"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even
their
women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman,
burned in their lust one towards another."
ALL these affections then were vile, but chiefly the mad lust after
males; for the soul is more the sufferer in sins, and more
dishonored, than the body in diseases. But behold how here too, as
in the case of the doctrines, he deprives them of excuse, by saying
of the women, that "they changed the natural use." For no one,
he
means, can say that it was by being hindered of legitimate
intercourse that they came to this pass, or that it was from having no
means to fulfil their desire that they were driven into this monstrous
insaneness. For the changing implies possession. Which also when
discoursing upon the doctrines he said, "They changed the truth of
God for a lie." And with regard to the men again, he shows the same
thing by saying, "Leaving the natural use of the woman." And
in a
like way with those, these he also puts out of all means of defending
themselves by charging them not only that they had the means of
gratification, and left that which they had, and went after another, but
that having dishonored that which was natural, they ran after that
which was contrary to nature.