Adam S. Rust

@asrust.bsky.social

3816 Followers 119 Following

Lawyer, writes on law things, writings have appeared in Liberal Currents and Balls & Strikes, based in the SF Bay Area.

A picture of me excitedly holding my copy of Liberal Currents first "Reconstruction Papers" collection.
Image of the first page of my Reconstruction Papers essay (too many words to include given the character count limit).
"“In my youth, in my manhood, in my old age, I had fondly dreamed that when any fortunate chance should have broken up for a while the foundation of our institutions, and released us from obligations the most tyrannical that ever man imposed in the name of freedom, that the intelligent pure and just men of this Republic, true to their professions and their consciences, would have so remodeled all our institutions as to have rid them from every vestige of human oppression, of the inequity of rights, of the recognized degradation of the poor, and the superior caste of the rich. In..."
Jimmy Stewart in a law library in the movie "Anatomy of a Murder", the greatest American legal movie.
Picture of pretty good Vesper martini next to a copy of Laura Kalman's excellent biography of Abe Fortas.
Wikipedia article on Vesper martini: "Just as the character Vesper Lynd dies in Casino Royale, the cocktail named for her makes no appearance in any of Fleming's later Bond novels. Fleming, in a letter to The Guardian in 1958, said that when he tasted a Vesper for the first time "several months" after including it in his novel, he found it "unpalatable""
"Nixon was conflicted about the outcome. On the one hand, easier access to abortions would break up the family and encourage permissiveness. Girls did not have to worry about getting pregnant anymore: They could simply go to a doctor and get an abortion for $5. On the other hand, there were times when abortions were "necessary." He cited the first example that came to mind. "When you have a black and a white." "Or a rape," Colson interjected. "Or rape. You know what I mean. There are times.""
Man in 70s suit saying "36% of the time it works everytime."
"Madison, making plain the administration's view that the Court had no authority to order him to hand anything over, did not show up and did not send counsel to the proceedings. Despite the fact that John Marshall had been the one who sealed but failed to deliver the commission in the first place, he wrote the opinion for the Court."
"And yet, neither statutory text nor the major questions doctrine produced an answer to which everyone could agree in the tariffs case. Instead, these approaches revealed how malleable textualism and the major questions doctrine, on their own, can be. By rejecting legislative history in the name of avoiding speculation and judicial overreach, the Court frees itself to do both, claiming the authority to decide for itself what Congress meant. "
"Consider, for example, the conversation that took place around President Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court in 1987. The Democrat-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee, by ensuring that "extended hearings would take place" gave "ample opportunity for Bork's opponents to elaborate the reasons for their position. '' The result was "a national seminar on constitutional law" played out on live television, one remarkable for the..."
Four images of Vince McMahon getting more and more stimulated about the Criterion Channel's "Carlos" 1. French Biopic (interested) 2. about an international terrorist (excited) 3. Set the in 1970s (awe inspired) 4. Over 5 hours long (Laser eyes)
Fassbender: Show the downfall of the New Deal. (Picture of Clinton and Gore in 1992) Fassbender: I said downfall. (Picture of Reagan) Fassbender: Perfection. (Picture of labor's last stand to get Truman to veto the Taft-Harley Act)
Woman opposed: Kris Kobach for governor and likely criminalization of abortion Woman considering: Kris Kobach for State AG and likely criminalization of pronouns.
Pictured: The cover of Jonathan Gienapp's "The Second Creation". Not pictured: The pages with filled with margin notes and highlighted quotes from primary sources, or great turns of phrase from Gienapp.
Woman begging for erotic attentions while her partner, a bearded gentleman, looks at r/yimby sexually entranced by by the idea of trains and upzoning
Old fogey Russian eating a slice of capitalist pizza pie from the Pizza Hut Corporation (whose sign is in Cyrillic in the background) berating Gorbachev in Russian with subtitles saying "Because of him we have political instability!"
Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev getting a slice of capitalist pizza from the Pizza Hut corporation as a child looks on adoringly.
Footnote: "The Magna Carta reference, it should go without saying, is ahistorical claptrap."
Cover of the book "The Dred Scott Case" by Don Fehrenbacher. An excellent book on constitutional law and the law of slavery in the US.
"Yet, by acknowledging that the utilitarian criterion of valuable use was the ultimate source of legal rules, Story's reasonable use standard became almost immediately an open-ended formula through which common law judges could implement their own conceptions of desirable social policy. As a result, Tyler v. Wilkinson is cited more often during the second quarter of the nineteenth century to support than to condemn the reasonableness of a mill's interference with the flow of water."
"Among the virtuous and wonderful deeds of the gods is recorded the following. Titus Latinius, a Roman farmer and the head of a family, was told in a dream that he should announce to the Senate that the Roman games must be repeated. This was because, on the first day of the games, it had been ordered that a certain criminal was to be led to his execution in the sight of the people. This grim spectacle had displeased the gods, who were, of course, seeking amusement from the games. But when he who had been warned in the dream did not dare to obey the command on the following day, the same command was repeated with greater severity during the next night. Then, because he still did not act, he lost his son. On the third night, the man was told that a still greater punishment was in store for him if he did not act; and when, even then, he did not dare to do so, he fell prey to a bitter and loathsome disease. Then, however, on the advice of his friends, he reported the affair to the magistrates. He was borne into the Senate on a litter and, having told his dream, recovered his health forthwith, and went away whole on his own feet. Astonished by so great a miracle, the Senate voted to repeat the games at four times the original cost. ..."
"If Felicity is not a goddess, however, but - and this is the truth -a gift of God, then let men seek that God Who is truly able to give them felicity. Let them relinquish the poisonous multitude of false gods to which the vain multitude of stupid men resort: men who, because they make the gifts of God into gods themselves, offend Him Whose gifts they are by the obstinacy of their proud will. For..."
"It was not truth that made these virtues into goddesses, but vanity. For they are gifts of the true God, not goddesses themselves. But where there is virtue and felicity, why seek for anything more? What could satisfy the man for whom virtue and felicity are not enough? For virtue encompasses everything we should do, and felicity everything we should desire. If Jupiter was worshipped so that he might grant these things - for if extent and duration of rule are good things, they belong to this same felicity - then why is it not understood that they are not goddesses, but gifts of God? Even if they are deemed to be goddesses, however, there is at least no need to seek so great a swarm of other gods. For let our adversaries reflect upon the offices of all the gods and goddesses which they have chosen to invent according to their own opinion; and let them discover, if they can, some further good which could be bestowed on any man possessing virtue and possessing felicity. What doctrine would he need to seek from Mercury or Minerva, since Virtue would already include everything in herself? Indeed, virtue was described by the men of old as the art of living well and rightly. Hence, they considered that it was from the Greek word aretê, which means 'virtue', that the Latin-speaking peoples derived the word 'art'. Even if virtue can only come to the clever, however, what need was there of the god called Father Catius to make men catos, that is, shrewd, when Felicity could confer this gift herself?"
"He prays ill, therefore, who desires to have someone to hate or fear in order to have someone to conquer. If, then, it was by waging wars that were just, and not impious or unrighteous, that the Romans were able to acquire so great an empire, should they not worship even Foreign Iniquity as a goddess? For we see that Foreign Iniquity has contributed much to the increase in the breadth of the empire, by making foreigners so unjust that they become peoples against whom just wars may be waged and the empire thereby enlarged. And why may not Iniquity at least that of foreign nations be a goddess, if Fear and Dread and Fever have deserved to be Roman gods?"
"They say also that this God is a kind of bosom of nature containing all things in Him-self, so that from His soul, by which the whole mass of the world is quickened, the lives and souls of all living things are derived, each according to the manner of its birth. On this view, then, nothing at all remains which is not a part of God. If all this is so, however, who does not see what impious and irreligious consequences follow? Whenever anyone tramples on something, he tramples on a part of God! Whenever any animal is killed, a part of God is slaughtered! And I decline to speak of all those things which may occur to anyone who gives the matter some thought but which cannot be named without shame."
Man flipping yu go oh card that says "All gods are just manifestations of Jupiter". Another guy flips a card saying "So just worship Jupiter" and the other guy is DESTROYED by facts and logic.
"Thus, let our adversaries make whatever assertions they please in their reasonings concerning the natural order. On one account, let Jupiter be the soul of this corporeal world, who fills and moves that whole mass¹¹ which is built and compacted out of the four elements, or as many elements as they like. On another, let him grant parts of it to his sister and brothers. On another again, let him be the aether, so that he may embrace Juno, the air, spread out beneath him. Then again, let him be the whole heaven, including the air, and let him impregnate with fertile showers and seeds the earth which is at one and the same time his wife and his mother (for such a thing is not thought disgusting among the divine beings). Or again (not that it is necessary to dwell upon all the possibilities), let him be the one god of whom many think that the noblest of all the poets speaks when he says: 'For God passes through all things: all lands, and the tracts of the sea, and the depths of the heavens. Let him be Jupiter in the aether; Juno in the air; Neptune in the sea, and also Salacia in the lower parts of the sea. Let him be Pluto in the earth; Proserpine in the lower parts of the earth; Vesta in the dom-estic hearth; Vulcan in the blacksmith's forge; the sun and moon and stars among the heavenly bodies; Apollo among diviners; Mer-cury among the merchants. Let him be Janus the opener and Ter-minus the closer. Let him be Saturn in time; Mars and Bellona in war; Liber in the vineyards; Ceres in the cornfields; Diana in the forests; Minerva in learning. Finally, let him be in the horde of plebeian gods, so to speak. Under the name of Liber, let him preside over the seed of men, and, as Libera, over that of women. Let him be Diespater, who brings the newly born forth into the light of day [qui partum perducat ad diem]. Let him be Mena, whom they set over the menstruation of women; Lucina, who is invoked by women..."
"I do not mention them all; for, though our adversaries are not abashed by all this, it bores me. I have, however, said these few things in order to make it understood that the Romans certainly do not venture to assert that it was these deities who established, increased and preserved their empire. For each of these deities was so busy with his own duties that no one thing was ascribed as a whole to any one of them. How could Segetia care for the empire when she was not allowed to take care of the corn and the trees at the same time? How could Cunina think of arms when she was not permitted to go beyond the care of the little ones? How could Nodotus help in war when he was concerned, not even with the sheath of the ear, but only with the nodes of the joints? Everyone has a single doorkeeper for his house, and, because this doorkeeper is a man, he is quite sufficient. But the Romans have set three gods there: Forculus for the doors [fores], Cardea for the hinges [car-dines], and Limentinus for the threshold [limen]! Forculus, then, was not able to guard the door, hinges and threshold all at once!"
"I say this, however: that the Roman empire itself, which had already grown great by subjugating many peoples, and which was an object of terror to the rest, was itself bitterly injured, gravely alarmed, and with no small effort avoided a disastrous reversal, when a very small number of gladiators, fleeing from the games in Campania, assembled a large army, appointed three generals, and laid waste the whole breadth of Italy with the utmost cruelty. Let our adversaries tell us what gods helped those men to rise from a small and inconsiderable band of robbers to a kingdom that the Romans, for all their great forces and fortresses, were obliged to fear. Or will they deny that the gladiators received divine assistance because they did not remain in power for long?"
"It was truly a gracious decree of the Senate by which a temple of Concord was built on that very spot where the dreadful tumult had occurred and where so many citizens of all ranks had fallen. This was done so that a testimony to the punishment of the Gracchi might strike the eye and stir the memory of all who addressed the assembly. But what else was it than a mockery of the gods to construct a temple to that goddess who, had she been in the city at all, would surely not have suffered herself to be torn by such great dissension? (Although it may be, of course, that Concord herself was to blame for this crime, because she had abandoned the minds of the citizens; in which case she deserved to be locked up in that temple as though it were a prison.) Why, then, if they wanted the temple to be in harmony with recorded fact, did the Senate not erect there a temple to Discord instead? Can any reason be given why Concord should be regarded as a goddess and Discord not? Why should we not regard both as..."
The cover of Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ", which made your humble skeeter doubt the truth of evangelical Christianity more than any New Atheist book of the early 2000s.
"These objections of ours would be to no purpose if our adversaries replied that their sacred images were set up not to secure temporal goods, but as symbols of the eternal. In that case, they could say that even though corporeal and visible things had happened to perish, no harm had been done to those things for the sake of which they had been set up, and that fresh provision could be made for the same purpose. In fact, however, so wonderful is their blindness, they suppose that a city's earthly safety and temporal felicity can be kept from perishing by sacred objects which can perish themselves! And so, when it is shown that they suffered the erosion of their safety or the invasion of ill fortune even while these sacred objects endured, they can only blush at an opinion that they are unwilling to change yet unable to defend."
"Again, speaking of Tullus Hostilius, who was the third king of Rome and who was himself destroyed by lightning, Cicero says in the same book that he was not believed to have been received among the gods even though he died as he did. 38 Perhaps, Cicero suggests, this was because the Romans did not wish to have what they agreed or believed in the case of Romulus to be made vulgar or commonplace, as it would have been if it had been readily attributed to another also. Again, in one of his invectives Cicero says clearly, 'Romulus, who founded this city, we have raised up to the immortal gods by our goodwill and renown.' This suggests that Romulus's elevation did not truly occur, but was a polite fiction devised and published in recognition of his virtues. In the dialogue Hortensius, moreover, while speaking of regular eclipses of the sun, Cicero says that they 'produce the same darkness that was produced at the time of Romulus's death, which occurred when the sun was hidden'. Here, certainly, he does not in the least shrink from speaking of the man's 'death', for he is engaged in discussion rather than praise."
"How, moreover, did the kings themselves meet their ends? A flattering fable says of Romulus that he was caught up and received into heaven. Some Roman authors, however, say that he was hacked to pieces by the Senate for his ferocity.35 The story is that a certain Julius Proculus was suborned to say that Romulus had appeared to him and, through him, commanded the Roman people to worship him as one of the divine beings. In this way, it is said, the people, who had begun to swell with anger against the Senate, were suppressed and calmed. For an eclipse of the sun had also occurred, and the ignorant multitude, not knowing that this happens according to the determinate laws of the sun's own movement, attributed it to the merits of Romulus. But this withdrawal of the sun's light -this indication of the sun's grief - should surely rather have been interpreted as a sign that Romulus had been murdered! Indeed, a similar sign appeared when the Lord was crucified by the cruel and impious Jews. 36 But that this latter concealment of the sun did not come about through the natural movement of the heavenly bodies is sufficiently shown by the fact that it took place during the Pass-over of the Jews. For this festival is held at full moon, whereas eclipses of the sun normally happen only at the last quarter of the moon."
"Away, then, with concealments and deceitful whitewashings! Let these things be examined openly. Let no one tell me that this man or that man was great because he fought with some man or another and conquered him. Gladiators also fight, and they also conquer. This cruelty, too, has its reward of praise (although it would, I think, be better to pay the penalty for any amount of slothfulness than to seek glory in such feats of arms). But if two gladiators were to enter the arena to fight, one a son and the other his father, who could endure such a spectacle? Who would not shun it? How, then, could the clash of arms between two cities be glorious when one of the cities was a mother and the other her daughter? Did it make a difference that there was no arena, and that broader battlefields..."
"But maybe there is no argument, maybe Wurman prefers a narrow reading of ["subject to the jurisdiction thereof"] because he likes the outcome that results, and he likes a broader reading of the Cruel and Unusual clause because he likes those outcomes. These may be his preferences, but Wurman will have to argue these preferences on the merits; the hermeneutic albatross of Originalism he presents does not help him. It certainly will not help judges, unless the goal is to obscure their present political desires behind the hypothetical reasonable person from the 18th century."
Cover of "Religion and the Decline of Magic" by Keith Thomas. The dark orange cover shows a demon getting some voodoo doll type things from people in monk robes while demon dragons fly overhead. No academic cover has a right to go this hard.
"Founded as she was under the tutelage of so many gods, Rome surely should not have been assailed and afflicted by such great and horrible calamities, of which I shall mention only a few out of the many. For by the great smoke of her sacrifices, as by a given signal, she summoned to her protection all the many gods for whom she established and provided temples, altars, sacrifices and priests: thereby offending, however, the most high and true God, to Whom alone these rites were justly due. In fact, Rome had lived more happily when she had had fewer gods. But, as she became greater, she considered that she should acquire more gods, just as a bigger ship needs more sailors. She despaired, I believe, of those few gods under whom, in comparison with her worse life to come, she had lived well, deeming them insufficient for the defence of her greatness."
"Enough has now been said, I suppose, of those moral and spiritual evils which are especially to be shunned, to show that the false gods of the Romans did nothing to help the people who worshipped them to avoid oppression by the weight of such ills. On the contrary, they caused them to be oppressed by them in ever greater measure. Now, I see, I must speak of the only kind of evils which our adversaries are unwilling to endure: that is, famine, disease, war, pillage, captivity, slaughter and the similar things which we have already mentioned in the first book. For evil men regard as evils only those things which do not make men evil. They do not blush to praise good things yet to remain evil themselves even among the good things that they praise. It vexes them more to have a bad house than a bad life, as if the greatest good for a man were to have everything good but himself."
"Thus, the mingled infamies and cruelties, the scandals and crimes of the divine beings, whether real or feigned, have, at their own insistence, and to avoid incurring their displeasure, been publicly and openly consecrated and dedicated to them in fixed and established festivals. They have been exhibited to all eyes as objects worthy of imitation and fit to be seen. Clearly, by such spectacles, these demons confess themselves to be unclean spirits. By their own base and vicious deeds, whether actual or pretended, whose celebration they request from the shameless and demand from the modest, they attest themselves to be the teachers of a wicked and impure life. Why, then, are they nonetheless reputed to give certain good moral precepts to some few chosen initiates in their shrines and innermost chambers? If they do indeed do this, then the malice of these harmful spirits must be deemed all the more artful and deserving of condemnation. For so great is the force of probity and chastity that the whole, or nearly the whole, of humankind is moved to praise them; nor is there anyone so ruined by vice as to relinquish all sense of honour. Accordingly, unless they somewhere 'transformed themselves into angels of light', as we find written in our Scriptures, the malice of the demons would not fully achieve its purpose of deception. Out of doors, therefore, foul impiety clam-ours unceasingly around the people on every hand, while, inside, a feigned chastity whispers to the few. Shameful things are furnished with a public stage and the praiseworthy are concealed; honour..."
A copy of City of God in your humble posters lap with a scone and cup of coffee from one kf my favorite local bakeries in the background.
Disneyland, one of man's attempts to mimic the glorious City of God.
"But those who worship and love the gods of Rome, whom they rejoice to imitate even in their wickedness and shame, do not at all care that the commonwealth is depraved and wholly vile. 'Only let it stand', they say; only let it flourish with abundant treasures, glorious in victory or - which is better - secure in peace, and what do we care? What is of more concern to us is that a man's wealth should be always increasing for the support of his daily pleasure, and that the stronger may thereby be able to subject weaker men to themselves. Let the poor serve the rich because of their abundance, and let them enjoy under their patronage a senseless idleness; and let the rich abuse the poor as their clients and the appendages of their pride. Let the poor applaud, not those who take counsel for their welfare, but those who are most lavish with pleasures. Let nothing unpleasant be required; let no impurity be forbidden; let kings care not how good their subjects are, but how docile. Let provinces serve their kings not as the rulers of their morals, but as the lords of their property and the procurers of their pleasures; and let them not honour them in sincerity, but fear them in worthlessness and servility. Let the laws take cognisance rather of the harm done by a man to his neighbour's vineyard than of that which he does to his own life. Let no one be brought to judgment unless he harms another's property or house or health or is troublesome or offensive to someone against his will. Otherwise, let everyone do as he wishes with what is his, either with his own cronies or with anyone else who is willing. Let there be plenty of public whores for anyone to enjoy who wishes to do so, and especially for those who cannot afford to keep private ones. Let the most... [It goes on like this]"
"But perhaps the divine beings saw no need to appoint laws for the Roman people because, as Sallust says, 'justice and goodness pre-vailed among them as much by nature as by law'. 19 I take it, then, that the rape of the Sabine women was an instance of this justice and goodness. For what could be more just or good than to use the false promise of an entertainment to carry young women off by force, without the consent of their parents? Even if the Sabines..."
"Although our Twelve Tables sanctioned the death penalty only for a very few crimes, among those deemed worthy of such punishment was anyone who brought infamy or disgrace upon another by singing or composing verses against him. Splendid! For how we lead our lives should be a matter for the judgment of magistrates interpreting the law rather than for the ingenuity of poets; nor ought we to have to listen to insults without being allowed by law to reply and to defend ourselves before a tri-bunal."
"For those who cannot understand what is said to them, or those whose minds are so hardened to contradiction that they will not concur even when they do understand: these answer us and, as is written, 'speak hard things' and are tirelessly vain. If we resolved to refute their contrary arguments as often as they resolve obstinately to contradict our reasoning in whatever way they can, without considering the truth of what they say, you see what an infinite and toilsome and fruitless task we should have."
"Which way Western Man?" image showing a book cover of Augustine's "City of God" at a crossroads. One path leading to an ominous storm cloud region with a picture of J.D. Vance and another leading to a bright and sunny place with a picture of Pope Francis (in an AI doctored image of him in a puffer jacket).
"What if that Scipio Nasica who was once your pontiff were still alive: he who, during the terror of the Carthaginian war, when a man of the highest qualities was sought, was unanimously chosen by the Senate to bring the sacred objects from Phrygia? He would restrain you from this impudence, and you would hardly dare to look him in the face. For, when afflicted by adversities, do you not complain of the Christian ian age only because you long to remain secure in your own luxury? Only because you wish to wallow in the most abandoned morals, exempt from all hardship and annoyance? You desire to have peace and all kinds of wealth in abundance. You do not, however, desire to have these goods so that you may use them honestly that is, modestly, soberly, moderately and with godliness. Rather, you wish to use them to secure an infinite variety of insane pleasures. Thus, you engender from prosperity a plague of moral ills worse than the raging of enemies."
"The whole family of the highest and true God, then, has a consolation of its own: a consolation which depends neither upon false-hood nor upon hope in those things which falter and fail. Also, its members have a life in this age which is not in the least to be regretted: a life which is the school of eternity, in which they make use of earthly goods like pilgrims, without grasping after them, and are proved and corrected by evils. As to those who revile them in their righteousness and say to them, when they chance to incur..."
Text from me to a friend: "Me reviewing each skeet to make sure it is clear what I do and do not endorse." with a gif of Jordan Peele sweating to comical excess attached.
"Question your souls faithfully, however, lest perhaps you have been too puffed up by the good of maidenhood or chastity or purity, and lest you take such delight in human praise that you have indeed begrudged others this same good. I do not accuse where I do not know, nor do I hear what your hearts reply when you question them. But if their answer were to be Yes, then do not wonder at it that you have lost that virginity by which you sought to please men, even while retaining that purity which cannot be shown to men. If you did not consent to those who sinned, this was because divine assistance was added to divine grace, lest grace be lost. But if human glory has now given place to human condemnation, this is only so that such glory should not be loved. In both cases, O faint-hearted ones, be consoled: you are on the one hand approved and justified, and on the other chastised and corrected."
"There remains one reason, of which I had begun to speak, for supposing that it may be beneficial for someone to slay himself: namely, for fear of falling into sin either through the enticement of pleasure or the violence of pain. If we decide to admit this reason, however, it will carry us to the extent of thinking that men should be exhorted to kill themselves as soon as they have been washed in the font of holy regeneration and have received the forgiveness of all sins. 70 For the time to avoid all future sin, surely, is when all past sins have been blotted out; and if this can be rightly achieved by voluntary death, then why not by all means seek it?"
"For what if they did this thing not because they were deceived by human frailty, but by divine command, and so were as in the story of Samson, which it not in error, but obedient? would be wickedness in us not to believe. For when God gives a command and shows without any ambiguity that it is His command, who will call obedience a crime? Who will reproach the submission of godliness? It is, of course, not done without wickedness if some-one resolves to sacrifice his son to God merely because Abraham was praiseworthy in so doing. But when the soldier, obedient to the power under which he has been lawfully placed, slays a man, he is not guilty of murder according to any laws of his city. On the contrary, if he does not do so, he is guilty of desertion and contempt of authority. If he had done this of his own will and authority, however, he would have fallen into the crime of shedding human blood. Thus, the deed which is punished if he does it when not commanded is the same as that for which he will be punished if he does not do it when commanded. And if this is true when the command is given by a general, how much more true is it when the command is given by the Creator! He, therefore, who knows that it is not lawful to kill himself, may nonetheless do so if commanded by Him Whose commands it is not lawful to despise. Let him be sure, however, that the divine command is not made uncertain by any doubt."
"Again, suppose that some female, already corrupted in mind, violating the pledge which she has vowed to God, is going to meet her seducer, to be debauched. Do we say that, while she is on her way there, she is still holy in body even though the sanctity of mind by which the body is made holy is already lost and destroyed? God forbid such error! Rather, let us learn from this instance that, on the one hand, sanctity of body is not lost while sanctity of mind remains, even if the body is overpowered; whereas, on the other, sanctity of body is indeed lost when the sanctity of the mind is violated, even if the body remains intact."
"But we are not here so much concerned to return an answer to outsiders as to bring comfort to our own people. In the first place, then, let this be stated and affirmed: that the virtue by which life is lived rightly has its seat in the soul; that it directs the members of the body from there; that the body is made holy by the exercise of a holy will; and that, while this will remains unshaken and steadfast, nothing that another does with the body, or in the body, that the sufferer has no power to avert without sinning in turn, is the fault of the sufferer. Not only the infliction of pain, but also the gratification of lust, is possible upon the body of another; but when anything of this kind is done, the chastity to which the most resolute soul holds fast is not struck down. It may be, however, that shame bursts in nonetheless, for fear that someone will think that an act which, perhaps, could not have been undergone without some bodily pleasure occurred with the consent of the mind also."
"Having duly considered and investigated these things, then, let us now turn to the question of whether any evil has befallen the faith-ful and godly that was not turned to their good. Or are we to con-clude that the utterance of the apostle was in vain when he said, 'We know that all things work together for good to them that love God'?25 They lost all they had. Their faith? Their godliness? The goods of the inward man who is rich before God?26 These are the riches of the Christians, of which the great apostle spoke: But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil; which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."