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Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Series 2 - The Still Small ...

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Without Address. Concerning Raptus. 3222<br />

Letter CCLXX. 3221<br />

I am distressed to find that you are by no means indignant at the sins forbidden, <strong>and</strong><br />

that you seem incapable of underst<strong>and</strong>ing, how this raptus, which has been committed, is<br />

an act of unlawfulness <strong>and</strong> tyranny against society <strong>and</strong> human nature, <strong>and</strong> an outrage on<br />

free men. I am sure that if you had all been of one mind in this matter, there would have<br />

been nothing to prevent this bad custom from being long ago driven out of your country.<br />

Do thou at the present time shew the zeal of a Christian man, <strong>and</strong> be moved as the wrong<br />

deserves. Wherever you find the girl, insist on taking her away, <strong>and</strong> restore her to her parents,<br />

shut out the man from the prayers, <strong>and</strong> make him excommunicate. His accomplices, according<br />

to the canon 3223 which I have already put forth, cut off, with all their household,<br />

from the prayers. <strong>The</strong> village which received the girl after the abduction, <strong>and</strong> kept her, or<br />

even fought against her restitution, shut out with all its inhabitants from the prayers; to the<br />

end that all may know that we regard the ravisher as a common foe, like a snake or any<br />

other wild beast, <strong>and</strong> so hunt him out, <strong>and</strong> help those whom he has wronged.<br />

3221 Placed after 374.<br />

3222 On this subject see before Letters cxcix. <strong>and</strong> ccxvii. pp. 238 <strong>and</strong> 256. See Preb. Meyrick in D.C.A. ii.<br />

1102: “It means not exactly the same as our word ravishment, but the violent removal of a woman to a place<br />

where her actions are no longer free, for the sake of inducing her or compelling her to marry.…By some raptus<br />

is distinguished into the two classes of raptus seductionis <strong>and</strong> raptus violentiæ.” cf. Cod. <strong>The</strong>od. ix. tit. xxiv. legg.<br />

1, 2, <strong>and</strong> Cod. Justin. ix.–xiii. leg. 1 Corp. Juris. ii. 832.<br />

3223 κήρυγυα. <strong>The</strong> Ben. note is no doubt right in underst<strong>and</strong>ing the word not to refer to any decree on this<br />

particular case, but to Basil’s general rule in Canon xxx. cf. p. 239. On the use of κήρυγμα by Basil, see note on<br />

p. 41.<br />

Without Address. Concerning Raptus.<br />

838

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