I wrote two books, Adulterous Marriages, to the extent that I could in accord with the Scriptures, wishing to resolve a most difficult question. Whether I have done so with full clarity I do not know; rather, I am aware that I have not reached perfection in this matter, although I have opened up many of its recesses, as anyone who reads intelligently will be able to judge.

The first book of this work begins thus: The first question is, most beloved brother Pollentius.

And the second thus: To the things you had written to me.

1. 1. The first question, most beloved brother Pollentius, of those which you took up in writing to me, as though by way of consultation, concerns what the Apostle says: To those who are in marriage I give charge, not I but the Lord, that the wife should not depart from her husband; but if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband; and the husband should not divorce his wife (1 Cor 7:10-11),

whether it is to be taken in such a way that he is understood to have forbidden marriage to the woman who has departed from her husband without the cause of fornication—for this is your view—or, as I held in those books which I wrote many years ago on the Gospel sermon that the Savior delivered on the mountain according to Matthew, that he commanded those women to remain unmarried who had withdrawn from their husbands for that one cause which alone is permitted, namely fornication. For it seems to you that a woman departing from her husband at that point ought not to marry, if she departed without being compelled by any fornication of her husband. Yet you do not consider that, if her husband had no cause of fornication, she ought not to depart and remain unmarried, but ought not to depart at all. For surely she to whom it is commanded that, if she has departed from her husband, she remain unmarried, is not deprived of the license to depart, but of the license to marry.

But if this is so, then license is granted to women who wish to be continent to await no consent of their husbands, so that what was said—that the wife should not depart from her husband (1 Cor 7:10)—would seem to have been a command given to those who could choose not continence but such a divorce as would allow them to enter into marriages with others. And so women who have come to desire no intercourse and to bear no marriage will be permitted to leave their husbands even without any cause of fornication and to remain unmarried according to the Apostle. And husbands likewise (since the rule is the same for both), if they wish to be continent, will desert their wives even without their consent and will remain without any marriage. For then, as you suppose, it would be permitted them to seek other marriages, if the divorce arose from a cause of fornication. But when this cause is absent, it remains, according to what you think, either that a spouse not depart from a spouse, or, if a spouse has departed, that she remain without marriage, or that she return to her former marriage.

Therefore, when no cause of fornication exists, any spouse will be permitted to choose one of three things: either not to depart from the spouse, or, if she has departed, to remain so, or, if she has not remained so, not to seek another but to render herself back to the first.

2. 2. And where, then, is it that the same Apostle was unwilling that spouses defraud one another of the carnal debt, even for a time so as to be free for prayer, except by mutual consent?

How will what he says be sound: But because of fornications, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. Let the husband render to the wife her due, and likewise also the wife to the husband. The wife does not have power over her own body, but the husband; likewise also the husband does not have power over his own body, but the wife (1 Cor 7:2-4)?

How will this be true, except that, when the spouse is unwilling, it is not permitted to the spouse to practice continence? For if it is permitted to a woman to dismiss her husband in such a way that she remains unmarried, then it is not the husband who has power over her body, but she herself; and the same is understood concerning the husband. Then, when it was said, Whoever dismisses his wife, except for the cause of fornication, makes her commit adultery (Matt 5:32), how are we to understand what was said, except that it is forbidden for a man to dismiss his wife if no cause of fornication has arisen?

And the reason was stated, namely, lest he make her commit adultery; and this assuredly because, even if she does not herself dismiss him but is dismissed, she will be an adulteress if she marries.

2. 3. Therefore, on account of so great an evil, it is not permitted for a man to dismiss his wife except for the cause of fornication. For then he does not himself make an adulteress by dismissing her, but he dismisses an adulteress.

What then? If someone should say, "I do indeed dismiss my wife without any cause of fornication, but I shall remain continent," shall we for that reason say that he has done with impunity what he did? Who will dare to say this, who understands the will of the Lord when he says these things? For he who excepted the sole cause of fornication did not will that a spouse be dismissed even for the sake of continence.

3. 3. Let us return, then, to the very words of the Apostle, who says: To those who are in marriage I give charge, not I but the Lord, that the wife should not depart from her husband; but if she does depart, let her remain unmarried (1 Cor 7:10-11).

And let us, as it were, question him and consult him in some way as though present: Why did you say, Apostle, but if she does depart, let her remain unmarried? Is it permitted to depart, or is it not permitted? If it is not permitted, why do you charge the one departing to remain unmarried? But if it is permitted, then surely there is some cause for which it is permitted.

And when this is sought out, no cause is found except the one which the Savior alone excepted, that is, the cause of fornication. And on this account the Apostle does not charge a woman, if she has departed, to remain unmarried, except the one who departs from her husband for that cause for which alone it is permitted her to depart from her husband.

For where it is said, I charge that she not depart; but if she does depart, let her remain unmarried, far be it that the woman who departs in such a way that she remains unmarried should act against this charge.

Unless, therefore, she be understood to be the one to whom it is permitted to depart (and it is not permitted except when her husband is committing fornication), how is she commanded to remain unmarried if she has departed?

Who is there who would say, "If a woman departs from a husband who is not committing fornication, let her remain unmarried," when it is not permitted her at all to depart except from a husband who is committing fornication? And so this view of yours, how greatly it stands opposed to the marriage bond—where the Lord did not will that even continence be undertaken except by equal accord and consent—I think you now understand.

4. 4. But let us set out the matter itself a little more plainly and, as it were, place it before our eyes. Behold, continence has pleased a woman; it does not please her husband. The woman has departed from him and has begun to live continently—she herself, indeed, about to remain chaste, but about to make her husband, which the Lord does not will, an adulterer; for he, since he will not contain himself, will seek another.

What are we to say to the woman, except what the sound doctrine of the Church says? Render the debt to your husband, lest, while you seek something by which you may be more highly honored, he find something by which he may be condemned. For we would say this also to him, if, while you were unwilling to be continent, he had wished to be. For you do not have power over your own body, but he does; just as neither does he have power over his own body, but you do. Do not defraud one another except by consent.

When we have said these things and more of this kind that pertain to this matter, does it please you that the woman should answer us out of this reasoning of yours: "I hear the Apostle saying, I charge that the wife not depart from her husband; but if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband (1 Cor 7:10-11)?

Behold, I have departed; I do not wish to be reconciled to my husband, but I remain unmarried. For he did not say, 'If she departs, let her remain unmarried until she is reconciled to her husband,' but, let her remain, he says, unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. 'Let her do this,' he says, 'or that.' He permitted one of two things to be chosen; he did not compel her into one of them. I choose to remain unmarried, and thus I fulfill the charge. Correct me, reprove me, rebuke me, use what severity you will—if I marry."

5. 5. What shall I say against this woman except: You do not understand the Apostle well? For he would not have charged that, if she had departed from her husband, the woman remain unmarried, except the one to whom it had been permitted to depart—for that one cause, namely, which is there left unspoken because it is most well known, that is, fornication.

For God the master excepted this cause alone, when he was speaking of the wife to be dismissed, and he gave us to understand that such a rule was to be observed by the husband as well, since not only does the wife not have power over her own body, but the husband; but likewise also the husband does not have power over his own body, but the wife (1 Cor 7:4).

Since, therefore, you cannot charge your husband with fornication, how do you think you excuse yourself, by not marrying, for departing from him from whom it is not permitted you to depart at all?

When the woman has heard these things from us, I think you would not wish her to answer in such a way as to say that she remains unmarried for this reason, that she departed without any fornication of her husband; for if he had committed fornication, it would have been permitted her not only to depart but also to marry.

6. 6. By no means would she say this, since you yourself were ashamed to grant this license to women. For you said: "If a husband dismisses an adulterous wife and takes another, the woman alone will bear the reproach. But if a woman dismisses her husband for the cause stated above and takes another, not the man alone but also the woman will bear the reproach."

Giving the reason for this opinion of yours, you say: "For they will say that she departed for this purpose, to join another man to herself, even though he should perhaps be such a one as the one from whom she departed; for it is exceedingly easy for men to rush into the fault of this disease. But if she has both dismissed him and married another, they will say all the more that she sought a multiplicity of men."

Having given this reason, you conclude and say: "These things, therefore, having been treated and indeed discussed, the woman ought either to bear with her husband or to remain unmarried."

You have plainly given good counsel to women: that, although they know it is permitted them, if they have dismissed adulterous husbands, to be joined to others, they should nevertheless not do so on account of the reproach, but should rather bear with even adulterous husbands, lest they seem to wish on this occasion to mingle with many—since it is difficult for a woman not to find one to marry such as the one she dismissed, because men are exceedingly prone to this disease.

Since, therefore, we say that even the woman who has dismissed a husband committing fornication is not permitted to marry another, while you say that it is indeed permitted but not expedient, both of us without doubt say that she who dismisses a husband committing fornication ought not to marry.

But there is this difference: that we, when both spouses are Christians, say to the woman that, if she has departed from a husband committing fornication, it is not permitted her to marry another, but that from a husband not committing fornication it is not permitted her to depart at all; whereas you say that, if a woman has departed from a husband not committing fornication, it is not permitted her to marry another on account of the precept, but if she has departed from one committing fornication, it is not expedient for her to marry on account of the reproach.

And so a woman who will not marry is permitted to depart from her husband, whether he is committing fornication or is not committing fornication.

7. 7. Furthermore, since the blessed Apostle—or rather the Lord through the Apostle—does not permit a woman to depart from a husband who is not committing fornication, it remains that he forbids her, if she has departed, to marry—the woman whom he permits to depart from one committing fornication.

For concerning her of whom it is said, If she has departed from her husband, let her not marry, she is permitted to depart on this condition, that she not marry.

If, then, she has chosen not to marry, there is no reason why she should be forbidden to depart, just as that woman of whom it is said, If she does not contain herself, let her marry (See 1 Cor 7:9), is permitted on this condition not to contain herself, namely, that she marry. If, then, she has chosen to marry, she cannot be compelled to be continent.

As, therefore, this incontinent woman is compelled to marry, so that what she does not contain may not be damnable, so that woman departing from her husband is compelled to remain unmarried, so that her departing may not be blameworthy. But she departs blamably from a husband not committing fornication, even if she has remained unmarried.

Therefore she is charged to remain unmarried, if she has departed, who departs from one committing fornication. Since these things are so, if we should understand the Apostle in such a way as to say to women, "Do not depart from your husbands, even chaste ones, in such a way that, if you wish to depart, you remain unmarried," then all to whom continence has been pleasing will suppose that it is permitted them to depart even without the consent of their husbands.

And since without doubt we ought not to permit this, it remains that we ought to teach that what was said—if she has departed, let her remain unmarried (1 Cor 7:11)—was said of her to whom we have learned it is permitted to depart, namely, from one committing fornication,

lest, if we teach otherwise, we throw Christian marriages into confusion under the pretext of continence and, against the most merciful precept of the Lord, drive into adulteries the incontinent husbands dismissed by continent wives, or the incontinent wives dismissed by continent husbands.

8. 8. That, then, which the Lord said—not indeed in the very sermon which was being expounded by us, but nonetheless elsewhere—Whoever dismisses his wife, except for the cause of fornication, and marries another, commits adultery (Matt 19:9),

if this is to be understood in such a way that whoever dismisses his wife for the cause of fornication and marries another does not commit adultery, then the rule does not seem to be equal for husband and wife in this case,

since a woman, even if she has departed from her husband for the cause of fornication and has married another, commits adultery, whereas a husband, if he has dismissed his wife for the same cause and has married another, does not commit adultery.

But if the rule is equal in both, both commit adultery if they join themselves to another, even when they have separated themselves from one committing fornication.

That the rule for husband and wife is equal in this case the Apostle shows (which must often be recalled) where, when he had said, The wife does not have power over her own body, but the husband, he added and said, likewise also the husband does not have power over his own body, but the wife 1 Cor 7:4; see The Lord's Sermon on the Mount 1.16.45 (PL 34:1251); Questions on the Heptateuch 4.4.59 (PL 34:718, 745)..

9. 9. "Why, then," you say, "did the Lord interpose the cause of fornication and not rather say generally, 'Whoever dismisses his wife and marries another commits adultery,' if he too is an adulterer who, having dismissed a wife committing fornication, marries another?"

I believe it is because the Lord wished to recall what is the greater. For who denies that it is a greater adultery, when a wife not committing fornication has been dismissed, to marry another, than if someone has dismissed a wife committing fornication and then married another? Not because the latter is not adultery, but because it is less, where, the wife committing fornication having been dismissed, another is married.

For the Apostle James too, using a similar manner of speech, says, To one who knows the good to do and does not do it, to him it is sin (Jas 4:17).

Is it then for that reason not sin also for the one who does not know the good to do and therefore does not do it? Surely it is sin; but this is more grievous, if one also knows and does not do it—nor is the former for that reason nothing, because it is less.

So that we may state both in the same way: just as whoever dismisses his wife, except for the cause of fornication, and marries another, commits adultery, so whoever knows the good to do and does not do it, sins. But just as here it cannot rightly be said, "Therefore if he does not know, he does not sin"—

for there are also sins of those who are ignorant, though lesser than those of those who know—so neither there can it rightly be said, "Therefore if he has dismissed her for the cause of fornication and married another, he does not commit adultery"; for there is adultery also in those who marry others, having left their former wives on account of fornication, but assuredly a lesser one than in those who dismiss not on account of fornication and marry others.

For it can, just as it was said, To one who knows the good to do and does not do it, to him it is sin (Jas 4:17), in the same way also be said: "To one who dismisses his wife without the cause of fornication and marries another, to him it is adultery." Just as, therefore, if we should say, "Whoever marries a woman dismissed by her husband apart from the cause of fornication commits adultery," we without doubt say what is true, yet do not for that reason absolve from this crime the man who has married a woman dismissed on account of the cause of fornication, but we by no means doubt that both are adulterers:

so we pronounce an adulterer the man who has dismissed his wife apart from the cause of fornication and married another; nor do we for that reason defend from the stain of this sin the man who has dismissed her on account of the cause of fornication and married another.

For we recognize that both are adulterers, although the one more grievously than the other. For no one is so absurd as to deny that he is an adulterer who has married the woman whom her husband cast off on account of the cause of fornication, while he calls an adulterer the man who has married the woman who was cast off apart from the cause of fornication. Thus, therefore, these two are both adulterers. Hence, when we say, "Whoever marries a woman dismissed by her husband apart from the cause of fornication commits adultery," we speak indeed of one of them, yet do not for that reason deny that he commits adultery who has married the woman whom her husband dismissed on account of the cause of fornication:

so, since both are adulterers—both, namely, the man who has dismissed his wife apart from the cause of fornication and married another, and the man who, his wife having been dismissed on account of the cause of fornication, has coupled himself to another—surely, when we read of one of them, we ought not so to understand it as though, by the fact that the one is expressed, the other is denied to be an adulterer.

9. 10. But if the evangelist Matthew, because, one case being expressed, he passed over the other in silence, makes it difficult to understand, did not the others perhaps embrace this same thing generally in such a way that it can be understood of both?

For according to Mark it is written thus: Whoever dismisses his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if a wife dismisses her husband and marries another, she commits adultery (Mark 10:11-12).

According to Luke thus: Everyone who dismisses his wife and marries another commits adultery; and he who marries one dismissed by her husband commits adultery (Luke 16:18).

Who, then, are we, to say, "There is one who commits adultery in marrying another after dismissing his wife, and there is one who, doing this, does not commit adultery," when the Gospel says that everyone who does this commits adultery? Accordingly, if whoever does this—that is, everyone who does this, namely, that, his wife having been dismissed, he marries another—commits adultery, then without doubt both are included there: both he who dismisses his wife apart from the cause of fornication and he who dismisses her on account of the cause of fornication. For this is the meaning of whoever dismisses; this is the meaning of everyone who dismisses.

10. 11. But it is not the case (as for some reason seemed to you) that, when I was citing the words of the Gospel according to Matthew, I omitted what is written, and marries another, and so said commits adultery; rather, I set down those words which are read in that lengthy sermon which the Lord delivered on the mountain. For it was this sermon I had undertaken to treat, and the words there are read just as I set them down, that is: Whoever dismisses his wife, except for the cause of fornication, makes her commit adultery; and he who marries a woman loosed from her husband commits adultery (Matt 5:32).

And although some copies render the same sense in different words, they nonetheless do not differ from what is understood. For some have, whoever dismisses; others, everyone who dismisses; and likewise some, except for the cause of fornication; others, apart from the cause of fornication; others, unless on account of the cause of fornication; likewise some, he who marries a woman loosed from her husband commits adultery; others, he who marries a woman dismissed by her husband commits adultery.

Here, I think, you see that it makes no difference to one and the same meaning. Although that last clause, that is, he who marries a woman dismissed by her husband commits adultery, some manuscripts both Greek and Latin do not have in that sermon which the Lord delivered on the mountain. I believe this is because there too the sense could be thought already to have been unfolded in what was said above, makes her commit adultery. For how does a dismissed woman become an adulteress, unless he who marries her becomes an adulterer?

11. 12. But the words which you yourself set down, from which it seemed to you that he does not commit adultery who has dismissed his wife on account of the cause of fornication and married another, are indeed set down obscurely. Hence I do not wonder that the reader labors in understanding them; but they are not in that sermon of the Lord which was then being treated by me, when I wrote those things which moved you as you read them.

For elsewhere the same Matthew related that the Lord said these things, not when he was delivering that lengthy sermon on the mountain, but when he had been asked by the Pharisees whether it was permitted to dismiss a wife for any cause whatever. But what is less clearly understood in Matthew can be understood in the other evangelists. Therefore, when we read in the Gospel according to Matthew, Whoever dismisses his wife, unless on account of fornication—or, as is more often read in the Greek, apart from the cause of fornication, and marries another, commits adultery (Matt 19:9)—we ought not at once to think that he does not commit adultery who has dismissed his wife on account of the cause of fornication and married another, but still to remain in doubt until we consult the Gospel according to the other evangelists, by whom this was related.

What then? For what if, according to Matthew, not indeed the whole of what pertains to this matter was stated, but a part was so stated that the whole was to be understood from the part, which Mark and Luke, as it were explaining, preferred to state in full, so that the complete meaning might be clear?

And so, when, first not doubting that what is read in Matthew is true—Whoever dismisses his wife apart from the cause of fornication and marries another commits adultery—we have asked whether only this man commits adultery by marrying another wife, who has dismissed his former wife apart from the cause of fornication, or everyone who, his wife having been dismissed, marries another, so that there too is included the man who has dismissed a wife committing fornication,

will it not be answered to us according to Mark: "Why do you ask whether the one is an adulterer and the other is not? Whoever dismisses his wife and marries another commits adultery (Mark 10:11)"?

Will it not also be said to us according to Luke: "Why do you doubt whether the man who has dismissed his wife on account of the cause of fornication and married another does not commit adultery? Everyone who dismisses his wife and marries another commits adultery."

And on this account, since it is not lawful for us to say that the evangelists, though speaking of one matter in different words, dissent from one sense and the same meaning, it remains that we understand Matthew to have wished to signify the whole by a part, yet to have held the same meaning, so that it is not the case that a certain man who dismisses his wife and marries another commits adultery—that is, the one who has dismissed her apart from fornication—while a certain man does not commit adultery—that is, the one who has dismissed her on account of fornication—but that it be in no way doubted that everyone who dismisses his wife and marries another commits adultery.

12. 13. For that too which follows according to Luke—He who marries a woman dismissed by her husband commits adultery (Luke 16:18)—how is it true?

How does he commit adultery, except that she whom he has married is still, while he by whom she was dismissed is living, another man's wife? For if he is now united to his own wife, not to another man's, then surely he does not commit adultery;

but he does commit adultery. She, therefore, to whom he is united is another man's. Now if she is another man's, that is, his by whom she was dismissed, then even if she was dismissed on account of the cause of fornication, she has not yet ceased to be the wife of the one who dismisses her.

But if she has ceased to be his, then she is now this man's, whom she has married as another; and if she is his, he is to be judged not an adulterer, but a husband.

But because Scripture calls him not a husband but an adulterer, she still belongs to the one by whom she was cast off, even for the cause of fornication. And therefore whatever woman, once she has been dismissed, this man too marries, because she lies with another man's husband, she is an adulteress. And how can it come about that he too is not an adulterer, since it is established that she whom he has married commits adultery?

13. 14. Let us now consider that which the Apostle says: But to the rest I say, not the Lord (1 Cor 7:12), intending, namely, to speak of unequal marriages, that is, where both were not Christians.

And it seems to me that he said this by way of admonishing. For because a believing spouse could lawfully leave an unbelieving spouse, therefore it is not the Lord but the Apostle who forbids this to be done. For what the Lord forbids, it is not at all permitted to do.

The Apostle therefore admonishes, because it could be an occasion for gaining many, that believing spouses not use the permitted license in leaving unbelievers. But it seems to you that it is also not permitted for unbelievers to be dismissed by believers, because the Apostle forbids this, whereas I say that it is permitted, because the Lord does not forbid it, yet that it is not expedient, because the Apostle admonishes that it not be done—he who also gives a reason why it is not expedient to do it, although it is permitted.

For how do you know, wife, he says, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife? (1 Cor 7:16). Since he had also said above, For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving woman is sanctified in the brother—that is, in the Christian—otherwise your children, he says, would be unclean; but as it is, they are holy (1 Cor 7:14).

Thus, toward gaining spouses and children for Christ, he seems to have exhorted them even by examples that had already come about. Why, then, it is not expedient that unbelieving spouses too be dismissed by believers, the cause has been clearly expressed. For it is not in order that the marriage bond with such persons be preserved, but in order that they may be won over to Christ, that the Apostle forbids departing from unbelieving spouses.

14. 15. Now there are many things to be done not by the command of the Law, but by free love; and those are the more pleasing among our offices which, although it was permitted us not to expend them, we nevertheless expend for the sake of love.

Hence the Lord himself first, when he had shown that he did not owe the tribute, nevertheless paid it, lest he give offense to those whom, bearing manhood, he was caring for unto eternal salvation (See Matt 17:24-27). And how the Apostle commends these things, his words bear witness, where he says: For although I am free from all, I have made myself the servant of all, that I might gain the more (1 Cor 9:19).

When he had said a little before: Do we not have the power to eat and to drink? Do we not have the right to take about with us a sister as wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? Or do I alone and Barnabas not have the power to do this? Who ever serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Who tends a flock and does not partake of the milk of the flock? (1 Cor 9:4-7). And a little after: If others, he says, share in this power over you, do not we still more? But we have not used this power, but we endure all things, lest we put any hindrance in the way of the Gospel of Christ (1 Cor 9:12).

Then after a few words: What then, he says, will be my reward? That in preaching I may set forth the Gospel without cost, so that I may not make full use of my power in the Gospel (1 Cor 9:18). And he immediately subjoins what I recalled a little earlier: For although I am free from all, I have made myself the servant of all, that I might gain the more (1 Cor 9:19).

Likewise in another place, concerning certain things that pertain to food: All things, he says, are lawful for me, but not all things are expedient; all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of anything. Food is for the belly and the belly for food, but God will destroy both this and these (1 Cor 6:12-13).

Likewise elsewhere on this same matter: All things are lawful for me, but not all things are expedient; all things are lawful, but not all things build up. Let no one seek what is his own, but that which is another's (1 Cor 10:23-24). And, to show whence he was speaking: Eat, he says, whatever comes in the market, asking no question on the ground of conscience (1 Cor 10:25). And yet elsewhere he says: I will not eat meat forever, that I may not give offense to my brother (1 Cor 8:13).

And likewise elsewhere: All things indeed are clean, but it is evil for the man who eats with offense (Rom 14:20). What is all things are lawful is the same as all things indeed are clean; and what is but not all things are expedient is the same as but it is evil for the man who eats with offense. Thus he shows that those things which are lawful—that is, are forbidden by no precept of the Lord—are rather to be handled as is expedient, not by the prescription of the Law, but by the counsel of love.

These are the things that are paid out in addition for the wounded man, who, to be cared for, was brought to the inn through the compassion of that Samaritan (See Luke 10:33-35). And therefore they are said not to be commanded by the Lord, although it is by the Lord that they are admonished to be offered, so that they may be understood to be the more pleasing the more they are shown to be undue.

15. 16. But concerning those things which are such that, although they are permitted, they are not expedient, it cannot be said of them, "This is good, but that is better," as was said: He who gives in marriage does well; and he who does not give in marriage does better (1 Cor 7:38). For there both are permitted, and sometimes this, sometimes that, is expedient.

For to those women who do not contain themselves, it is surely expedient to marry, and what is permitted is expedient; but to those who have vowed continence, it is neither permitted nor expedient.

Further, to depart from an unbelieving spouse is permitted, but it is not expedient; whereas to remain with that spouse, if the spouse consents to cohabit, is both permitted and expedient; because, if it were not permitted, it could not be expedient.

Therefore something can be permitted and not be expedient; but what is not permitted cannot be expedient. And on this account, not all things that are lawful are expedient; but all things unlawful are not expedient. For just as everyone who has been redeemed by the blood of Christ is a man, yet not everyone who is a man has also been redeemed by the blood of Christ, so everything that is not permitted is not expedient, yet not everything that is not expedient is also not permitted. For there are lawful things which are not expedient, as we have learned on the Apostle's testimony.

16. 17. But what the difference is between that which is unlawful and therefore not expedient, and that which is lawful and yet not expedient, is difficult to define by any universal rule.

For someone would more readily say: "Everything that is not expedient to do is sin; but every sin is unlawful. Therefore everything that is not expedient is unlawful." And where then will be those things which the Apostle said are lawful but not expedient, if everything that is not expedient is not lawful?

Wherefore, since we cannot doubt that the Apostle spoke the truth, and we do not dare to say that some sins are lawful, it remains for us to say that something is done which is not expedient, and yet, if it is lawful, is not a sin—although, since it is not expedient, it is surely not to be done.

But if it seems absurd that something be done which is not expedient and that the one who has done it be said to have sinned, it must be understood that this is absurd from the customary use of speech, which extends so widely that we say even beasts of burden, although they are devoid of reason, ought nonetheless for the most part to be beaten when they "sin"; whereas to sin, properly speaking, belongs only to one who uses the rational choice of the will, which among all mortal living things has been divinely assigned to none but man. But it is one thing when we speak properly, another when we borrow words by transferring them from other things or by using them loosely.

17. 18. In order, then, if we can, to strive to distinguish by some fixed boundary between that which is permitted and not expedient, and that which is not permitted and therefore not expedient: those things seem to me to be permitted and not expedient which are indeed allowed by the justice that is in the sight of God, but, on account of giving offense to people—lest they be thereby hindered from salvation—are to be avoided; whereas those things are not permitted and therefore not expedient which are so forbidden by justice itself that they are not to be done, even if they should be praised by those to whom they have come to notice. And if this is so, then only unlawful things are forbidden by the Lord, so that those things which are lawful and not expedient may be guarded against not by the bond of the Law, but by the free kindness of love.

17. 19. Wherefore, if it were not permitted to dismiss an unbelieving spouse, the Lord would forbid this to be done, and the Apostle, in forbidding it, would not say, I say, not the Lord (1 Cor 7:12). For if, on account of fornication of the flesh, a person is allowed to be separated from a spouse, how much more is the fornication of the mind to be detested in a spouse—that is, the fornication of unbelief, of which it is written: For behold, those who put themselves far from you shall perish; you have destroyed everyone who commits fornication against you (Ps 73:27 (72:27))!

18. 19. But because it is lawful in such a way that it is not expedient—lest, on account of separations of spouses, people, taking offense, shudder at the very doctrine of salvation by which unlawful things are forbidden, and thus, worse and bound to perish, remain in the same unbelief—the Apostle intervenes and by admonition forbids what is lawful in such a way that it is not expedient.

For believing men or women are so not forbidden by the Lord to withdraw from unbelieving wives or husbands that neither are they commanded to. For if they were commanded to dismiss such spouses, there would be no place for the counsel of the admonishing Apostle that this not be done. For in no way would a good servant forbid to be done what the Lord commands.

18. 20. For at one time the Lord commanded this through the prophet Ezra, and it was done; the Israelites dismissed their foreign wives, all who were then able to have them (See Ezra 10:11-12), through whom it was coming about that they too were led astray to foreign gods, rather than that those wives were won over to the true God through their husbands.

For the grace of the Savior had not yet shone forth so greatly, and the multitude of that people still gaped after the temporal promises of the Old Testament.

And therefore, since they saw earthly goods, which they sought from the Lord as something great, abound also among those who worshiped many false gods, they were first afraid, through the blandishments of their wives, to offend those gods, and then were led on to worship them as well.

Hence the Lord had commanded through holy Moses that no one take a foreign wife (See Deut 7:3).

Rightly, then, the wives they had taken when the Lord forbade it, they dismissed when the Lord commanded it.

But when the Gospel had begun to be preached to the gentiles, it found gentiles already joined to gentiles as spouses:

and of these, if both did not believe, but only the one or the other, and the unbeliever consented to dwell with the believer, the believer ought neither to be forbidden by the Lord to dismiss the unbeliever nor to be commanded to:

not forbidden, namely, because justice allows departing from one committing fornication, and the fornication of an unbelieving person is greater, being in the heart,

nor can his chastity with his spouse be called true, because everything that is not of faith is sin (Rom 14:23):

although the believer has true chastity even with an unbelieving spouse, who does not have the true.

And believers ought not to be commanded to be separated from unbelievers, because it was not against the command of the Lord that the two gentiles were joined.

18. 21. Since, therefore, the Lord neither forbids nor commands a believer to depart from an unbeliever, therefore it is the Apostle who says that one should not depart, not the Lord—the Apostle having, to be sure, the Holy Spirit, in whom he could give useful and faithful counsel.

Hence, when he had said concerning a woman whose husband has died, But she will be more blessed if she remains so, according to my counsel (1 Cor 7:40), lest anyone think this counsel was to be despised as human and not divine, he added: but I think that I too have the Spirit of God (1 Cor 7:40). Accordingly it must be understood that even those very things which are not commanded by the Lord, but are usefully urged by his holy servant, are urged by the inspiration of the same Lord.

For far be it that any Catholic should say that, when the Holy Spirit urges, it is not the Lord who urges, since the Spirit is himself the Lord and the works of the Trinity are inseparable.

Yet he says: But concerning virgins I have no command of the Lord; but I give my counsel (1 Cor 7:25). Not that we should reckon this counsel foreign to the Lord, since it immediately follows that he says: as one who by the mercy of God has been made faithful (1 Cor 7:25). Therefore, in accord with God, he gives faithful counsel in that Spirit of whom he says: but I think that I too have the Spirit of God (1 Cor 7:40).

18. 22. Nevertheless the command of the Lord who orders is one thing; the faithful counsel of a fellow servant, according to the mercy of love which has been inspired and given to him by the Lord, is another.

There it is not permitted to do otherwise; here, however, it is permitted, in such a way, to be sure, that the permitted thing itself is in part expedient and in part not expedient.

It is expedient then, when it is allowed not only by the justice that is in the sight of the Lord, but also no hindrance to salvation is thereby brought upon people: as when the Apostle gives counsel to virgins not to marry—whence he testifies that he does not have a command of the Lord—it is permitted to do otherwise, that is, to marry and to hold the good of marriage, which is less than that of continence, yet a good.

And the permitted thing itself is also expedient, since it so receives, by the honorableness of marrying, the weakness of the flesh that would otherwise rush into forbidden and unlawful things, that it hinders no one from salvation—although it would be more expedient and more honorable if the virgin should seize the counsel into which the precept does not compel her.

But that which is lawful is not expedient at the point when it is indeed permitted, but the use of that very power brings upon others a hindrance to salvation.

Such is the case, of which we have now long been speaking: the departure of a believing spouse from an unbeliever, which the Lord does not forbid by a precept of the Law, because it is not unjust in his sight,

but which the Apostle forbids by the counsel of love, because it brings upon unbelievers a hindrance to salvation: not only because, taking offense, they are scandalized most perniciously, but also because, when they have fallen into other marriages while those still live by whom they are dismissed, they are bound by adulterous ties most difficult to be loosed.

19. 23. Therefore here, where what is permitted is not expedient, it cannot be said, "If he dismisses the unbeliever, he does well; if he does not dismiss her, he does better,"

as was said: He who gives in marriage does well; and he who does not give in marriage does better (1 Cor 7:38);

since in that case not only is each alike permitted—whence by a precept of the Lord no one is compelled to either of them—but each is also expedient, the one less, the other more, whence whoever can lay hold of it is, by the counsel of the Apostle, summoned to that which is more expedient.

But in this case, where the question is of dismissing or not dismissing an unbelieving spouse, each is indeed alike lawful by the justice that is in the sight of the Lord, and therefore the Lord forbids neither of them; but not each is expedient, on account of the weaknesses of people, and therefore the Apostle forbids what is not expedient, the Lord giving him free room to forbid, since neither does the Lord forbid what the Apostle admonishes, nor does the Lord command what the Apostle forbids.

And unless this were so, the Apostle would neither admonish anything against the Lord's prohibition, nor forbid anything against his command. Accordingly, in these two cases—one concerning marrying or not marrying, the other concerning dismissing or not dismissing an unbelieving spouse—there is something alike in the words of the Apostle, and something unlike.

Alike indeed in this, that there too he says, I have no command of the Lord, but I give my counsel (1 Cor 7:25); and here he says, I say, not the Lord (1 Cor 7:12). For what I have no command of the Lord is, that the Lord does not say is; and what I give counsel is, that I say is.

But this is unlike, that concerning marrying and not marrying it can be said that this is done well, that better, since each is expedient, the one less, the other more; whereas concerning dismissing or not dismissing an unbelieving spouse, since one of these is not expedient and the other is expedient, it ought not to be said, "He who dismisses does well, and he who does not dismiss does better," but it ought to be said, "Let him not dismiss, because, even though it is permitted, it is not expedient."

Thus, then, we can say that it is better not to dismiss an unbelieving spouse, although it is also permitted to dismiss her, just as we rightly say that what is both permitted and expedient is better than what is permitted but not expedient. Dismissing an unbelieving spouse is not to be done, on account of free goodwill.

20. 24. For these reasons it came about that, in expounding the sermon of the Lord which he delivered at length on the mountain, when I came to the question of dismissing or not dismissing spouses, I said, adducing apostolic testimonies as well, that it was a counsel of the Apostle, not a precept of the Lord, where he says, But to the rest I say, not the Lord (1 Cor 7:12), admonishing those who had unbelieving spouses that, when they consented to dwell with them, they should not dismiss them.

And this assuredly had to be admonished, not commanded, because people are not to be forbidden with so great a weight to do lawful things, although they are not expedient, as with the weight by which unlawful things are forbidden.

But if somewhere the Apostle deigned to admonish even those things which are to be commanded, he did this by sparing weakness, not by prejudging the command. Hence if he said, I write these things not to confound you, but I admonish you as my dearest children (1 Cor 4:14), what difficulty is there where he says, I say, not the Lord? Likewise, where he says, Behold, I, Paul, say to you that if you are circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing (Gal 5:2), did he there too say, I say, not the Lord?

And so these cases are not alike, because even those things which the Lord commands, it is neither unworthy nor contrary if the Apostle admonishes the same. For we admonish those whom we hold dear to do the precepts, or commands, of the Lord. But when he says, I say, not the Lord, he shows clearly enough that the Lord does not forbid what he himself was forbidding (See 1 Cor 7:12). But the Lord would have forbidden it, if it were unlawful. Therefore, according to those things which we have said above at length and turned over much, it was lawful by justice, but, though lawful, was not to be done, on account of free goodwill.

21. 25. But you, to whom it is pleasing that what the Lord does not forbid, but the Apostle does, be not permitted just as what the Lord forbids is not permitted, when you wished to expound what he meant by saying I say, not the Lord (1 Cor 7:12), since he was addressing believers who had unbelieving spouses, you said: "Because the Lord commanded that marriages of different religion not be joined to one another,"

and you adduced this very testimony of the Lord, who says: You shall not take a wife for your son from the daughters of foreigners, lest she lead him astray after their gods and his soul perish (Deut 7:3-4). You also added the words of the Apostle, where he said, A woman is bound as long as her husband lives. But if her husband dies, she is freed; let her marry whom she wishes, only in the Lord (1 Cor 7:39), which you expounded by adding, "that is, a Christian."

Then you went on and said: "This, therefore, is the Lord's precept both in the Old and in the New Testament, that only marriages of one religion and faith remain joined to one another."

If, then, this is the Lord's precept, both in the Old Testament and in the New, and the Lord commands this, the Apostle teaches this, that only marriages of one religion and faith remain joined together, why, against this command of the Lord, against his own teaching, against the precept of the Old and New Testament, does the Apostle command that marriages of different faith remain joined together?

"Because Paul," you say, "the preacher and Apostle of the gentiles, not only admonishes but also commands those already established in marriage that, if one or the other of the spouses has believed, he not dismiss the other, who does not believe but nevertheless consents to dwell with him."

By these words of yours you show clearly enough that this is one thing and that another.

For the one concerns those marriages which are first joined to one another, that a woman not marry a man not of her religion, or a man take such a woman to wife. "For this, as you say, God commands, the Apostle teaches, both Testaments enjoin."

But who would deny that this other is different, where the question is not of those to be joined, but of those already joined? For both were of one and the same unbelief when they were joined; but when the Gospel had come, the one without the other, or the other without the one, believed.

If, then, this is a different matter, which appears without the least scruple of doubt, why does not the Lord, like the Apostle, also command that a believer remain in marriage with an unbeliever? Unless perhaps in this place there is no force to what he himself says so confidently: Do you wish to receive proof of the Christ who speaks in me? (2 Cor 13:3) And surely Christ is the Lord. Do you understand what I am saying? Or shall I dwell somewhat more carefully on explaining this?

21. 26. Attend, that we may set the matter itself in plainer speech, to be considered as it were in plain view. Behold, two spouses of one unbelief; so they were when they were joined. There is no question about these that pertains to that command of the Lord and the apostolic teaching and the precept of the Old and New Testament by which a believer is forbidden to join a marriage with an unbeliever.

They are now spouses, and both are still unbelievers; they are still such as they were before they were joined, and such as they were when joined. The preacher of the Gospel comes; the one or the other of them believes—but in such a way that the unbeliever consents to dwell with the believer. Does the Lord command the believer not to dismiss the unbeliever, or does he not command it? If you say, "He commands it," the Apostle cries out against you: I say, not the Lord (1 Cor 7:12); if you say, "He does not command it," I ask the reason.

Nor are you going to give me that reason which you put in your letter: "Because the Lord forbids believers to be joined to unbelievers." For here that reason in no way applies; we are speaking of those already joined, not of those to be joined.

If, then, you have not found the reason why the Lord does not forbid what the Apostle forbids (for you now see, as I suppose, that it is not the reason you had thought it was), consider whether perhaps it is that which seemed to me, both to be brought forward then and to be defended now,

namely, that we understand the Lord to say that which has, in his sight, a justice that may in no way be transgressed—that is, which he so commands or forbids that to do otherwise is not at all permitted;

but that which he so leaves to the power of the one willing that it is neither done nor omitted unlawfully, he himself gives room to the counsel of his servants, so that they may rather urge what they have seen to be expedient.

21. 27. Let this, then, be held first and above all: that unlawful things not be committed. But where something is permitted in such a way that to do otherwise is not unlawful, let what is expedient, or what is more expedient, be done.

Those things, therefore, which the Lord says as the Lord—that is, not by the counsel of one admonishing, but by the command of one who rules—it is not permitted not to do, and therefore neither is it expedient.

The Lord, then, gave charge that the wife not depart from her husband; but if she does depart (for that cause, namely, for which it is lawful to depart), let her remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband (1 Cor 7:10-11).

For a woman is bound by law to her husband, while her husband lives; and while her husband lives, she will be called an adulteress if she is with another man (Rom 7:2-3); since a woman is bound as long as her husband lives (1 Cor 7:39).

Hence: If a wife dismisses her husband and marries another, she commits adultery (Mark 10:12); and He who marries a woman dismissed by her husband commits adultery (Matt 19:9; Luke 16:18).

And therefore from the same precept of the Lord: and let the husband not dismiss his wife (1 Cor 7:11); since he who dismisses his wife apart from the cause of fornication makes her commit adultery (Matt 5:32).

But if he has dismissed her on account of this cause, let him too remain so: for everyone who dismisses his wife and marries another commits adultery (Luke 16:18).

22. 27. These ordinances of the Lord are to be kept without any reconsideration. For they have that justice which is in his sight, whether people approve or disapprove. And therefore it ought not to be said, on account of giving offense to people, or lest people be hindered from that salvation which is in Christ, that they are not to be kept. For what Christian would dare to say, "Lest I offend people, or that I may win people for Christ, I will make my wife commit adultery, so that I myself may become an adulterer"?

22. 28. For it can happen that, when some Christian has dismissed an adulterous wife, he is so tempted that some woman who has not yet believed, desiring to enter into marriage with him, promises that she will become a Christian—not deceitfully, but altogether intending to do this if she marries him.

And so, to this man refusing this marriage, that tempter will be able to suggest: "The Lord said, Whoever dismisses his wife apart from the cause of fornication and marries another commits adultery (Matt 5:32); but you, who dismissed your wife on account of the cause of fornication, if you marry another, will not commit adultery."

To this man suggesting such things let him answer with an instructed heart that, indeed, he commits adultery more grievously who, his wife having been dismissed apart from the cause of fornication, has married another;

but that he too, who, his wife committing fornication having been dismissed, has coupled another to himself, does not for that reason not commit adultery, because he leaves behind one committing adultery:

just as he commits adultery who marries the woman who is dismissed apart from the cause of fornication, neither for that reason does he not commit adultery who marries the woman whom he has found dismissed apart from the cause of fornication.

And therefore what is set down somewhat obscurely in Matthew, since the whole was signified by a part, has been expounded in the others, who expressed the whole generally, as is read in Mark: Whoever dismisses his wife and marries another commits adultery (Mark 10:12); and in Luke: Everyone who dismisses his wife and marries another commits adultery (Luke 16:18).

For they did not say that some commit adultery and others do not commit adultery who, having dismissed their wives, marry others; but, whoever dismisses—they said that absolutely everyone who dismisses his wife and marries another commits adultery, without any exception."

23. 29. But if that Christian should answer the tempter in this way, understanding that it was indeed permitted him to dismiss an adulteress, but that it is not permitted to marry another, what then? If that tempter should say, "Commit this sin, so that you may win a soul for Christ—the soul of a woman set in the death of unbelief, who is ready, if she marries you, to become a Christian"?

what else ought the Christian to answer to these things and to say, except that he cannot, if he does this, escape the judgment which the Apostle recalled, where he says, And as some report that we say, "Let us do evil that good may come," whose condemnation is just (Rom 3:8)? And how could she be wholesomely a Christian who will be an adulteress with the man by whom she is married?

24. 30. But not only must adultery not be committed—which is committed not by a certain man but by everyone who dismisses his wife and marries another, even if he married for the purpose of making her a Christian—

but also whoever, not being bound to a wife, has vowed continence to God ought in no way to sin by this trade-off, so as to believe that he ought to take a wife because the woman who seeks marriage with him has promised that she will become a Christian.

For what was permitted to anyone before he had vowed, will not be permitted once he has vowed that he will never do it;

provided, however, that he has vowed what ought to be vowed—such as perpetual virginity, or continence after marriages have been experienced, by those loosed from the marriage bond, or by believing and chaste spouses who vow by consent and release to one another the carnal debts—which it is not lawful for the one to vow without the other.

These things, then, and any others that are most rightly vowed, when people have vowed them, are to be broken on no condition, which they vowed without any condition. For this too is to be understood as commanded by the Lord, where it is read, Make vows and render them to the Lord your God (Ps 76:11 (75:12)). Hence the Apostle says of certain women who vow continence and afterward wish to marry, which before they had vowed was surely permitted them: having, he says, condemnation, because they have made their first faith void (1 Tim 5:12).

24. 31. Nothing, therefore, that is unlawful is expedient, and nothing that the Lord forbids is lawful.

25. 31. But in those things which, with no precept of the Lord constraining, are left in our power, let the Apostle be heard, admonishing and counseling in the Holy Spirit, that either better things be laid hold of, or those which are not expedient be guarded against.

There let him be heard saying, I have no command of the Lord, but I give my counsel (1 Cor 7:25); and, I say, not the Lord (1 Cor 7:12). There, if he who hears chooses the better things—Are you loosed from a wife? Do not seek a wife, because even if you take a wife, you do not sin (1 Cor 7:27-28)—there let the virgin not marry. For he who does not give in marriage does better; and he who gives in marriage does well (1 Cor 7:38).

There let the woman be more blessed by remaining so, who, her husband having died, has it in her power to marry whom she wishes, only in the Lord (1 Cor 7:39). This can be taken in two ways: either remaining a Christian, or marrying a Christian. For I do not recall that, in the time of the revealed New Testament, it was declared without ambiguity, in the Gospel or in any apostolic writings, whether the Lord forbade believers to be joined to unbelievers, although the most blessed Cyprian does not doubt of this, nor does he reckon among light sins to join the bond of matrimony with unbelievers, and he says that this is to prostitute to the gentiles the members of Christ (Cyprian, On the Lapsed 6).

But because concerning those who are already joined it is another question, here too let the Apostle be heard, saying: If any brother has an unbelieving wife and she consents to dwell with him, let him not dismiss her; and if any woman has an unbelieving husband and he consents to dwell with her, let her not dismiss her husband (1 Cor 7:12-13).

And let him be so heard that, although it is lawful to do it, because the Lord does not say this, it nevertheless not be done, because it is not expedient. For the Apostle teaches most plainly that not all things which are lawful are expedient (See 1 Cor 10:23), as we have already shown above.

On account of any kind of fornication whatever, however—whether of the flesh or of the spirit, where unbelief too is understood—both, when a husband has been dismissed, it is not permitted to marry another, and, when a wife has been dismissed, it is not permitted to marry another;

since the Lord says, with no exception made: If a wife dismisses her husband and marries another, she commits adultery (Mark 10:12); and, Everyone who dismisses his wife and marries another commits adultery (Luke 16:18).

25. 32. Having thus treated and discussed these things to the measure of my ability, I am nonetheless not unaware that the question concerning marriages is most obscure and most involved. Nor do I dare to profess that I have yet unfolded all its recesses, either in this work or in another, or that I could now unfold them, if I were pressed. But as for that on which you think I should be consulted on another sheet, I too would take care to resolve it separately, if it seemed otherwise to me than it seemed to you; but since our opinion is the same, there is no need to dispute about it any longer.

26. 33. For catechumens, then, set in the last extremity of this life, if they are so overcome by illness or by some accident that, although they still live, they nevertheless cannot ask baptism for themselves or answer the questions, let it profit them that their will is already known to be in the Christian faith, so that they may be baptized in the same way as infants are baptized, whose will has not yet appeared at all (See Augustine, Confessions 4.4.8).

Yet we ought not on that account to condemn those who act more timidly than it seems to us ought to be done, lest we be judged to have wished to judge more rashly than cautiously concerning the money entrusted to a fellow servant. For in such matters that word of the Apostle must be sufficiently regarded, where he says: Each one of us will render an account of himself to God (Rom 14:12).

Let us, then, no longer judge one another. For there are those who think that, whether in these matters or even in others, attention must be paid to what we read the Lord said: Do not give what is holy to the dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine (Matt 7:6). And, revering these words of the Savior, they do not dare to baptize those who have been unable to answer for themselves, lest perhaps they bear a choice of will to the contrary.

This cannot be said of little ones, in whom there is as yet no use of reason. But not only is it incredible that a catechumen does not wish to be baptized even at the end of this life;

but also, if his will is uncertain, it is far better to give to one unwilling than to deny to one willing,

where it does not appear whether he wishes it or not, yet in such a way that it is more credible that he, if he could, would rather have said that he wished to receive those sacraments without which he has already believed that he ought not to depart from the body.

27. 34. But if the Lord, where he says, Do not give what is holy to the dogs (Matt 7:6), wished that to be understood which these men think must be guarded against, he would not himself have given to his own betrayer that which he, unworthy, received together with the worthy, to his own ruin, without fault on the part of the giver.

Hence, when the Lord said this, it must be believed that he wished to signify that unclean hearts do not bear the light of spiritual understanding. And if a teacher should press things to be borne upon those who do not rightly receive them, because they do not grasp them, they either tear them apart with the bites of reproach or trample them down by contempt. For if the blessed Apostle says that to those who were already reborn in Christ, yet still little ones, he gave milk, not solid food—For you were not yet able, he says, nor indeed are you even now able (1 Cor 3:2)—if, finally, the Lord himself said to the chosen apostles, I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now (John 16:12), how much less can the unclean minds of the ungodly bear whatever is said about the incorporeal light?

28. 35. But, so that our discourse may rather be closed at the point from which it took its beginning: I think that not only other catechumens but also those very persons who, joined to the spouses of living people, retain adulterous unions—although, while they are sound in body, we do not admit them to baptism—are nonetheless to be baptized if they have lain in despair and have been unable to answer for themselves, so that this sin too, with the rest, may be washed away by the laver of regeneration.

For who knows whether perhaps they had resolved to be held back by the allurement of adulterous flesh only until baptism?

But if, restored from that despair, they should be able to live, they will either do what they had resolved, or, being instructed, will comply, or there will become of them as despisers what ought to become even of such baptized persons.

But the cause of reconciliation is the same as that of baptism, if perhaps the peril of ending life has come upon a penitent before its time. For mother Church ought not to wish even these to depart from this life without the pledge of her peace.

2. 2. The first of these is that to which I think I ought to respond: that in these words of the Apostle, where he says, But to the rest I say, not the Lord, that the wife not depart from her husband; but if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband (1 Cor 7:10-11),

you do not think that if she does depart was said in such a way that she is understood to have departed from a husband committing fornication, the one cause for which it is lawful to depart;

but rather you suppose that she has departed from a chaste husband, and that she was therefore commanded to remain unmarried, so that she might be reconciled to him, if he had refused to be continent, lest, not being reconciled, she drive her husband to commit fornication, that is, to take another woman while she herself lives.

But if she has departed from a husband committing fornication, you think that it is not commanded her to remain unmarried, but that she does this if she wishes to be continent, not so as to be found a violator of the precept if she marries.

A rule which seems to you to be observed by the husband as well: that he not dismiss his wife, except for the cause of fornication; but if he has dismissed her, let him remain without marriage, so that he may be reconciled to a chaste wife, unless perhaps she has chosen continence,

lest, fleeing reconciliation with a chaste wife, he himself force her to commit adultery, if, not containing himself while she lives, he marries another;

but that, if he has been separated from a wife committing fornication, he is then held by no precept to be continent, and does not at all commit adultery if he marries another while she is living,

since you think that what the same Apostle says—A woman is bound as long as her husband lives; but if her husband dies, she is freed; let her marry whom she wishes (1 Cor 7:39)—is to be understood in such a way that, if a husband has committed fornication, he is to be reckoned as dead, and the wife as dead, and therefore it is permitted to either of them, as though after death so after fornication, to be joined to another.

3. 3. Having considered these views of yours, I ask you whether whoever marries a woman who has ceased to be bound to her husband is to be held an adulterer. This, I think, does not seem so to you.

For a woman while her husband lives will be called an adulteress if she is with another man (Rom 7:3), because a woman is bound as long as her husband lives (1 Cor 7:39); but if this bond did not exist for her while her husband lives, she would marry another without any charge of adultery.

Accordingly, if she is bound as long as her husband lives, she is to be said to be loosed from this bond in no way except when her husband is dead.

Further, if this bond between husband and wife is loosed by the death of either of them, and fornication too is to be held as death, as you say, then without doubt the woman will be loosed from this when she has committed fornication.

For she could not be said to be bound to her husband when her husband had been loosed from her. And on this account, after she has, by committing fornication, ceased to be bound to her husband, whoever marries her will not be an adulterer.

4. 3. And see how absurd it is, that he should not be an adulterer for this reason, that he has married an adulteress.

Indeed, what is more monstrous, neither will the woman herself be an adulteress, since she will not be another man's wife to the later husband, but his own.

For, the former marriage bond being loosed by adultery, whomever she now marries, having no spouse, she will be not an adulteress with an adulterer, but rather a wife with a husband. How, then, will it be true: A woman is bound as long as her husband lives (1 Cor 7:39)? Behold, her husband lives, because he has neither departed from the body nor committed fornication, which you wish to reckon as death; and yet the woman is no longer bound to him.

Do you not notice how this is against the Apostle, who says, A woman is bound as long as her husband lives? Or will you perhaps say, "He lives indeed, but he is no longer her husband, since he ceased to be such when she, by adultery, loosed the marriage bond"? How then will she, while her husband lives, be called an adulteress if she is with another man (Rom 7:3)? Since that man is no longer her husband, the marriage bond having already been loosed by the woman's adultery.

For while what husband lives, except her own, will she be called an adulteress if she is with another man? But if that man has now ceased to be her husband, then surely she will not, while her husband lives, be called an adulteress if she is with another man, but, having no husband, she will, by marrying, be with her own husband.

Whoever holds this, do you not see how he holds against the Apostle? This indeed you do not yourself hold, but it follows from the things you do hold. Change, then, the premises, if you wish to avoid the conclusions, and do not say that, in this place, a dead husband or a dead wife ought to be understood to mean also one committing fornication.

4. 4. Wherefore, according to sound doctrine, a woman is bound as long as her husband lives (1 Cor 7:39)—that is, as long as he has not yet departed from the body; for a woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living as her husband—that is, while he is set in the body.

But if he dies, that is, has departed from the body, she is freed from the law of her husband. Therefore, while her husband lives, she will be called an adulteress if she is with another man. But if her husband dies, she is freed from the law, so that she is not an adulteress if she is with another man (Rom 7:2-3).

These words of the Apostle, so often repeated, so often pressed home, are true, are living, are sound, are plain. A woman begins to be the wife of no later husband unless she has ceased to be the wife of the former. But she will cease to be the wife of the former if her husband dies, not if he commits fornication.

And so a spouse is lawfully dismissed on account of the cause of fornication; but the bond of modesty remains, on account of which he becomes guilty of adultery who marries a woman dismissed even on account of this cause of fornication.

5. 5. For just as, the sacrament of regeneration remaining in him, one guilty of some crime is excommunicated, yet does not lack that sacrament, even if he is never reconciled to God;

so, the bond of the marriage covenant remaining in her, a wife is dismissed on account of the cause of fornication, yet she will not lack that bond, even if she is never reconciled to her husband; but she will lack it if her husband dies.

But the excommunicated guilty man will for this reason never lack the sacrament of regeneration, even unreconciled, since God never dies.

It remains, therefore, that, if we wish to think according to the Apostle, we not say that an adulterous husband is to be reckoned as dead, and that therefore his wife is permitted to marry another.

For although adultery is a death—not of the body, but, what is worse, of the soul—the Apostle was nevertheless not speaking of that death when he said, But if her husband dies, let her marry whom she wishes (1 Cor 7:39); but of that death alone by which one departs from the body.

For if by a spouse's adultery the marriage bond is loosed, that perversity follows which I have shown must be avoided: that the woman too is loosed from this bond by her unchastity;

and if she is loosed, she will be free from the law of her husband; and therefore—what is said most foolishly—she will not be an adulteress if she is with another man, because by adultery she has been freed from the former husband.

But if this is so far astray from the truth that no sense—I do not say Christian, but human—admits it, then surely a woman is bound as long as her husband lives (1 Cor 7:39)—which, to say it more plainly, means as long as her husband is in the body.

By an equal rule, then, the husband too is bound as long as his wife is in the body. Hence, if he wishes to dismiss an adulteress, let him not marry another, lest what he blames in her, he himself commit.

Likewise also a woman, if she dismisses an adulterer, let her not couple another to herself; for she is bound as long as her husband lives, and is not freed from the law of her husband except when he is dead, so that she is not an adulteress if she is with another man.

6. 5. But that which seems hard to you—that after adultery a spouse be reconciled to a spouse—will not be hard, if faith is present.

For why do we still reckon as adulterers those whom we believe to have been healed either by being washed in baptism or by penance? These crimes, which in the old law of God were cleansed by no sacrifices, are without doubt cleansed by the blood of the New Testament;

and therefore at that time it was in every way forbidden to take back a wife defiled by another man; although David, as a prefigurer of the New Testament, took back without hesitation the daughter of Saul, whom her father, having separated her from him, had given to another (See 2 Sam 3:14).

But now, after Christ said to the adulteress, Neither will I condemn you; go, and now sin no more (John 8:11);

who would not understand that a husband ought to forgive what he sees the Lord of them both has forgiven, and that he ought no longer to call her an adulteress whose crime, now that she is penitent, he believes to have been blotted out by divine mercy?

7. 6. But this, of course, the sense of unbelievers shudders at, so that some of little faith, or rather enemies of the true faith—fearing, I believe, lest impunity in sinning be given to their wives—removed from their manuscripts that which the Lord did concerning his indulgence toward the adulteress,

as though he who said now sin no more had granted permission to sin, or as though the woman ought not to have been healed by God the physician through the remission of that sin, lest the insane take offense.

For those to whom that deed of the Lord is displeasing are not themselves chaste, nor does chastity make them severe; but rather they are of that number of men to whom the Lord says: Let him among you who is without sin first cast a stone at her (John 8:7).

Except that those men, terrified by conscience, had withdrawn and ceased to tempt Christ and to pursue the adulteress (See John 8:7-11);

but these men, themselves sick, reproach the physician, and, themselves adulterers, rage against adulteresses:

to whom, if it were said—not what those men heard, Let him who is without sin (for who is without sin?), but, "Let him who is without this sin first cast a stone at her"—then perhaps those who were indignant that they had not killed the adulteress would consider with how great a mercy of God they were spared, so that adulterers might live.

8. 7. But when we say these things to them, not only do they wish to detract nothing from severity, but they are moreover angry at the truth, and they speak and answer: "But we are men. Or will the dignity of our sex endure this injury, that, when we commit anything with women other than our wives, we should be put on a level with women in paying the penalties?"

As though they ought not for this very reason the more to bridle unlawful desires manfully, because they are men? As though they ought not for this very reason the more to offer themselves to their wives as an example of this virtue, because they are men? As though they ought not for this very reason the less to be overcome by lust, because they are men? As though they ought not for this very reason the less to serve the wantoning flesh, because they are men?

And yet they are indignant if they hear that adulterous husbands pay penalties like those of adulterous women, when they ought to be punished so much the more grievously, the more it belongs to them both to conquer by virtue and to govern women by example.

I am speaking, to be sure, to Christians, who faithfully hear, The husband is the head of the wife (Eph 5:23), where they recognize that they ought to be the leaders, and the women the companions.

And therefore the husband must beware of going, in his living, by that way along which he fears his wife may follow by imitating.

But these men, who are displeased that an equal rule of chastity be kept between husband and wife, and who rather choose, especially in this matter, to be subject to the laws of the world than to those of Christ—since the laws of the courts do not seem to bind men by the same bonds of chastity as women—

let them read what the emperor Antoninus, by no means a Christian, ordained on this matter, where a husband is not allowed to accuse his wife of the crime of adultery if he has not, by his own conduct, offered her an example of chastity, in such a way that both would be condemned, if the trial itself should convict both alike of unchastity.

For these are the words of the aforesaid emperor, which are read in the Gregorian Code. Assuredly, he says, my letter shall in no part prejudge the case. For even if the fault lay with you, so that the marriage was dissolved and, according to the Julian law, your wife Eupasia married, she will not on that account, by my rescript, be condemned for adultery, unless it be established that it was committed.

They will have before their eyes to inquire whether, while you were living chastely, you were to her too an author of cultivating good morals. For it seems to me most unfair that a husband should exact from his wife a chastity which he does not himself exhibit. This matter can both condemn the husband and—not on account of a setting-off of mutual crime—either settle the matter between the two or remove the ground of the action (Ulpian, On Adultery 13.3).

If these things are to be observed for the honor of the earthly city, how much more chaste are those whom the heavenly fatherland and the fellowship of the angels seek? Since these things are so, is the unchastity of men therefore the less, and not rather the greater and the worse, the more there is in them a proud and licentious boasting?

Let men, then, not shudder that Christ forgave the adulteress; but let them rather recognize their own peril as well, and, laboring under a like disease, flee to the same Savior with suppliant devotion,

and let them confess that what they read was done in her is necessary for themselves as well; let them receive the medicine of their adulteries, let them now cease to commit adultery, let them praise in themselves the patience of God, let them do penance, let them take indulgence, let them change their verdict concerning the punishment of women and their own impunity.

9. 8. When these things have been considered and treated, if the common condition, the common evil, the common peril, the common wound, the common salvation be faithfully and humbly weighed, the reconciliation of spouses will be neither shameful nor difficult, even after adulteries have been perpetrated and purged, where, through the keys of the kingdom of heaven, the remission of sins is not doubted to take place—not so that, after a divorce from her husband, an adulteress be called back, but so that, after fellowship with Christ, she be not called an adulteress.

But behold, let it not be done; no one compels it, because perhaps some law of this age forbids it, after the manner of the earthly city, where the abolition of crimes through the Holy Blood has not been thought of.

Let continence, then, be undertaken, which no law forbids; let one not go into other adulteries.

And what is it to us, if an adulteress, even cleansed by divine mercy, is not reconciled to her husband, provided that, the adulterers not being reconciled, there be not made other supposed marriages, which are proved to be adulteries?

For a woman is bound as long as her husband lives (1 Cor 7:39). Therefore, consequently, the husband too is bound as long as his wife lives. This binding makes it so that they cannot be joined to others without an adulterous coupling.

Hence it is necessary that, out of two spouses, four adulterers be made, if both she marries another and he marries an adulteress.

For although he commits adultery more wickedly who, his wife having been dismissed not for the cause of fornication, marries another—which kind of adultery Matthew recalled—yet not only does he himself commit adultery,

but, as it is in Mark, Whoever dismisses his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if a wife dismisses her husband and marries another, she commits adultery (Mark 10:11-12); and, as it is in Luke, Everyone who dismisses his wife and marries another commits adultery; and he who marries a woman dismissed by her husband commits adultery (Luke 16:18). Concerning which testimonies I have already discoursed sufficiently in the earlier book.

10. 9. But you answer me: To live continently belongs to few; and therefore those who have dismissed spouses committing fornication, since they cannot be reconciled, see themselves so endangered that they pronounce the Law of Christ not human, but savage.

O brother, so far as the incontinent are concerned, they can have many complaints by which, as you say, they may pronounce the Law of Christ savage, not human.

And yet on their account we ought not to pervert or change the Gospel of Christ. For you would be moved only by the complaint of those who dismiss spouses on the intervening cause of fornication, if they were not allowed to marry others, since continence belongs to few, and they ought to be exhorted to it by praise, not compelled by Law.

And so, if, an adulteress having been dismissed, another is not married, the incontinence of men will have, as you think, a just complaint. But consider how many are the cases where, if we were willing to admit the complaints of the incontinent, it would be necessary for us to permit adulteries to be committed.

What then? For what if a spouse is held by some long-lasting and incurable disease of the body, by which intercourse is impeded?

What if captivity or some force separates them, in such a way that the husband knows that his wife, of whom the enjoyment is denied him, is living—do you judge that the murmurs of the incontinent are to be admitted and adulteries to be permitted?

What of that very matter about which the Lord was asked, and answered that it ought not to be done, but that on account of the hardness of their heart (Matt 19:8) Moses permitted a bill of divorce to be given and a spouse to be dismissed for any cause whatever?

Does not the Law of Christ displease the incontinent, who wish to cast off, by interposing a divorce, quarrelsome, injurious, domineering, disdainful wives, most difficult about rendering the marriage debt, and to marry others (See 1 Tim 5:13)?

Now, then, because the incontinence of these men has shuddered at the Law of Christ, is the Law of Christ to be changed at their discretion?

10. 10. But now, if a wife leaves her husband, or a husband his wife, not for the cause of fornication but rather for that of continence, and the one to whom the divorce is given on this account is incontinent, I ask whether he or she will not be an adulterer or an adulteress, if joined to another?

If it is said that he "will not" be, the Lord is contradicted, whose words are these: It was said: 'Whoever dismisses his wife, let him give her a bill of divorce.' But I say to you that everyone who dismisses his wife, except for the cause of fornication, makes her commit adultery; and he who marries a dismissed woman commits adultery (Matt 5:31-32).

Behold, she was dismissed, she did not dismiss; and because continence belongs to few, she yielded to incontinence and married; and yet an adulterer married an adulteress.

Both are guilty, both are to be condemned: both she who married while her husband lived, and he who married her whose husband lives.

Do we here call the Law of Christ inhuman, by which she is established guilty of so great a crime and punished, whom her husband dismissed with no preceding fornication on her part and, because continence belongs to few, by dismissing her compelled to marry?

Why do we not here say that he is to be held as dead who, by wickedly dismissing her, first broke the marriage bond? For by what reasoning will you say that he broke the marriage bond who, although he is an adulterer, did not dismiss his wife, and that he did not break it who dismissed even a chaste wife?

But I say that in both this bond remains, since a woman is bound as long as her husband lives (1 Cor 7:39), whether he is continent or an adulterer, and therefore that she commits adultery who, having been dismissed, marries, and that he commits adultery who marries a dismissed woman, whether she was dismissed by an adulterer or by a continent man, since a woman is bound as long as her husband lives.

But now we are disputing about the complaints of the incontinent. For what seems more just than the complaint of this woman who says, "I was dismissed, I did not dismiss; and since continence belongs to few, I did not contain myself; lest I commit fornication, I married; and I am called an adulteress because I married"?

Shall we, on account of her seemingly just complaint, judge that the divine Law is to be changed, so that we do not judge her an adulteress? Far be it. But you will answer that she ought not to have been dismissed, because no cause of fornication had preceded. You say what is true; for the Lord expressed the sin of her husband, where he says, He who dismisses his wife, except for the cause of fornication, makes her commit adultery (Matt 5:32). But did she therefore not sin by marrying afterward, because he first sinned by dismissing? What, then, does it profit her that the incontinent woman complains of the Law of Christ, except that, murmuring, she is punished?

11. 11. Now let us also consider those things which, inserting them in another place, you added and were unwilling to respond to. There you are moved and pity the man who is compelled to lie with an adulteress, if not by incontinence, at least by the necessity of procreating children, if it is not permitted him so to dismiss her as to marry another while she lives.

Hence you would rightly be moved, if it were not adultery to marry another while the adulterous wife is living.

But if it is adultery, as the things that have been argued have shown, what is pleaded under the pretext of procreating children? For the license of disgraceful acts is not on that account to be permitted. Or is it as much to be avoided to die without offspring as it is to be chosen to live in the world to come? Which adulterers will not be allowed to do, who must, after the first death, be condemned to the eternity of the second death.

For this pleading of procreating children compels even non-adulterous, indeed most chaste women, if perchance they are barren, to be dismissed and others to be married: which, I think, does not please you.

12. 11. Wherefore, if adulteries are not to be excused for the cause of incontinence, how much less are they excused for the cause of procreating children!

12. 12. For it was that weakness, namely incontinence, that the Apostle wished to be relieved by the honorableness of marriage. For he did not say, "If he does not have children, let him marry," but, If he does not contain himself, let him marry (1 Cor 7:9).

It is by the propagation of children that what is conceded to incontinence in marrying is set off. For surely incontinence is a fault, whereas marriage is not a fault; and therefore by this a good comes about, so that the former is a venial evil. Since, then, marriage was instituted for the sake of begetting, it was for that cause that the patriarchs did it, who were united to women only by the office of begetting, but not unlawfully.

For there was then a certain necessity of propagating, which now there is not, since there is a time for embracing, as it is written—which surely was then—and a time for refraining from embracing (Eccl 3:5), which is now.

Speaking of which time, the Apostle says: For the rest, brothers, the time is short; it remains that even those who have wives be as though not having them (1 Cor 7:29).

Hence now it is said most certainly: Let him who can receive it, receive it (Matt 19:12); but let him who does not contain himself, marry (1 Cor 7:9).

Then, therefore, even continence descended into marriage for the sake of propagating children, by way of office; but now the marriage bond relieves the fault of incontinence, so that by those who do not contain themselves the propagation of children may come about, not through the baseness of debaucheries, but through the honorableness of marriages.

Why, then, did the Apostle not say, "If he does not have children, let him marry"? Because, namely, in this time of refraining from embracing, it is not necessary to propagate children. And why did he say, If he does not contain himself, let him marry?

Surely for this reason, lest through incontinence he be compelled to commit adultery. If, then, he contains himself, let him neither marry nor beget.

But if he does not contain himself, let him marry lawfully, lest he beget basely or, more basely, by lying together not beget. Although this last thing I have mentioned, some do even while lawfully married.

For unlawfully and basely is intercourse had even with a lawful wife, where the conception of offspring is avoided.

This Onan, the son of Judah, was doing, and God killed him on account of it (See Gen 38:8-10). And so the propagation of children is itself the first and natural and lawful cause of marriage.

And on this account those who are joined on account of incontinence ought not so to temper their evil that they do away with the good of marriage, that is, the propagation of children.

For the Apostle was speaking of the incontinent where he says: I wish therefore that the younger marry, bear children, be mothers of families, give the adversary no occasion for reviling. For some have already turned back after Satan (1 Tim 5:14-15).

And so, when he said, I wish the younger to marry, he was surely admonishing this for the sake of propping up the ruin of continence.

But lest perhaps only the weakness of carnal desire be thought of by them, which alone was to be served by the work of marriage, while the good of marriage was either despised or neglected, he immediately subjoined: bear children, be mothers of families.

But those who choose to be continent surely choose something better than the good of marriage, that is, the begetting of children.

Hence, if continence is chosen so that something better than the good of marriage may be laid hold of, how much more is it to be kept so that adultery may be avoided! For when the Apostle had said, But if he does not contain himself, let him marry; for it is better, he says, to marry than to burn (1 Cor 7:9), he did not say, "It is better to commit adultery than to burn."

13. 13. There is nothing, then, to which we may exhort those who fear to be reconciled to adulterous spouses healed by repenting, except to the keeping of continence, since a woman is bound as long as her husband lives (1 Cor 7:39)—whether he is an adulterer or chaste—and she commits adultery if she marries another,

and a husband is bound as long as his wife lives—whether she is an adulteress or chaste—and he commits adultery if he marries another.

For since this binding is not loosed even if a spouse is separated by divorce from a chaste spouse, much less is it loosed if, not separated, the spouse commits adultery.

And on this account nothing loosens it except the death of the spouse—not of one falling into adultery, but of one departing from the body. Wherefore, if a woman has withdrawn from an adulterous husband and does not wish to be reconciled to him, let her remain unmarried;

and if a husband has dismissed an adulterous wife and does not wish to take her back, even after penance, let him keep continence—if not from the will to choose the better good, at least from the necessity of avoiding the pernicious evil.

To this I would exhort, even if a wife were in an incurable and long-lasting infirmity, even if she were somewhere separated in body, where the husband could not approach her;

finally, to this I would exhort, even if a woman, wishing to live continently—although against discipline, because not by consent—nevertheless, chaste herself, dismissed a chaste husband.

For I think that no Christian would object to being an adulterer who, while his wife is long sick, or long absent, or desiring to live continently, has been united to another woman.

Thus, then, even with an adulteress dismissed, a man is an adulterer with another, since it is not this man or that, but everyone who dismisses his wife and marries another commits adultery (Luke 16:18).

Wherefore, if the life of the saints, free from the marriage bond, is the less sought after, let the punishment of adulterers be shuddered at, and let desire be bridled at least by fear, if continence is not chosen out of love.

For if, where there is fear, toil is at work, where there was toil, there will also be love. For we must not trust in our own strength; but prayer must be joined to our efforts, so that he who deters from evils may fill us with good things.

14. 14. Let us also respond to that point where you think that husbands are driven to punish adulteresses without any mercy—wishing them to die, if, while they live, it is not permitted to marry others. Wishing to magnify this cruelty, you said: "It does not seem to me, most loving father, that this is a divine sense, where kindness and devotion are excluded (Pollentius, Letter to Augustine)."

You say this as though husbands ought to spare adulterous wives for the reason that it is permitted them to marry others—so that, if it is not permitted, they should not spare them, in order that it may be permitted.

On the contrary, they ought to show mercy to sinful women for this reason: that they too may obtain mercy for their own sins. And much more must this be done by those who, having dismissed adulterous wives, desire to live continently.

For they ought to be the more merciful, the more they wish to be holier, so that they may be divinely helped in keeping chastity in themselves, while they do not themselves humanly avenge the chastity violated by their wives.

And above all that word of the Lord must be recalled to their memory: Let him who is without sin first cast a stone at her (John 8:7). Not, "Let him who is without this sin"—since we are speaking of chaste husbands—but, let him who is without sin; and if they say that they are such, they deceive themselves, and the truth is not in them (1 John 1:8).

Further, if they do not deceive themselves and the truth is in them, there will not be in them a bloody severity. For knowing that they are not without sin, they forgive, so that it may be forgiven them, and neither kindness nor devotion is excluded from them.

For these are rather excluded, if it is the license of lust, not the care of devotion, that obtains for them pardon for their spouses' sins; that is, if they spare for this reason, that it is permitted them to marry others, and not rather for this reason, that they wish the Lord to spare them too.

14. 15. How much better, then, and more honorable, and finally more worthy of the Christian profession, that they spare the blood of adulterous wives—we say to them what is written:

Forgive the injustice of your neighbor, and then, when you pray, your sins will be loosed. A man keeps anger against a man, and does he seek healing from the Lord? He has no mercy on a man like himself, and does he entreat concerning his own sins? He himself, being flesh, keeps wrath, and who will make propitiation for his sins? (Sir 28:2-5)

and from the Gospel: Forgive, and you will be forgiven (Luke 6:37), so that we may be able to say, Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors (Matt 6:12); and from the Apostle: Repaying no one evil for evil (Rom 12:17); and any such things there are in the Holy Scriptures, by which the human mind, when it is roused to take vengeance, is, because it is Christian, made gentle.

15. 15. How much better, I say, do we say these things than that we should say: "Only dismiss these adulteresses, and do not seek their blood; whatever grief you have from their disgraceful acts, others whom you marry will console you; for you would with reason wish to remove these from the number of the living, if their life were a hindrance to your marrying others.

But as it is, since, even while these live, it is permitted you to provide yourselves other marriages, why do you so greatly wish to kill them?" If we say these things, do you not notice how far our persuading is from the Christian character?

we who both say falsely that something is permitted them which is not permitted—that is, while these wives live, to be coupled to others—and, if they spare them on that account, they spare not out of devotion, but on account of the free power of other marriages.

Finally, I ask you whether it is permitted to a Christian husband, either according to the old Law of God or by the Roman laws, to kill an adulteress? If it is permitted, it is better that he refrain from both—that is, both from the lawful punishment of her sinning and from the unlawful marriage while she lives.

But if he persists in choosing one or the other, it is better for him to do what is permitted—that the adulteress be punished—than what is not permitted—that, while she lives, he commit adultery.

But if—what is more truly said—it is not permitted to a Christian man to kill an adulterous wife, but only to dismiss her, who is so insane as to say to him, "Do what is not permitted, so that what is not permitted may be permitted you"?

For since both are unlawful according to the Law of Christ—whether to kill an adulteress or, while she lives, to marry another—one must abstain from both; one must not commit the unlawful in place of the unlawful. For if he is going to do what is not permitted, let him rather commit adultery and not commit homicide, so that, while his wife lives, he marries another and does not shed human blood. But if both are wicked, he ought not to perpetrate the one in place of the other, but to avoid both.

16. 16. Here I see what can be said by the incontinent: "namely, that he who dismisses an adulteress and permits her to live, if he marries another, is, as long as that former wife lives, a perpetual adulterer, and does not do fruitful penance, since he does not withdraw from the disgraceful act;

nor, if he is a catechumen, is he admitted to baptism, since he is not changed from that which hinders;

nor can he, as a penitent, be reconciled while persevering in the same wickedness; but if, by accusing the adulteress, he has killed her, this sin, since it is past and one does not remain in it, and,

if it was done by a catechumen, is washed away by baptism; and, if by one baptized, is healed by penance and reconciliation."

But are we, on that account, going to say that adultery is not adultery, which is without doubt committed if, while an adulterous spouse lives, another is married?

But, this kind of adultery aside, you surely do not doubt that it is adultery if someone marries the wife of a living man, dismissed by her husband through a bill of divorce without any fornication of the woman.

What then? When such a man has seen that he is neither admitted to baptism, if he is a catechumen, nor does penance to any profit, if it was as a baptized man that he did this, by not correcting and abandoning what he did,

if he should wish and be able to kill the man whose wife he married, so that this crime might either be washed away by baptism or loosed by repenting,

and so that that adultery too might not remain—the woman being emptied of the law of her husband after her husband's death—but, as to the past deed that was done, satisfaction be made through penance, or it be blotted out by regeneration;

is the Law of Christ on that account to be accused, as though it had compelled homicide to be done, when it says that to marry a woman divorced without the crime of fornication is adultery?

16. 17. For here, if we attend to what we are saying even a little, much graver things can be said than you yourself said.

For while you do not wish there to be adulteries, if others are married once adulterers have been dismissed, you found this:

And, to magnify this, you said: It does not seem to me, most loving father, that this is a divine sense, where kindness and devotion are excluded.

If, then, someone, unwilling to believe that it is adultery when a woman divorced by her husband without the crime of fornication is married by another, should find this too against you,

that by this reasoning men are urged to perpetrate homicides and to attack the husbands of those women whom they have married after such divorce—whether by such snares as they can, or by calumnies, or to accuse them of some true crimes and kill them,

so that, those husbands being dead, there might be marriages with the women who, while their husbands lived, had been adulteries,

will he not, magnifying it, say to you: It does not seem to me, most loving father, that this is a divine sense, where not only kindness and devotion are excluded, but even an enormous malice and impiety is aroused (Pollentius, Letter to Augustine)?

Since it is much lighter and more tolerable that husbands kill adulteresses than that adulterers kill husbands.

Does it please you that, on account of this most empty prejudice, we abandon the defense of the Lord's sentence, or even accuse it besides, saying that it ought not to be judged adultery, even if a woman divorced by her husband apart from the cause of fornication is joined to another, lest she be compelled to kill the husband by whom she was dismissed, while she desires to convert the adultery into marriage by the death of her former husband?

I know that it does not please you that, on account of this most empty prejudice, the Law of Christ, when it is found to be true and sound, be called hard and inhuman.

And so it ought not to seem to you that adultery is to be denied, when, while an adulterous wife is living, another is married,

because the husband can by this be compelled to kill the adulteress, while he desires that it be permitted him, once she is dead, to marry another, if, while she lives, it is not permitted to do so.

What then? For what if the disparagers of the Christian faith should say this too—that men are compelled to kill their wives by the crimes of snares, the wives whom they cannot bear as troublesome, whether laboring under a long-lasting infirmity and unable to endure intercourse, or poor, or barren, or deformed, in the hope of marrying others who are healthy, wealthy, fertile, most beautiful,

because it is not permitted to divorce, apart from the cause of fornication, those women whom they are unwilling to endure, and to marry others, lest, bound forever by adultery, they can neither be baptized nor healed by penance—are we, on that account, lest these crimes of homicide be perpetrated, going to say that it is not adultery to couple others to oneself once wives have been divorced apart from the cause of fornication?

17. 18. Now indeed, from the fact that you hold it not to be adultery if a husband has cast off his wife for the cause of fornication and married another, do you not think it must be guarded against, lest husbands learn to compel their wives—whom on account of countless other causes they cannot bear—to commit adultery, so that, the marriage bond having been loosed by fornication,

as you suppose, it may be permitted them to marry others, and, from the fact that they compelled those wives to commit adultery, either to be washed by baptism or healed by repenting,

since both grace and medicine will be denied them as long as they live with adulteresses, if, their former wives having been divorced apart from the cause of fornication, they marry others?

Unless perhaps someone should say that no one can make his wife commit adultery, if she is chaste; and yet the Lord says, Everyone who dismisses his wife apart from the cause of fornication makes her commit adultery (Matt 5:32).

Surely for this reason: that, although she was chaste with her husband, nevertheless, having been dismissed, she is, through incontinence, compelled to be coupled to another while the former lives, and this is to commit adultery.

But if she does not do this, nevertheless he, so far as in him lies, has compelled her to do it; and God will impute this sin to him, even if she remains chaste.

But who does not know how exceedingly rare are those women who live so chastely with their husbands that, even if they are dismissed by them, they do not seek others?

For incomparably greater is the number of women who, although they cleave chastely to their husbands, nevertheless, if they have been dismissed by their husbands, do not delay to marry.

When, therefore, men have believed the Lord saying, Everyone who dismisses his wife apart from the cause of fornication makes her commit adultery (Matt 5:32), if they have believed you too, saying that, the wife committing fornication, it is permitted her husband to marry another, then whoever wishes, on account of any other troubles whatever, to be rid of the wife to whom he is joined, will first make her commit adultery by dismissing her without fornication,

so as then to marry another when that one has become an adulteress by marrying; and thus, freed from the former sin, by which he made her commit adultery, whether through baptism or through penance, he may seem to himself to have, without his own adultery, the woman whom, after the former adultery, he married as another, the marriage bond having, as it were, been loosed thereby.

But indeed, if he has contrived this, he will both make his wife an adulteress and will himself be an adulterer, even though by marrying another after his spouse's adultery; and it will profit him nothing that he believed you and not rather him who says, with no exception, Everyone who leaves his wife and marries another commits adultery (Luke 16:18).

18. 19. All these things having been considered and treated, it remains that there be said to us, by those who faithfully hear them, what was said to the Lord: If such is the case with a wife, it is not expedient to marry.

To whom what should we too answer, except what he himself answered? Not all receive this word, but those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were so born from their mother's womb; and there are eunuchs who were made so by men; and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let him who can receive it, receive it (Matt 19:10–12).

Therefore let him who can, receive what not all receive. But those can receive it to whom this is granted by the mercy of God, hidden, but not unjust.

But among all these who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, some there are, in either sex, who have no knowledge of intercourse; others who have experienced it and turned away from it—partly indeed having experienced it unlawfully, partly lawfully.

Further, among those who have experienced it lawfully, some there are who have experienced it only lawfully, some both lawfully and unlawfully.

For there are among them those who know only their own marriages; but there are those who know other women too, and debaucheries of any kind.

But those who, after intercourse with spouses, make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven—either they lose their spouses by death, or by consent profess continence with them, or out of the necessity of divorces,

lest, by coupling themselves to others while their spouses live, they perpetrate adulteries, make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven—not so that they may be more glorious there, but because otherwise they cannot be there:

for those who contain themselves not out of this necessity, but out of the desire for a better good, could be there even with marital chastity preserved—although among lesser rewards, yet within.

But those who contain themselves for this reason, that they fear, while their former spouses live, to be joined to others, ought to bear a greater care for salvation than did those by whom continence was chosen as a greater reward.

For they will be there, if they will not be adulterers; but if they do not contain themselves, they will be adulterers; because, while their former spouses live, they will cleave not to spouses but to adulterers. And if they will be absent from the kingdom of heaven, where will they be, except where they will not be saved?

19. 20. These, therefore, I address, so that what they ought to do if they had spouses wasting away with a long-lasting infirmity, or absent in a place inaccessible to them, or continent out of an unlawful willfulness,

this they may do, if they have had spouses foul with adulterous defilement and on this account divorcing from their fellowship: let them not seek other marriages, because they will not be marriages but adulteries.

For since the rule is equal in this bond for husband and wife, just as a wife while her husband lives will be called an adulteress if she is with another man (Rom 7:3);

so too a husband, while his wife lives, will be called an adulterer if he is with another woman.

For although he sins more grievously who does so apart from the cause of fornication, nevertheless everyone who dismisses his wife and marries another commits adultery (Luke 16:18).

Let not the burden of continence terrify them; it will be light, if it is Christ's; it will be Christ's, if faith is present, which obtains from him who commands what he has commanded.

Let it not break them that their continence seems to be of necessity, not of will; for those too who chose it by will have made it to be of necessity, since they can no longer turn aside from it without condemnation,

and those who have been thrust into it by necessity make it to be of will, if they trust not in themselves, but in him from whom comes every good.

The former ascended to it for the sake of greater glory, that they might find something more; the latter fled to it out of care for their last salvation, lest they perish;

let both persevere, let both walk in that to which they have come, all the way to the end, let them be fervent in their zeal, let them entreat with their vows,

because the former too must think of salvation, so that they fear to fall from that which the will laid hold of, and the latter must not despair of glory, if they love to persist in that which necessity brought upon them.

For it can come about that, with God terrifying and exhorting, converting and fulfilling, the human affection is changed for the better, and so they vow to live most perseveringly without marriages and without any intercourse and without the unclean handling of lust,

so that, even if the separated marriages should, by the death of the spouses, open the way to marrying others, what lies open through what is lawful may be closed by a vow, and what was begun out of necessity may be made perfect by love.

To such persons, assuredly, that will be repaid which is repaid to those who either by equal consent vowed this with their spouses, or, bound by no marriages, chose continence for the sake of a greater good.

But if they contain themselves in such a way that, if those women die by whose life they are hindered from marrying, they intend to marry others, then surely, even if they themselves first depart from the body in such continence, it is reckoned to them only as marital chastity, on account of which they do not do what they would do if it were permitted. For to live continently with this intention is too little for receiving the rewards of that continence which is more freely chosen, but it suffices for avoiding adulteries.

20. 21. But remember that I say these things of both sexes, yet chiefly on account of men, who think themselves superior to women for this very reason, that they may not deign to be their equals in chastity—in which they ought even to have gone before, so that the women might follow them as their own heads.

But when the Law forbids adulteries, if, under the pretext of incontinence, the excuse of carnal weakness is admitted, an occasion of perishing is opened to many under the name of a false impunity. For women too, to whom men do not wish anything of this kind to be permitted—as though it were permitted to themselves because they are men—are not without flesh.

But far be it that there should be owed to the better sex, as though to its honor, what is detracted from modesty, since just honor is owed to virtue, not to vice. On the contrary, since they demand so great a chastity from women, who surely have flesh—that, when their husbands are abroad for very long, they wish them to pass the fervor of youth uncontaminated by adulterous intercourse

(and very many pass it most chastely, and especially the Syrian women, whose husbands, occupied with the gains of trading, leave them as young girls and scarcely sometimes return as old men to old women)—by this very fact they are more evidently convicted that what they plead they cannot do is not impossible. For if the weakness of men could not do this, much less could the weaker sex of women do it.

20. 22. Hence, when we terrify those men who think manly excellence to be nothing but license to sin, lest, by clinging to adulterous marriages, they perish forever, we are accustomed to set before them also the continence of the clergy,

who for the most part are seized unwilling to take up the same burden, and, having taken it up, carry it through to its due end, with the Lord's help.

We say to them, then: "What? If you too were seized for taking up this office by the violence of the people, would you not chastely keep the office once taken up, being suddenly turned to obtaining from the Lord the strength of which you had never before thought?"

"But those men," they say, "are greatly consoled by the honor." We answer: "And let fear regulate you much more."

For if many ministers of God have taken up this burden suddenly and unexpectedly imposed, hoping to shine more illustriously in the inheritance of Christ, how much more ought you, by avoiding adulteries, to live continently, fearing not to shine less in the kingdom of God, but to burn in the fire of Gehenna?

These things and the like we say to them, as we can, who wish to marry others when their spouses have in any way departed from them or been dismissed on account of adultery, and who, when they are forbidden, set against us the weakness of the flesh.

But now this book too must be closed, and God must be asked either not to allow them to be tempted by separations of spouses, or so to allow it that the fear of their imperiled salvation may become for them the occasion of a greater or a more proven chastity.