Tertullian — On Modesty 16
Necessary it is, therefore, that the (character of the) apostle should be continuously pointed out to them; whom I will maintain to be such in the second of Corinthians withal, as I know (him to be) in all his letters. (He it is) who even in the first (Epistle) was the first of all (the apostles ) to dedicate the temple of God: Do you not know that you are the temple of God , and that in you the Lord dwells? — who likewise, for the consecrating and purifying (of) that temple, wrote the law pertaining to the temple-keepers: If any shall have marred the temple of God , him shall God mar; for the temple of God is holy , which (temple) are you.
Come, now; who in the world has (ever) redintegrated one who has been marred by God (that is, delivered to Satan with a view to destruction of the flesh), after subjoining for that reason, Let none seduce himself; that is, let none presume that one marred by God can possibly be redintegrated anew? Just as, again, among all other crimes — nay, even before all others — when affirming that adulterers, and fornicators, and effeminates, and co-habitors with males, will not attain the kingdom of God , he premised, Do not err — to wit, if you think they will attain it. But to them from whom the kingdom is taken away, of course the life which exists in the kingdom is not permitted either.
Moreover, by superadding, But such indeed you have been; but you have received ablution, but you have been sanctified, in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ , and in the Spirit of our God ; in as far as he puts on the paid side of the account such sins before baptism , in so far after baptism he determines them irremissible, if it is true , (as it is), that they are not allowed to receive ablution anew. Recognise, too, in what follows, Paul (in the character of) an immoveable column of discipline and its rules: Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: God makes a full end both of the one and of the others; but the body (is) not for fornication, but for God: for Let Us make man, said God , (conformable) to Our image and likeness. And God made man; (conformable) to the image and likeness of God made He him.
The Lord for the body: yes; for the Word was made flesh . Moreover, God both raised up the Lord, and will raise up us through His own power; on account, to wit, of the union of our body with Him. And accordingly, Do you not know your bodies (to be) members of Christ? because Christ, too, is God's temple. Overturn this temple, and I will in three days' space resuscitate it. Taking away the members of Christ , shall I make (them) members of an harlot? Do you not know , that whoever is agglutinated to an harlot is made one body? (for the two shall be (made) into one flesh): but whoever is agglutinated to the Lord is one spirit? Flee fornication. If revocable by pardon, in what sense am I to flee it, to turn adulterer anew? I shall gain nothing if I do flee it: I shall be one body, to which by communion I shall be agglutinated.