1. The heresy of Jovinian, by making the merit of holy virgins equal to conjugal chastity, had such force in the city of Rome that it was said to have cast down into marriage even some consecrated women about whose chastity no suspicion had previously arisen. He pressed them especially with this argument, saying: "Are you then better than Sarah, better than Susanna or Anna?" And he would call to mind other women highly commended by the testimony of holy Scripture, women to whom they could not imagine themselves superior or even equal. In the same way he also undermined the holy celibacy of holy men by recalling and comparing it to the married patriarchs.

The holy Church that is there resisted this monster most faithfully and most forcefully. But these arguments of his lingered on in the little talks and whispers of certain people, which no one dared to urge openly. Yet even these creeping poisons had to be met, in secret, by the means the Lord granted, especially since it was being boasted that Jovinian could not be answered with praise of marriage but only with its disparagement.

For this reason I published a book whose title is The Excellence of Marriage. There a great question was postponed: the question of the propagation of children before human beings deserved death by sinning, since intercourse seems to be a matter of mortal bodies; but it is sufficiently explained, in my judgment, later in other writings of mine (De Civ. Dei 14, 21-22).

2. I also said in one place: what food is to the health of a human being, intercourse is to the health of the race, and neither is without carnal pleasure, which nevertheless, when it is regulated and brought back to its natural use under the restraint of temperance, cannot be lust (De bono coniug. 16, 18). This was said because lust is not the good and right use of sexual desire. For just as it is bad to use good things badly, so it is good to use bad things well. On this matter I argued more carefully elsewhere, especially against the new Pelagian heretics (De nupt. et concup. 2, 21, 36; Contra Iul. 3, 7, 16; 5, 16, 60).

What I said about Abraham, that out of this obedience that father Abraham, who was not without a wife, was prepared to be without his only son, and to be so by killing him himself (De bono coniug. 23, 31), I do not fully approve. For rather he is to be believed to have believed that his son, if he had been killed, would soon be restored to him by resurrection (See Serm. 2, 1, 1), as we read in the Letter to the Hebrews (Heb 11:19).

This book begins thus: Since every human being is a part of the human race.

1. 1. Since every human being is a part of the human race, and human nature is something social and possesses a great natural good, namely the power of friendship, it was for this reason that God willed to create all human beings from one, so that they might be held together in their society not only by likeness of kind but also by the bond of kinship.

And so the first natural bond of human society is husband and wife. These God did not create as separate individuals and then join as though strangers, but he created the one from the other, marking the power of their union also in the side, from which she was drawn and formed (See Gen 2:21-22). For those are joined to each other side by side who walk together and together look toward where they are walking. There follows the connection of society in children, who are the one honorable fruit, not of the union of male and female, but of intercourse. For there could have been in both sexes, even without such commingling, a certain friendly and genuine union of the one ruling and the other obeying.

2. 2. Nor is there now any need for us to examine, and to put forward a settled opinion on that question, whence the offspring of the first human beings, whom God had blessed, saying, increase and multiply and fill the earth (Gen 1:28), might have come into being, had they not sinned, since their bodies deserved the condition of death by sinning, and there can be no intercourse except of mortal bodies. For many and differing opinions have arisen on this matter; and if it must be examined which of them best accords with the truth of the divine Scriptures, it is a task for a lengthy discussion. So whether, had they not sinned, they would have had children in some other way without the embrace of coition, by the gift of the most omnipotent Creator, who was able to create the first parents themselves without parents, who was able to form the flesh of Christ in the Virgin's womb, and—to speak even to the unbelievers themselves—who was able to give offspring to bees without intercourse;

or whether many things were said there in a mystical and figurative way and what is written, fill the earth and have dominion over it (Gen 1:28), is to be understood otherwise—that is, that it should come about through the fullness and perfection of life and power, so that the very increase and multiplication of which it was said, increase and multiply, is to be understood as the advance of the mind and the abundance of virtue, as is set down in the Psalm: you will multiply me in my soul with strength (Ps 138:3 (137:3)); and that this succession of offspring was not given to man until after the departure in death that was to be the consequence of sin;

or whether the body of those human beings was at first made not spiritual but animal, so that by the merit of obedience it might afterward become spiritual for the attaining of immortality—not after death, which entered the world through the envy of the devil (Wis 2:24) and became the punishment of sin, but through that change which the Apostle signifies where he says, then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet Christ in the air—so that we understand those bodies of the first married couple to have been mortal in their first formation and yet not destined to die, had they not sinned, just as God had threatened: as though one were to threaten a wound, because the body was woundable, which nevertheless would not have happened unless what he had forbidden were done.

So then, even through the intercourse of such bodies, generations could subsist that would grow up to a certain measure, yet would not decline into old age, or not all the way into old age, nor yet into death, until the earth was filled by that multiplication of the blessing. For if God provided for the garments of the Israelites for forty years that they kept their own condition without any wear (See Deut 29:5), how much more would he provide for the bodies of those obedient to his command a certain most happy balance of a fixed condition, until they were changed for the better—not by the death of a human being, whereby the body is forsaken by the soul, but by a blessed change from mortality to immortality, from an animal to a spiritual quality!

2. 3. Which of these opinions is true, or whether yet another or others can still be quarried from those words, is a long thing to investigate and discuss.

3. 3. What we now say is this: according to that condition of being born and dying which we know, and in which we were created, the marriage of male and female is something good. Its bond divine Scripture so commends that a woman dismissed by her husband is not permitted to marry another so long as her husband lives, nor is a man dismissed by his wife permitted to take another, unless she who has departed has died. Now the good of marriage, which the Lord too confirmed in the Gospel—not only because he forbade dismissing a wife except for the cause of fornication (See Matt 19:9), but also because he came when invited to a wedding (See John 2:2)—is rightly asked, why it is a good. And this seems to me to be not only on account of the procreation of children, but also on account of the very natural society between the two sexes. Otherwise it would no longer be called a marriage in the case of the aged, especially if they had either lost their children or had begotten none at all.

But as it is, in a good though aged marriage, even if the ardor of the prime of life between male and female has withered, the order of love between husband and wife still flourishes—and the better they are, the earlier they have begun, by mutual consent, to refrain from the commingling of their flesh: not so that it should become a matter of necessity afterward to be unable to do what they wished, but so that it should be a matter of praise to have first been unwilling to do what they could. If, then, the loyalty of honor and of the services mutually owed by each sex is preserved, even though the limbs of both grow feeble and are almost corpselike, the chastity of souls rightly joined in marriage nevertheless perseveres—the more sincere, the more it is proved, and the more secure, the more it is tranquil.

Marriages also have this good, that carnal or youthful incontinence, even if it is faulty, is brought back to the honorable purpose of propagating offspring, so that the conjugal union makes something good out of the evil of lust. And then, because the concupiscence of the flesh is restrained and in a certain way grows more modestly heated, being tempered by parental affection. For a certain seriousness intervenes upon the fervid pleasure, when the man and the woman, in that they cling to each other, meditate on being father and mother.

4. 4. To this is added that, in the very thing in which spouses render each other their due—even if they seek it somewhat intemperately and incontinently—they nevertheless owe fidelity to each other equally. To this fidelity the Apostle attributes so great a right that he calls it a power, saying: the woman does not have power over her own body, but the man does; and likewise the man does not have power over his own body, but the woman does (1 Cor 7:4).

The violation of this fidelity is called adultery, when, whether at the instigation of one's own lust or by consent to another's, one lies with someone, man or woman, against the marriage compact; and thus is broken that fidelity which, even in things bodily and lowly, is a great good of the mind. For this reason it is certain that fidelity ought to be preferred even to bodily health, in which this life of ours too is contained. For although a tiny straw is almost nothing compared with much gold, fidelity is nevertheless no less when it is kept honestly in a matter of straw than in a matter of gold; it is not lesser because it is kept in a lesser matter.

But when fidelity is employed for the committing of a sin, it is strange if it ought to be called fidelity; yet whatever sort it may be, if a thing is done even against it, the deed is worse—unless it is abandoned precisely for this, that one may return to true and lawful fidelity, that is, that the sin may be amended by the correcting of the will's perversity.

It is as if someone, when he cannot rob a man by himself, finds a partner in wrongdoing and makes a pact with him that they will do it together and divide the spoils, but then, the crime committed, carries off the whole alone. The other is indeed grieved and complains that fidelity has not been kept with him; but in his very complaint he ought rather to consider that, in a good life, fidelity should have been kept to human society itself, lest a wicked plundering of the man be done—if he perceives how wickedly it was not kept toward himself in a partnership of sin. For the man who is faithless in both directions must surely be judged the more wicked.

But if what they had done badly had displeased him, and on that account he had been unwilling to divide the spoils with his partner in crime, so that it might be restored to the man from whom it had been taken, even the faithless man would not call him faithless.

So too a woman, if, having violated conjugal fidelity, she keeps faith with her adulterer, is of course bad; but if she keeps faith not even with the adulterer, she is worse. And further, if she repents of her disgrace and, returning to conjugal chastity, rescinds the adulterous pacts and agreements, I wonder whether even the adulterer himself will think her a violator of fidelity.

5. 5. It is also commonly asked, when a male and a female—he not the husband nor she the wife of another—are joined to each other not for the purpose of procreating children, but, because of incontinence, for the sake of intercourse alone, under such a pledge between them that neither he does this with another woman nor she with another man, whether they are to be called married. And perhaps it can indeed not absurdly be called a marriage, if it has been agreed between them to last until the death of one of them, and if, although they were not joined for that reason, they have nevertheless not avoided the generation of offspring, so as either to be unwilling for children to be born to them, or even to do some evil deed to prevent their being born. But if either both or one of these is lacking, I do not see how we can call this a marriage. For if a man takes some woman to himself for a time, until he finds another worthy of his rank or means, whom he may marry as an equal, in his very soul he is an adulterer—not with the woman he hopes to find, but with the one with whom he so lies that he does not have with her the partnership of marriage.

Hence she too, knowing and willing this, certainly mingles with him unchastely, since she has no marriage covenant with him. Yet if she keeps faith with his bed and, when he takes a wife, does not herself think to marry, but prepares to refrain altogether from such an act, I would perhaps not readily dare to call her an adulteress; yet who would say that she does not sin, when he knows that she is mingling with a man whose wife she is not?

But if, so far as she is concerned, from that intercourse she wants nothing but children, and whatever she endures beyond the cause of procreation she endures unwillingly, she is indeed to be preferred to many married women who, although they are not adulteresses, nevertheless often compel their husbands—even husbands wishing to practice continence—to render the carnal debt, using their own right intemperately, not from a desire for offspring, but from the ardor of concupiscence; and yet in their marriages this very thing is good, that they are married. For they are married to this end, that, with that concupiscence brought back to a lawful bond, it might not flow about deformed and dissolute, having from itself the unbridled infirmity of the flesh, but from marriage the indissoluble society of fidelity; from itself the going forth to immoderate coition, but from marriage the manner of chaste procreation.

For although it is base to wish to use a husband lustfully, it is nevertheless honorable to be unwilling to mingle except with a husband, and not to bear children except by a husband.

5. 6. There are likewise husbands so incontinent that they do not spare their wives even when they are pregnant. Whatever, then, married people do between themselves that is immodest, shameless, and sordid is the fault of human beings, not the fault of marriage.

6. 6. Now even in that more immoderate exacting of the carnal debt, which the Apostle concedes to them not by command but by indulgence, so that they may mingle with each other even apart from the cause of procreation—even if their perverse habits drive them to such intercourse—marriage nevertheless defends them against adultery or fornication. For that act is not permitted on account of marriage, but on account of marriage it is pardoned.

Married people, then, owe to each other not only the fidelity of commingling proper to their sex for the sake of procreating children—which is the first society of the human race in this mortality—but also, in a certain way, a mutual servitude of bearing with each other's infirmity, in order to avoid unlawful intercourse: so that, even if perpetual continence is pleasing to one of them, it cannot be undertaken except by the consent of the other. For to this end too the wife does not have power over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise the husband does not have power over his own body, but the wife does (1 Cor 7:4), so that what the one seeks of the marriage or the other of the husband—not for the procreation of children but because of infirmity and incontinence—they should not deny to each other, lest through this they fall into damnable corruptions, when Satan tempts them on account of the incontinence either of both or of either one of them (See 1 Cor 7:4-6).

For conjugal intercourse for the sake of begetting has no fault; intercourse for the satisfying of concupiscence, but still with one's spouse, on account of the fidelity of the marriage bed, has a venial fault; but adultery or fornication has a deadly fault. And on this account continence from all intercourse is indeed better than even marital intercourse itself, which takes place for the sake of begetting.

7. But since that continence is of greater merit, while to render the conjugal debt is no crime, to exact it beyond the necessity of begetting is a venial fault, and to fornicate or commit adultery is a crime to be punished, conjugal love ought to beware lest, while it seeks for itself the source of greater honor, it bring about for its spouse the source of condemnation. For whoever dismisses his wife, except for the cause of fornication, makes her commit adultery (Matt 5:32). So far is that nuptial covenant once entered into a matter of a certain sacrament that it is not made void even by separation, since, while the husband lives and the wife whom he has left commits adultery if she marries another, he too who left her is the cause of this evil.

7. 7. But I wonder whether, just as it is permitted to dismiss an adulterous wife, so it is permitted, once she is dismissed, to take another. For holy Scripture makes a difficult knot of this matter, since the Apostle says, by the command of the Lord, that a woman ought not to depart from her husband; but if she does depart, she should remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband (See 1 Cor 7:10-11): since she ought certainly not to depart and remain unmarried except from an adulterous husband, lest by departing from one who is not an adulterer she make him commit adultery.

But to be reconciled to her husband—either by bearing with him, if she cannot contain herself, or once he is corrected—she perhaps can justly do. But how the man can have license to take another, if he has left an adulteress, when the woman has no license to marry another if she has left an adulterer, I do not see.

And if these things are so, that social bond of spouses has such force that, although it is contracted for the purpose of procreating, it is not dissolved even for the sake of procreation itself.

For a man could dismiss a barren wife and take one by whom he might have children, and yet it is not permitted; and in our times indeed, and by Roman custom, it is not even permitted to take an additional wife, so as to have more than one living; and certainly, when an adulteress has been left, or an adulterer, more human beings could be born if either she married another or he took another.

But if this is not permitted, as the divine rule seems to prescribe, who would not be made attentive to what so great a firmness of the conjugal bond means for itself? I think it could by no means have had such force unless some sacrament of a greater reality were attached to it out of this weak mortality of human beings—a sacrament that would remain unshaken, to their punishment, for those who abandon it and desire to dissolve it; for when divorce intervenes that nuptial covenant is not abolished, so that the spouses remain spouses to each other even when separated, while they commit adultery with those to whom they have been joined even after their own repudiation, whether she with a man or he with a woman. And yet only in the city of our God, on his holy mountain (Ps 48:2 (47:2)) is the case of a wife of such a kind.

7. 8. But who does not know that the laws of the gentiles stand otherwise? There, once a repudiation has been interposed, without any liability to human punishment, the woman marries whomever she will, and the man takes whomever he will. To this custom Moses seems to have permitted something similar, on account of the hardness of the Israelites, in the matter of the bill of divorce (See Deut 24:1; Matt 19:8). In this matter a reproach of divorce appears rather than an approval.

8. 8. Marriage, therefore, is honorable in all things, and the marriage bed undefiled (Heb 13:4). We do not call this a good in such a way that it is a good only in comparison with fornication; otherwise there would be two evils, of which one is worse—or fornication too would be a good, because adultery is worse: for it is worse to violate another's marriage than to cling to a prostitute; and adultery would be a good, because incest is worse: for it is worse to lie with one's mother than with another's wife; and until one arrives at those things which, as the Apostle says, it is shameful even to mention (Eph 5:12), all things would be goods in comparison with worse things. But who would doubt that this is false?

Marriage and fornication, then, are not two evils of which one is worse; rather, marriage and continence are two goods, of which one is better. Just as this temporal health and feebleness are not two evils of which one is worse, but this health and immortality are two goods, of which one is better. Likewise knowledge and vanity are not two evils, of which vanity is worse; rather, knowledge and love are two goods, of which love is the better. For knowledge will be destroyed, says the Apostle, and yet it is necessary for this present time; but love never fails (1 Cor 13:8).

So too this mortal generation, for the sake of which marriages take place, will be destroyed; but freedom from all intercourse is here an angelic meditation and remains forever. And just as the meals of the just are better than the fasts of the sacrilegious, so the marriages of believing women are to be preferred to the virginity of the impious. Yet there it is not the meal that is preferred to the fast, but righteousness to sacrilege; and here it is not marriage that is preferred to virginity, but faith to impiety.

For the just take their meals, when there is need, to this end: that, like good masters, they may furnish to their servants—their bodies—what is just and fair; but the sacrilegious fast to this end: that they may serve demons. So believing women marry to this end: that they may be chastely joined to husbands; but impious women are virgins to this end: that they may fornicate away from the true God.

Just as, then, what Martha was doing was good, occupied as she was about the service of the saints, but better what Mary her sister was doing, sitting at the Lord's feet and hearing his word (Luke 10:39-40): so we praise the good of Susanna in conjugal chastity (See Dan 13:22); yet we prefer to her the good of the widow Anna (See Luke 2:36-37), and much more that of the Virgin Mary (See Luke 1:27). It was good, what those women did who ministered to Christ and his disciples the necessities out of their own substance; but it was better, what those did who gave up all their substance, that they might more readily follow the same Lord. In these two goods, however, whether those that these women did or those that Martha and Mary did, what is better could not be done unless the other was passed over or left aside. From which it is to be understood that marriage is not therefore to be thought an evil because, unless one abstains from it, widowed chastity or virginal integrity cannot be had. For what Martha was doing was not therefore an evil because, unless her sister abstained from it, she would not do what was better; nor is it therefore an evil to receive a just man or a prophet into one's house, because one ought not even to have a house, so that he who wishes to follow Christ unto perfection may do what is better.

9. 9. Indeed it must be observed that God gives us some goods that are to be sought for their own sake, such as wisdom, health, and friendship; and others that are necessary for the sake of something else, such as learning, food, drink, sleep, marriage, and intercourse.

For some of these are necessary for the sake of wisdom, such as learning; some for the sake of health, such as food and drink and sleep; some for the sake of friendship, such as marriage or intercourse—for from this subsists the propagation of the human race, in which friendly society is a great good. And so, among these goods that are necessary for the sake of something else, whoever does not use them for the sake of that for which they were instituted sins, sometimes venially, sometimes damnably.

But whoever uses them for the sake of that for which they were given does well. And so, for one to whom they are not necessary, if he does not use them, he does better. Accordingly, these goods, when we have need of them, we rightly will; but it is better to be unwilling for them than to will them, because we are then in a better state when we do not have need of them.

And on this account it is good to marry, because it is good to procreate children, to be the mother of a household (See 1 Tim 5:14); but it is better not to marry, because it is better, for human society itself, not to have need of this work. For the human race is now so situated that, since there are others who do not contain themselves—not only people occupied with marriage, but many also running riot in unlawful intercourse—and since the good Creator makes out of their evils what is good, there is no lack of numerous offspring and an abundance of succession, from which holy friendships may be gathered. From which it is gathered that in the first ages of the human race, especially for the sake of propagating the people of God, through whom the Prince and Savior of all peoples would be both prophesied and born, the saints had to use this good of marriage—not seeking it for its own sake but as necessary for the sake of something else; whereas now, when an abundance of spiritual kinship overflows on every side from all nations for the entering upon of a holy and sincere society, even those who desire to contract marriages only for the sake of children are to be admonished rather to use the greater good of continence. At this time, only those who do not contain themselves ought to marry.

10. 10. But I know what they murmur. What, they say, if all human beings wished to refrain from all intercourse, whence would the human race subsist? Would that all wished this—provided only in the love from a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned (1 Tim 1:5); the city of God would be completed much more quickly, and the end of the age would be hastened. For what else does the Apostle appear to be exhorting when, speaking of this, he says: I would that all were as I myself am (1 Cor 7:7)?

Or in that passage: but this I say, brethren: the time is short; it remains that those who have wives be as though they had none; and those who weep, as though they wept not; and those who rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and those who buy, as though they bought not; and those who use this world, as though they used it not; for the form of this world is passing away. I would have you to be without anxiety.

Then he adds: he who is without a wife thinks about the things that are the Lord's, how he may please the Lord. But he who is joined in marriage thinks about the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife. And the unmarried woman and the virgin are divided: she who is unmarried is anxious about the things that are the Lord's, that she may be holy in body and in spirit; but she who is married is anxious about the things that are of the world, how she may please her husband (1 Cor 7:29-34).

Hence it seems to me that at this time only those who do not contain themselves ought to marry, according to that opinion of the same Apostle: but if they do not contain themselves, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn (1 Cor 7:9).

10. 11. Yet marriage is not for them a sin—a marriage which, if it were chosen in comparison with fornication, would be a lesser sin than fornication, but would nevertheless be a sin. But as it is, what shall we say against the most evident voice of the Apostle, who says: let him do what he will; he does not sin if he marries (1 Cor 7:36); and: if you take a wife, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she does not sin (1 Cor 7:28)? Hence it is certainly no longer permissible to doubt that marriage is not a sin.

And so the Apostle does not concede marriage by way of indulgence (for who would not say that it is most absurd to say that those have not sinned to whom indulgence is given?), but he concedes by way of indulgence that intercourse which comes about through incontinence, not for the cause of procreating alone, and sometimes for no cause of procreating at all—intercourse which marriage does not compel to happen, but obtains pardon for: provided, however, that it is not so excessive as to hinder the times that ought to be set apart for prayer, nor changed into that use which is against nature, of which the Apostle could not be silent when he was speaking of the corruptions of exceedingly unclean and impious human beings (See Rom 1:26-27).

For the intercourse that is necessary for the cause of begetting is blameless, and it alone is properly nuptial. But that which goes beyond this necessity already obeys not reason but lust. And yet not to exact this, but to render it to one's spouse, lest the spouse sin damnably by fornicating, pertains to the conjugal character. But if both are subdued by such concupiscence, they do something that plainly does not belong to marriage.

Yet if in their union they love more what is honorable than what is dishonorable, that is, what belongs to marriage rather than what does not belong to marriage, this is conceded to them by way of indulgence, with the Apostle as authority: a fault for which they have marriage not as exhorter but as intercessor, if they do not turn God's mercy away from themselves—whether by abstaining on certain days, that they may be free for prayer, and through this abstinence, as through fasts, commend their prayers; or by changing the natural use into that use which is against nature, which is done more damnably with a spouse.

11. 12. For while that natural use, when it slips beyond the marriage pacts—that is, beyond the necessity of propagating—is venial in a wife and damnable in a prostitute, that use which is against nature is committed execrably in a prostitute, but more execrably in a wife.

So great is the force of the Creator's ordering and the order of creation that, in things conceded for use, even when the measure is exceeded, this is far more tolerable than a single or rare excess in things that are not conceded. And therefore, in a thing conceded, a spouse's immoderation is to be tolerated, lest lust break out into a thing not conceded. Hence it comes about too that whoever is, however assiduous, toward his wife sins far less than even one who very rarely turns to fornication.

But when a man wishes to use a member of the woman not conceded for this purpose, the wife is more shameful if she permits it to be done in herself than if she permits it to be done in another woman.

The conjugal glory, then, is the chastity of procreating and the fidelity of rendering the carnal debt: this is the work of marriage; this the Apostle defends from all crime by saying: and if you take a wife, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she does not sin (1 Cor 7:28); and: let him do what he will; he does not sin if he marries (1 Cor 7:36).

But the more immoderate going forth of either sex in exacting the debt is conceded to spouses by way of indulgence, on account of those things which he said above.

11. 13. So when he says, she who is unmarried thinks about the things that are the Lord's, that she may be holy in body and in spirit (1 Cor 7:34), it is not to be taken in such a way that we should think a chaste Christian wife is not holy in body. For it was said to all believers: do you not know that your bodies are the temple within you of the Holy Spirit, whom you have from God? (1 Cor 6:19) Holy, therefore, are also the bodies of married people who keep faith with each other and with the Lord. And the same Apostle is a witness that the holiness of either of them is not obstructed by an unbelieving spouse,

but rather that the holiness of the wife benefits an unbelieving husband, or the holiness of the husband benefits an unbelieving wife, saying: for the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the brother (1 Cor 7:14). Accordingly, that was said with regard to the greater holiness of the unmarried than of the married, to which also a greater reward is due, in proportion as the one is better than this good, because she thinks of this alone, how she may please the Lord. For the believing woman who keeps conjugal chastity does not fail to think how she may please the Lord, but does so less, because she also thinks of the things that are of the world, how she may please her husband. For he meant to say this of them: that they can in a certain way, by the necessity of marriage, think of the things that are of the world, how they may please their husbands.

12. 14. Whether he said this of all married women, or of such as are so numerous that nearly all can be thought to be such, is not unreasonably doubted. For neither does that which he says of the unmarried—she who is unmarried thinks about the things that are the Lord's, that she may be holy in body and in spirit (1 Cor 7:34)—pertain to all unmarried women, since there are certain widows who are "dead," who live in self-indulgence (See 1 Tim 5:6).

Yet as regards a certain distinction and, as it were, a property of the unmarried and the married: just as she is exceedingly to be detested who, while continent from marriage—that is, from a thing conceded—does not contain herself from the faults either of self-indulgence, or of pride, or of curiosity and wordiness; so rare is the married woman who, even in her very conjugal compliance, thinks of nothing but how she may please God, adorning herself not with braided hair or gold and pearls and costly clothing, but as befits women who profess godliness through a good manner of life (1 Tim 2:9-10).

Such marriages indeed the Apostle Peter too describes by way of precept. Likewise, he says, let wives be obedient to their husbands, so that even if any do not believe the word, they may be won without a word through the manner of life of the wife, beholding your fear and chaste manner of life: let them be not those who are adorned outwardly with curlings of the hair, or decked with gold, or with becoming clothing, but that hidden person of your heart, in that abiding quality of a quiet and modest spirit, which is also rich before the Lord. For thus certain holy women, who hoped in the Lord, used to adorn themselves, being subject to their husbands, just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose daughters you have become by doing well and not fearing any vain fear. Husbands, in like manner, living in concord and chastely with your wives, and giving honor to them as to the weaker and subject vessel, as to coheirs of grace, and see that your prayers be not hindered (1 Pet 3:1-7).

Do such marriages, then, really not think about the things that are the Lord's, how they may please the Lord? But they are very rare (who denies it?), and in that very rarity nearly all who are such were not joined in order to be such, but, once joined, were made such.

13. 15. For what Christian human beings of our time, free of the bond of marriage and able to refrain from all intercourse—when they already perceived that, as it is written, it is a time not to embrace, but to abstain from embracing (Eccl 3:5)—would not rather choose to preserve either virginal or widowed continence than to bear the tribulation of the flesh, without which marriages cannot exist (to say nothing of the other things that the Apostle spares them), when no duty of human society any longer compels it?

But when they have been joined while concupiscence held sway, if they afterward conquer it, then—since it is not permitted to dissolve a marriage as it was permitted not to contract it—they become such as the form of marriage professes; so that either by mutual consent they ascend to a loftier degree of holiness, or, if both are not such, there will be one who is such, not an exactor but a renderer of the debt, preserving in all things a chaste and religious concord.

But in those times, when the mystery of our salvation was still veiled under prophetic sacraments, even those who were such before marriage contracted marriages for the duty of propagating—not conquered by lust, but led by piety:

and if to these men such a choice had been given as has been given now that the New Testament is revealed, the Lord saying, let him who can receive it, receive it (Matt 19:12), there is no doubt that they would have received it even with joy—as one who reads with diligent attention how they used their wives perceives, since it was permitted to one man to have several, whom they had more chastely than now any one of those people has a single wife, in whom we see what the Apostle concedes by way of indulgence (See 1 Cor 7:6).

For they had them in the work of begetting, not in the sickness of desire, like the gentiles who do not know God (1 Thess 4:5). This is so great a thing that many today more easily abstain from all intercourse for their whole life than keep the measure of not coming together except for the sake of offspring, if they are joined in marriage.

Indeed we have many brethren and companions of the heavenly inheritance, of both sexes, who are continent, whether they have experienced marriage or are untouched by any such commingling; indeed they are innumerable.

Whom, after all, have we heard, among familiar conversations—whether of those who are married or of those who have been—telling us that he never came together with his spouse except in the hope of conception? What the apostles command married people, then, is what belongs to marriage; but what they concede venially, or what hinders prayers, marriage does not compel but bears with.

14. 16. And so if perhaps (whether this can happen I do not know, and I rather think it cannot), but nevertheless, if perhaps a woman taken as a concubine for a time should seek from that same commingling only children, not even thus is this union to be preferred even to the marriages of those women who do that venial thing. For one must consider what belongs to marriage, not what belongs to those who marry and use marriage more immoderately.

For if someone uses fields wickedly and wrongly seized in such a way that out of their fruits he gives lavish alms, he does not on that account justify the robbery; nor, if another, being avaricious, broods over an ancestral estate or one justly acquired, is the rule of civil law to be blamed by which he became the lawful possessor; nor will the perversity of a tyrannical faction be praiseworthy if the tyrant treats his subjects with royal clemency; nor is the order of royal power to be censured if a king rages with tyrannical cruelty.

For it is one thing to wish to use an unjust power justly, and another to use a just power unjustly. So neither do concubines taken for a time make their concubinage just if they lie together for the sake of children, nor do married women, if they are wanton with their husbands, lay a crime upon the nuptial order.

14. 17. It is, of course, manifest that a marriage can come to be out of people badly joined, when an honorable agreement afterward follows.

15. 17. But marriage once entered into, in the city of our God—where, even from the first union of the two human beings, marriage bears a certain sacrament—can in no way be dissolved except by the death of one of them. For the bond of marriage remains, even if the offspring for whose sake it was entered into does not follow, on account of manifest sterility, so that it is not permitted for spouses who now know that they will not have children to separate from each other and to join themselves to others, even for the sake of children themselves. And if they do this, they commit adultery with those to whom they have joined themselves, while they themselves remain spouses.

Clearly, to take another woman with the wife's consent, that common children might be born from the commingling and seed of the one, but by the right and power of the other, was permitted among the ancient fathers; whether it is permitted now too I would not rashly say. For there is not now the necessity of propagating that there was then, when even while their wives were bearing children it was permitted to take others in addition, for the sake of a more copious posterity—which now certainly is not permitted.

For the hidden distinction of the times brings so much fittingness to the doing or not doing of something justly that now he does better who takes not even one wife, unless he cannot contain himself, whereas then even those who could much more easily contain themselves took several without blame, unless something else, in that time, demanded otherwise of piety.

For just as a wise and just man who already desires to be dissolved and to be with Christ, and delights in this far better thing (See Phil 1:23), takes nourishment not now from a craving to live here, but from the duty of caring for others—that he may remain in the flesh, which is necessary for the sake of others—so to mingle with women by the right of marriage was then for holy men a matter of duty, not of lust.

16. 18. For what food is to the health of a human being, intercourse is to the health of the race, and neither is without carnal pleasure, which nevertheless, when it is regulated and brought back to its natural use under the restraint of temperance, cannot be lust (See Revisions 2, 22, 2); and what unlawful food is in the sustaining of life, that is fornicating or adulterous intercourse in the seeking of offspring; and what unlawful food is in the self-indulgence of the belly and the gullet, that is unlawful intercourse in the lust that seeks no offspring; and what an immoderate appetite for some is in lawful food, that is that venial intercourse in spouses. Just as, then, it is better to die of hunger than to eat food sacrificed to idols (See Letter 47, 6), so it is better to depart this life without children than to seek a line of descent from unlawful coition.

But from wherever human beings are born, if they do not follow the vices of their parents and worship God rightly, they will be honorable and saved. For the seed of a human being, from whatever human being it comes, is a creation of God, and for those who use it badly it will turn out badly, though the seed itself will never be an evil. And just as the good children of adulterers are no defense of adulteries, so the bad children of married people are no crime against marriage. Accordingly, just as the fathers of the time of the New Testament take nourishment out of the duty of caring for others, although they receive it with a natural pleasure of the flesh, yet they were in no way comparable to the pleasure of those who ate what was offered in sacrifice (See 1 Cor 8:7), or of those who, though the foods were lawful, nevertheless took them more immoderately,

so the fathers of the time of the Old Testament lay together out of the duty of caring for others; their natural pleasure, by no means relaxed into an irrational or wicked lust, is to be compared neither with the baseness of debaucheries nor with the intemperance of married people. For by the same vein of love children were to be propagated—now spiritually, then carnally—for the sake of that mother Jerusalem; but it was nothing but the diversity of the times that made the works of the fathers diverse. And it was as necessary that even prophets who were not carnal should come together carnally, as it was necessary that even apostles who were not carnal should eat carnally.

17. 19. However many, then, there now are to whom it is said, if they do not contain themselves, let them marry (1 Cor 7:9), they are not to be compared with the holy people who married then. Marriage itself is indeed the same among all nations, for the cause of procreating children, who, whatever sort they may afterward be, are nevertheless the end for which marriage was instituted, that they may be born in an orderly and honorable way.

But the people who do not contain themselves, as it were, ascend into marriage by a step of honorableness; whereas those who would undoubtedly have contained themselves, if the circumstance of that time had permitted it, in a certain way descended into marriage by a step of piety. And on this account, although the marriages of both, insofar as they are marriages, since they are for the cause of procreating, are equally good, nevertheless these married people are not to be compared with those married people. For these have what is conceded to those by way of indulgence, for the sake of the honorableness of marriage, although it does not pertain to marriage—that is, that going forth which exceeds the necessity of begetting—which those did not have.

But neither can these—if perhaps some are now found who seek and desire nothing in marriage except that for which marriage was instituted—be made equal to those people. For in these the very desire for children is carnal; but in those it was spiritual, because it accorded with the sacrament of that time. For now no one perfect in piety seeks to have children except spiritually; but then it was a work of piety itself to propagate children even carnally, because the generation of that people was a herald of things to come and pertained to the prophetic dispensation.

17. 20. And therefore, just as it was permitted to one man to have even several wives, it was not in the same way permitted to one woman to have several husbands—not even for the sake of offspring itself, if perhaps she could bear children but he could not beget them. For by a hidden law of nature those that rule love singularity; but things subject are placed in subjection—not only single things to single things, but, if natural or social reason allows, even several to one—not without seemliness.

For one servant does not have several masters in the way that several servants have one master. Thus we read that none of the holy women served two or more living husbands; but we read of several women belonging to one man, when the society of that nation allowed it and the circumstance of the time advised it—for it is not against the nature of marriage. For several women can be made fruitful by one man, but one woman cannot by several (this is the force of ruling principles): just as many souls are rightly subject to the one God. And therefore there is no true God of souls except one, but one soul can fornicate with many false gods, not be made fruitful by them.

18. 21. But since out of many souls there will be one city of those who have one soul and one heart toward God (See Acts 4:32) (which perfection of our unity will come about after this pilgrimage, where the thoughts of all will neither be hidden from one another nor in anything be at variance among themselves), for this reason the sacrament of marriage in our time has been so reduced to one husband and one wife that it is not permitted to ordain a steward of the Church unless he is the husband of one wife (See 1 Tim 3:2; Titus 1:6).

This was understood more keenly by those who judged that not even the man who, as a catechumen or a pagan, had had a second wife ought to be ordained. For it is a matter of the sacrament, not of sin. For in Baptism all sins are forgiven. But he who said, if you take a wife, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she does not sin (1 Cor 7:28), and, let him do what he will, he does not sin if he marries (1 Cor 7:36), declared sufficiently that marriage is no sin.

But on account of the holiness of the sacrament, just as a woman, even if she was violated as a catechumen, cannot after Baptism be consecrated among the virgins of God, so it has not unreasonably seemed that the man who exceeded the single number of wives committed no sin, but lost a certain norm of the sacrament—a norm necessary not for the merit of a good life, but for the sign of ecclesiastical ordination.

And on this account, just as the several wives of the ancient fathers signified our future Churches, drawn from all nations, subject to the one man Christ, so our prelate, the husband of one wife, signifies the unity drawn from all nations, subject to the one man Christ—which will then be perfected, when he has revealed the hidden things of darkness and made manifest the hidden things of the heart, so that then there may be praise to each one from God (1 Cor 4:5).

But now there are open, there are hidden dissensions—even with love preserved—among those who will be one and in one: dissensions which then will certainly be none. As, then, the sacrament of the plural marriages of that time signified the future multitude subject to God among all the earthly nations, so the sacrament of the single marriages of our time signifies the unity of us all, to be subject to God in the one heavenly city. And so, just as to serve two or more masters, so to pass over from a living husband into marriage with another was neither permitted then nor permitted now, nor will ever be permitted. For to apostatize from the one God and to go over into the adulterous superstition of another is always evil. Our holy ones therefore did not do, even for the sake of more numerous offspring, what the Roman Cato is said to have done (Plutarch, Cato Minor 25)—to hand over his wife, while still living, to fill the house of another also with children. For in the marriages of our women the holiness of the sacrament counts for more than the fruitfulness of the womb.

18. 22. If, then, even those who are joined for the sake of generation alone, for which marriage was instituted, are not compared with the fathers who sought children in a way far other than these do—since Abraham, commanded to sacrifice his son, intrepid and devoted, did not spare his only son, whom he had received out of so great a despair, except that he should lower the hand at the bidding of him at whose bidding he had raised it (See Gen 22:12).

19. 22. It remains for us to see whether at least our continent are to be compared with those married fathers; unless perhaps these are now to be preferred to those for whom we have not yet found any to whom we might compare them. For there was a greater good in the marriages of those men than is the proper good of marriage—to which the good of continence is without doubt to be preferred—because they did not seek children from marriage with such a duty as that by which these are led, out of a certain sense of mortal nature seeking a succession to replace what departs.

Whoever denies that this is a good is ignorant that God is the creator of all goods, from heavenly things down to earthly, from immortal things down to mortal. But this sense of begetting not even the beasts wholly lack, and especially the birds, in whom there is at hand the care of nest-building and a certain likeness of marriages, for procreating and nurturing together.

But those men, with a far holier mind, surpassed this affection of mortal nature—whose chastity in its own kind, with the worship of God added, is placed, as some have understood, in the thirtyfold fruit (See On Holy Virginity 44, 45)—those men who sought children from their marriages for the sake of Christ, to distinguish his race according to the flesh from all the nations, as it pleased God to arrange, so that this above all might avail for prophesying him: that it was foretold from what race and from what nation he was to come in the flesh.

There was, then, a far greater good in the chaste marriages of our faithful than that which father Abraham knew in his own thigh, under which he ordered his servant to place his hand, that he might swear about the wife who was to be taken for his son (See Gen 24:2-4). For placing his hand under the man's thigh and swearing by the God of heaven, what else did he signify but that the God of heaven was to come in that flesh which would draw its origin from that thigh? Marriage, then, is a good, in which married people are the better the more chastely and faithfully they fear God, especially if they also nurture spiritually the children whom they desire carnally.

20. 23. Nor does the fact that the Law orders a person to be purified even after conjugal intercourse declare it to be a sin—if it is not that intercourse which is conceded by way of indulgence, which when excessive even hinders prayers. But just as the Law sets down many things in sacraments and shadows of things to come, so a certain material formlessness in the seed, which, once formed, is to render the body of a human being, was set down in signification of an unformed and untaught life: and because a person must be cleansed of this formlessness by the form and instruction of teaching, that purification was prescribed as a sign of this matter, after the emission of seed. For neither is a sin committed in sleep; and yet even there a purification was prescribed.

Or if anyone thinks this too a sin, supposing that it does not happen except from some desire of this kind—which is without doubt false—are then the customary monthly courses of women sins? And yet that same antiquity of the Law prescribed that women be purified of them (See Lev 15) only on account of that material formlessness itself, which, once conception has taken place, is added as though for the building up of the body. And on this account, when it flows formlessly, the Law willed that there be signified by it a mind, without the form of discipline, unbecomingly fluid and dissolute—a mind which it signifies ought to be formed, when it orders such a flow of the body to be purified. Finally, is even to die a sin? Or is not to bury the dead also a good work of humanity? And yet a purification was commanded even from that (See Num 19:11); because a dead body too, when life has forsaken it, is not a sin, but signifies the sin of a soul forsaken by righteousness.

20. 24. Marriage, I say, is a good, and against all calumnies it can be defended with sound reason. Yet to the marriages of the holy fathers I seek to compare, not what marriage, but what continence—indeed not marriage to marriage (for the gift given to the mortal nature of human beings is equal in all), but the people who use marriage—and because I do not find any whom I might compare to those people who used marriage in a far other way, it must be asked which of the continent are to be compared with those married people. Unless perhaps Abraham could not contain himself from marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, who was able, intrepid, to sacrifice his only pledge of offspring, for the sake of which marriages are dear, for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.

21. 25. Continence, indeed, is a virtue not of the body but of the mind. Now the virtues of the mind are sometimes manifested in act, sometimes lie hidden in disposition, just as the virtue of martyrdom stood out and appeared in the bearing of sufferings. But how many there are in that same virtue of mind who lack the temptation by which what is within, in the sight of God, would come forth also into the sight of human beings—and the virtue does not then begin to be, but then becomes known! For patience was already in Job, which God knew and to which he bore witness, but it became known to human beings through the trial of temptation;

and what lay hidden within was, through the things brought upon him from without, not born but made manifest (See Job 1). Timothy too certainly had the virtue of refraining from wine, which Paul did not take from him by advising him to use a little wine for his stomach's sake and his frequent infirmities (1 Tim 5:23) (otherwise he was teaching ruinously, that for the sake of the body's health a loss of virtue should come about in the mind); but because, with that virtue preserved, what he advised could be done, the usefulness of drinking was so relaxed to the body that the disposition of containing remained in the mind. For a disposition is that by which something is done when there is need; but when it is not done, it can be done, only there is no need.

This disposition, concerning the continence that comes about from intercourse, those do not have to whom it is said: if they do not contain themselves, let them marry (1 Cor 7:9). But those have it to whom it is said: let him who can receive it, receive it (Matt 19:12). Thus perfect minds used the earthly goods that are necessary for the sake of something else through this disposition of continence, by which they were not bound to them and by which they could even not use them, if there were no need. Nor does anyone use them well except one who can also not use them. Many indeed more easily abstain, so as not to use them, than govern themselves so as to use them well; yet no one can use wisely except one who can also continently not use.

From this disposition Paul too was saying: I know both how to abound and how to suffer want (Phil 4:12). For to suffer want belongs to any sort of people; but to know how to suffer want belongs to the great. So too, who cannot abound? But to know how to abound belongs only to those whom abundance does not corrupt.

21. 26. But that it may be more openly understood how virtue can be in disposition even if it is not in act, I speak of an example about which no Catholic Christian doubts. For that our Lord Jesus Christ truly, in the truth of the flesh, hungered and thirsted, ate and drank, none of those who are believers from his Gospel doubts. Was there not, then, in him the virtue of continence from food and drink, as great as there was in John the Baptist? For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they said, 'He has a demon.' The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they said, 'Behold a glutton and a wine-drinker, a friend of tax collectors and sinners (Matt 11:18-19).' Are not such things said against his household, our fathers, on account of another manner of using earthly things, as far as intercourse is concerned: "Behold lustful and unclean men, lovers of women and of wantonness"?

And yet, just as in him that was not true—although it was true that he did not abstain from eating and drinking as John did, for he himself says most openly and most truly, John came neither eating nor drinking; the Son of man came eating and drinking—so neither is this true of those fathers, although now there has come an apostle of Christ, unmarried and not begetting, of whom the pagans say, "He was a magician"; and there came then a prophet of Christ, contracting marriages and procreating children, of whom the Manicheans say, "He was a womanizer." And wisdom is justified by her children (Matt 11:19), which the Lord there added, when he had said those things about John and about himself: wisdom, he says, is justified by her children.

They see that the virtue of continence ought always to be in the disposition of the mind, but is manifested in act according to the fittingness of circumstances and times—just as the virtue of patience of the holy martyrs appeared in act, while that of the others, equally holy, was in disposition. Wherefore, just as the merit of patience is not unequal in Peter, who suffered, and in John, who did not suffer, so the merit of continence is not unequal in John, who experienced no marriage, and in Abraham, who begot children. For both the celibacy of the one and the marriage of the other did service for Christ according to the apportioning of the times; but John had continence both in act, while Abraham had it in disposition alone.

22. 27. And so in that time, when the Law, following the days of the patriarchs, called him cursed who would not raise up seed in Israel (See Deut 25:5-10), even he who was able did not bring it forth, but nevertheless had it.

But from the time when the fullness of time came (Gal 4:4), so that it might be said, let him who can receive it, receive it (Matt 19:12)—from that time even until now, and thenceforth until the end, he who has it works; let him who has been unwilling to work not lie that he does not have it.

And on this account, by those who corrupt good morals with bad conversations (See 1 Cor 15:33), with empty and vain cunning it is said to a continent Christian who refuses marriage: "Are you then better than Abraham?"

When he hears this, let him not be disturbed, nor dare to say, "I am better," nor slip from his purpose (for the first he does not say truly, the second he does not do rightly), but let him say: "I am indeed not better than Abraham, but the chastity of the celibate is better than the chastity of marriage: of which Abraham had one in use, both in disposition. For he lived chastely in marriage; he could have been chaste without marriage, but then it was not fitting.

But I more easily do not use the marriage that Abraham used than I would use marriage in the way that Abraham used it; and therefore I am better than those who through incontinence of mind cannot do what I do, not better than those who, on account of the difference of the time, did not do what I do. For what I now do, they would have done better, if it had been a thing to be done then; but what they did, I would not do so, even if it were now a thing to be done."

Or if he feels and knows himself to be such that—with the virtue of continence preserved and remaining in the disposition of his mind—if he had descended to the use of marriage out of some duty of religion, he would be such a husband and such a father as Abraham was, let him plainly dare to answer that captious interrogator and say: "I am indeed not better than Abraham, at least in this kind of continence, which he did not lack, even though it did not appear; but I am such, not having something different, but doing something different." Let him plainly say these things, because even if he should wish to glory, he will not be foolish, for he speaks the truth.

But if he forbears, lest anyone esteem him beyond what he sees him to be, or hears anything from him (See 2 Cor 12:6), let him remove the knot of the question from his own person and answer not about the man but about the matter itself, and say: "He who can do so much is such as Abraham was." But it can come about that the virtue of continence is less in the mind of one who does not use the marriage that Abraham used; yet nevertheless it is greater than in the mind of one who held to the chastity of marriage for this reason, that he could not hold a greater chastity.

So too the unmarried woman, who thinks about the things that are the Lord's, that she may be holy in body and in spirit (1 Cor 7:34), when she hears that shameless questioner saying, "Are you then better than Sarah?" let her answer: "I am better, but than those women who lack the virtue of this continence, which of Sarah I do not believe. She therefore did, with this virtue, what accorded with that time, from which I am free, so that in my body too there appears what she preserved in her mind."

23. 28. If, then, we compare the things themselves, it is in no way to be doubted that the chastity of continence is better than conjugal chastity, although both are nevertheless a good; but when we compare people, the better is the one who has the greater good than another. Further, whoever has the greater of the same kind has also that which is less; but whoever has only that which is less does not have that which is greater. For in sixty there are also thirty; in thirty there are not also sixty. But not to act on what one has is a matter of the apportioning of duties, not of a lack of virtues; for neither does he lack the good of mercy who does not find wretched people whom he might mercifully relieve.

23. 29. To this is added that people are not rightly compared to people on the basis of some one good. For it can come about that one does not have something that another has, but has something else that is to be esteemed more highly. For the good of obedience is greater than that of continence. For marriage is nowhere condemned by the authority of our Scriptures, but disobedience is nowhere absolved. If, then, there be set before us a virgin who will remain such, but disobedient, and a married woman who could not remain a virgin, but is nevertheless obedient, which shall we call the better? The one less praiseworthy than if she were a virgin, or the one damnable, such as the virgin is? So too, if you compare a drunken virgin with a sober married woman, who would doubt to render the same judgment?

For marriage and virginity are two goods, of which one is greater; but sobriety and drunkenness, like obedience and obstinacy, the one set are goods, the other evils. And it is better to have all goods, even lesser ones, than a great good with a great evil, because even in the goods of the body it is better to have the stature of Zacchaeus with health than that of Goliath with a fever.

23. 30. The question is plainly rightly put—not whether an utterly disobedient virgin is to be compared with an obedient married woman, but whether a less obedient one is to be compared with a more obedient one—because that conjugal chastity too is chastity, and therefore a good, but less than virginal chastity. So then, when the one is compared with the other, the less she is in the good of obedience the greater she is in the good of chastity, which is to be preferred is judged by him who, first comparing chastity and obedience themselves, sees that obedience is in a certain way the mother of all virtues.

And on this account obedience can exist without virginity, because virginity is a matter of counsel, not of precept. But I call obedience that by which precepts are complied with. And therefore obedience to precepts can indeed exist without virginity, but cannot exist without chastity. For to chastity it belongs not to fornicate, not to commit adultery, not to be stained by any unlawful intercourse: and those who do not observe these things act against the precepts of God, and on this account are banished from the virtue of obedience.

But virginity can exist without obedience for this reason, that a woman can, having accepted the counsel of virginity and guarded her virginity, despise the precepts: as we have known many consecrated virgins to be wordy, curious, drunken, quarrelsome, avaricious, proud—all of which are against the precepts and, like Eve herself, slay them by the crime of disobedience.

Wherefore not only is the obedient woman to be preferred to the disobedient, but the more obedient married woman is to be preferred to the less obedient virgin.

23. 31. Out of this obedience that father, who was not without a wife, was prepared to be without his only son, and to be so by killing him himself (See Revisions 2, 22, 2). For I would not unfittingly call him his only son, concerning whom he heard from the Lord: in Isaac your seed shall be called (Gen 21:12). How much more quickly, then, would he hear, that he should be even without a wife, if he were so commanded? Hence not in vain do we often marvel that some of both sexes, continent from all intercourse, obey the precepts negligently, although they have so ardently seized upon not using what is conceded. Hence who doubts that to the excellence of those holy fathers and mothers who begot children the men and women of our time are not rightly compared—although free of all intercourse, they are less in the virtue of obedience—even if those people had lacked, in the disposition of the mind, what in the act of these is manifest?

Let the young, then, follow the Lamb, singing a new song, as is written in the Apocalypse: those who did not defile themselves with women (Rev 14:4); for no other reason than that they remained virgins. Nor let them think themselves on this account better than the first holy fathers, who used marriages, so to speak, nuptially. For the use of them is such that, if anything in them, through the commingling of the flesh, exceeds the necessity of begetting, although done venially, it is a defilement. For what does indulgence expiate, if that going forth does not defile at all? And it would be strange if the young who follow the Lamb were free of this defilement, unless they remained virgins.

24. 32. The good of marriage, therefore, among all nations and all human beings, lies in the cause of begetting and in the fidelity of chastity; but as regards the people of God, it lies also in the holiness of the sacrament, on account of which it is forbidden, even for a woman departing by repudiation, to marry another while her husband lives—not even for the very sake of bearing children; and although this is the sole cause for which marriages take place, the nuptial bond is not dissolved, even when that for the sake of which they take place does not follow, except by the death of a spouse.

Just as, if an ordination of clergy takes place for the gathering of a congregation, even if the gathering of the congregation does not follow, the sacrament of ordination nevertheless remains in those ordained; and if anyone is removed from office for some fault, he will not lack the sacrament of the Lord once imposed, although it remains for his judgment. That marriage takes place for the cause of generation the Apostle thus witnesses: I will, he says, that the younger marry (1 Tim 5:14). And as though it were said to him, "To what end?" he at once added: to procreate children, to be mothers of households (1 Tim 5:14).

To the fidelity of chastity this pertains: the wife does not have power over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise the husband does not have power over his own body, but the wife does (1 Cor 7:4). To the holiness of the sacrament this: that the wife depart not from her husband; but if she departs, that she remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband, and that the husband not dismiss his wife (1 Cor 7:10-11). All these are goods, on account of which marriage is a good: offspring, fidelity, sacrament.

But not to seek carnal offspring at this time, and on this account to retain a certain perpetual freedom from all such work, and to be spiritually subject to the one husband Christ, is certainly better and holier; provided, however, that people so use that freedom from occupation, as it is written, that they think about the things that are the Lord's, how they may please God (See 1 Cor 7:32)—that is, that continence should ever take thought lest obedience have anything less; which virtue, as it were the root and, as it is wont to be said, the mother, and plainly the general virtue, the holy ancient fathers exercised in act; but that continence they held in the disposition of the mind—men who assuredly, through obedience, since they were just and holy and ever ready for every good work, would, even if they were commanded to abstain from all intercourse, carry it out. For how much more easily could those refrain from intercourse, by the command or exhortation of God, who, by obeying, were able to sacrifice the offspring whose propagation alone they served by intercourse!

25. 33. Since these things are so, to the heretics—whether Manicheans or any others who calumniate the fathers of the Old Testament concerning their several wives, reckoning this to be an argument by which they may convict them of incontinence—a more than sufficient answer has been given: if only they grasp that it is not a sin

that is committed neither against nature, because they used those women not for the sake of wantonness but for the sake of begetting; nor against custom, because in those times these things were habitually done; nor against precept, because they were forbidden by no law. But those who used women unlawfully are either rebuked in those Scriptures by the divine sentence, or are set before us by the reading as to be judged and avoided, not to be approved or imitated.

26. 34. But our people who have spouses we admonish, as far as we can, not to dare, according to their own infirmity, to judge those holy fathers; comparing, as the Apostle says, themselves with themselves (2 Cor 10:12), and therefore not understanding how great are the forces a mind serving righteousness has against lusts, that it may not consent to carnal movements of this kind, nor let them slip or go forth into intercourse beyond the necessity of begetting,

as far as the order of nature, as far as the custom of morals, as far as the decrees of the Laws prescribe. For people suspect this of those fathers for this reason: that they themselves, through incontinence, either chose marriage or use their spouses intemperately.

But the continent—whether men, on the death of their wives, or women, on the death of their husbands, or both, who by equal consent have vowed continence to God—let them know that a greater reward is indeed owed to them than conjugal chastity demands; but the marriages of the holy fathers, who were joined prophetically, who in intercourse sought nothing but offspring, and in offspring itself sought nothing but what would profit Christ, who was to come in the flesh, let them not only not despise in comparison with their own purpose, but rather, without doubt, prefer to their own purpose.

26. 35. The young also, and the virgins who dedicate their very integrity to God, we admonish most especially that they know it must be guarded with as great a humility as that which they have vowed is more a thing of heaven, while for the time they live on earth. For it is written: the greater you are, the more humble yourself in all things (Sir 3:18).

It is ours, then, to say something about their greatness, theirs to think with great humility. Excepting, therefore, certain of those married holy fathers and mothers—than whom these are not better, although they are not married, because if they were married they would not be their equals—let them not doubt that they surpass all the rest of the married of this time, or those continent after experiencing intercourse, not as much as Susanna is surpassed by Anna, but as much as both are surpassed by Mary.

I speak of what pertains to the holy integrity of the flesh itself; for what other merits Mary has, who is ignorant of them? And so let them join to this so great a purpose morals that befit it, that they may carry a sure security concerning the surpassing reward, knowing indeed that to them, and to all the faithful beloved and elect members of Christ—coming, many of them, from East and West, though shining with the light of glory differing among themselves according to merits—this great thing is nevertheless granted in common: that they recline with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God (See Matt 8:11), who were spouses not for the sake of this age, but for the sake of Christ, fathers for the sake of Christ.