ τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς αὐτοῦ οὐ μὴ ἐπάρῃ πρὸς τὰ ἐνθυμήματα οἴκου Ἰσραήλ, καὶ τὴν γυναῖκα τοῦ πλησίον αὐτοῦ οὐ μὴ μιάνῃ, καὶ πρὸς γυναῖκα ἐν ἀφέδρῳ οὖσαν οὐ προσεγγιεῖ,
- Hebrew (WLC)
- אֶל הֶֽהָרִים֙ לֹ֣א אָכָ֔ל וְעֵינָיו֙ לֹ֣א נָשָׂ֔א אֶל גִּלּוּלֵ֖י בֵּ֣ית יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל וְאֶת אֵ֤שֶׁת רֵעֵ֨הוּ֙ לֹ֣א טִמֵּ֔א וְאֶל אִשָּׁ֥ה נִדָּ֖ה לֹ֥א יִקְרָֽב
Haydock's commentary
Mountains: of the sacrifices there offered to idols; (Challoner) or partaken in their usual feasts. Some irregularly worshipped God in these high places, under many pious kings; and were tolerated, (Calmet) though condemned for so doing. (Haydock)
Woman. The pagans abstained by the light of reason. (Calmet)
The contrary practice, "it is said," would give rise to lepers or monsters, (St. Jerome) as experience evinces. (Calmet)
It was forbidden in the Christian Church. (St. Augustine, q. 64. in Leviticus xx. 18.; St. Gregory, resp. 10. ad Aug.) (Calmet)
But no such questions are now asked. The prophet insists on this no more, ver. 11, 15.
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
Clement of Alexandria The Instructor, Chapter X. That the Same God, by the Same Word, Restrains from Sin by Threatening, and Saves Humanity by Exhorting
But there are myriads of injunctions to be found, whose aim is the attainment of what is good, and the avoidance of what is evil. “For there is no peace to the wicked, saith the Lord .” Wherefore by Solomon He commands the children to beware: “My son, let not sinners deceive thee, and go not after their ways; and go not, if they entice thee, saying, Come with us, share with us in innocent blood, and let us hide unjustly the righteous man in the earth; let us put him out of sight, all alive as he is into Hades.” This is accordingly likewise a prediction concerning the Lord’s passion. And by Ezekiel, the life supplies commandments: “The soul that sinneth shall die; but he that doeth righteousness shall be righteous. …
Clement of Alexandria The Stromata, or Miscellanies, Chapter XXII. Plato’s Opinion, that the Chief Good Consists in Assimilation to God, and Its Agreement with Scripture
Further, Plato the philosopher says that the end is twofold: that which is communicable, and exists first in the ideal forms themselves, which he also calls “the good;” and that which partakes of it, and receives its likeness from it, as is the case in the men who appropriate virtue and true philosophy. Wherefore also Cleanthes, in the second book, On Pleasure , says that Socrates everywhere teaches that the just man and the happy are one and the same, and execrated the first man who separated the just from the useful, as having done an impious thing. For those are in truth impious who separate the useful from that which is right according to the law. Plato himself says that happiness ( εὐδαιμονία ) is to possess rightly the dæmon, and that the ruling faculty of the soul is called the dæmon; and he terms happiness ( εὐδαιμονία ) the most perfect and complete good. …
The Apostolic Constitutions Book VI, Sec. V. The Teaching of the Apostles in Opposition to Jewish and Gentile Superstitions, Especially in Regard to Marriage and Funerals
XXVIII . But we do not say so of that mixture that is contrary to nature, or of any unlawful practice; for such are enmity to God. For the sin of Sodom is contrary to nature, as is also that with brute beasts. But adultery and fornication are against the law; the one whereof is impiety, the other injustice, and, in a word, no other than a great sin. But neither sort of them is without its punishment in its own proper nature. For the practisers of one sort attempt the dissolution of the world, and endeavour to make the natural course of things to change for one that is unnatural; but those of the second sort, the adulterers, are unjust by corrupting others’ marriages, and dividing into two what God hath made one, rendering the children suspected, and exposing the true husband to the snares of others. …
St Augustine A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants, The Precept About Touching the Menstruous Woman Not to Be Figuratively Understood; The Necessity of the Sacraments
Let no one, then, on this subject be either deceived or a deceiver. The manifest sense of Holy Scripture which we have considered, removes all obscurities. Even as death is in this our mortal body derived from the beginning, so from the beginning has sin been drawn into this sinful flesh of ours, for the cure of which, both as it is derived by propagation and augmented by wilful transgression, as well as for the quickening of our flesh itself, our Physician came in the likeness of sinful flesh, who is not needed by the sound, but only by the sick, and who came not to call the righteous, but sinners. …