On the Good of Marriage

Since every human being is a part of the human race, and human nature is something social and possesses a great and natural good, the power of friendship as well, God for this reason willed to create all human beings from one, so that they might be held together in their fellowship not only by likeness of kind but also by the bond of kinship. The first natural bond of human society, then, is husband and wife. God did not create even these two separately and join them as strangers; he created the one from the other, signifying also the force of their union in the side, from which she was taken and formed. For those who walk side by side and look together toward where they are walking are joined at the side. There follows the bond of fellowship in children, which is the one honorable fruit, not of the union of male and female, but of their intercourse. For even without such intercourse there could have been in both sexes a kind of friendly and brotherly union, the one ruling, the other obeying.

There is no need now to investigate and give a definite judgment on the question how the offspring of the first human beings could have come into existence (those whom God had blessed, saying, “Increase and multiply and fill the earth”), if they had not sinned, since their bodies deserved the condition of death by sinning, and there can be no intercourse except of mortal bodies. Many different opinions on this matter have arisen, and if we had to examine which of them best agrees with the truth of the divine Scriptures, it would be a matter for lengthy discussion. It may be that, if they had not sinned, they would have had children in some other way without the embrace of intercourse, by the gift of the almighty Creator, who was able to create them too without parents, who was able to form the flesh of Christ in a virgin's womb, and (to speak now to the unbelievers themselves) who was able to give offspring to bees without intercourse. Or it may be that much in that passage is said mystically and figuratively and must be understood otherwise, where it is written, “Fill the earth and have dominion over it”: namely, that this was to come about by fullness and perfection of life and power, so that the increase and multiplying itself, of which it is said, “Increase and multiply,” is to be understood as advance of mind and abundance of virtue, as is put in the psalm: “You will multiply me in my soul in strength”; and that this succession of offspring was not given to man until afterwards, when, because of sin, there was to be a departure in death. Or it may be that the body of those human beings was made not spiritual but at first animal, so that by the merit of obedience it might afterward become spiritual in order to attain immortality, not after death (which entered the world through the envy of the devil and became the penalty of sin), but through that change which the apostle signifies when 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.” In that case we would understand that the bodies of the first married couple were both mortal by their first formation and yet would not have died had they not sinned, as God had threatened; just as if he had threatened a wound because the body was able to be wounded, which nevertheless would not have happened unless what he had forbidden were done. So, then, even through intercourse there could have been generations of such bodies, which would grow up to a certain measure and yet not decline into old age, or would reach old age but not death, until the earth was filled by that multiplication of the blessing. For if God granted to the clothes of the Israelites to keep their proper state for forty years without any damage, how much more would he grant to the bodies of those who obeyed his command a most happy balance of settled condition, until they were changed into something better, not by death, by which the body is abandoned by the soul, but by a blessed change from mortality to immortality, from an animal to a spiritual quality! Which of these opinions is true, or whether another or others can still be drawn out of those words, would take long to inquire and discuss.

What we now say is that, according to this condition of birth and death which we know and in which we were created, the marriage of male and female is something good. The divine Scripture so commends this covenant that a woman put away by her husband may not marry another as long as her husband lives, nor may a man put away by his wife take another unless the one who departed has died. So it is right to ask why the good of marriage, which the Lord also confirmed in the gospel, not only because he forbade putting away a wife except for the cause of sexual immorality, but also because he came when invited to a wedding, is a good. It seems to me that it is not only because of the procreation of children, but also because of the natural companionship itself between the two sexes. Otherwise it would no longer be called a marriage in the case of old people, especially if they had lost their children or had never had any. But as it is, in a good marriage, even a long one, though the heat of youth between male and female has withered, the order of charity between husband and wife still flourishes; and the better they are, the sooner they have begun by mutual consent to abstain from carnal intercourse, not so that it should be a matter of necessity later that they could not do what they wished, but so that it should be a matter of praise that they first did not wish what they could do. If, then, faithfulness in the honor and services owed to one another is kept by each sex, even when the limbs of both grow feeble and almost corpse-like, the chastity of souls rightly joined in marriage endures, the purer the more tested, the more secure the more peaceful. Marriages have this good as well: carnal or youthful incontinence, even though it is faulty, is brought to the honorable purpose of begetting offspring, so that conjugal union makes something good out of the evil of lust. Further, the concupiscence of the flesh is restrained and burns in a more modest way, since parental affection tempers it. For a certain seriousness enters into burning pleasure when, in cleaving to one another, husband and wife think of being father and mother.

Add to this that in the very act of rendering the marital debt to one another, even if they seek it somewhat too intemperately and incontinently, spouses still owe each other faithfulness equally. To this faithfulness the apostle gives so much right that he called it power, saying, “The woman 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.” The violation of this faithfulness is called adultery, when, either at the prompting of one's own lust or by consenting to another's, one lies with another man or another woman against the marriage covenant. And so faithfulness is broken, which, even in bodily and base things, is a great good of the soul; and therefore it is certain that it ought to be put before even bodily safety, by which this life itself is maintained. For although a little straw is almost nothing compared with much gold, faithfulness, when kept sincerely in a transaction over straw as in one over gold, is not less because it is kept in a lesser thing. But when faithfulness is employed to commit a sin, it is strange that it should be called faithfulness; yet whatever it is, if one acts even against it, one acts worse, unless it is abandoned in order to return to true and lawful faithfulness, that is, so that the sin may be corrected by amending the depravity of the will. Suppose someone, unable to rob a man alone, finds a partner in wickedness and agrees with him to do it together and share the plunder, and then, the crime committed, carries off the whole himself. The other grieves and complains that faith was not kept with him; yet in his very complaint he ought rather to consider that faith should have been kept with human society itself by a good life, so that no one would be unjustly plundered, if he feels how unjustly it was not kept with himself in a partnership of sin. The first, being faithless on both sides, must certainly be judged the more wicked. But if what they had done wrongly had displeased him, and for that reason he had refused to divide the plunder with his partner in crime so that it could be returned to the man from whom it was taken, not even the faithless man would call him faithless. So a woman who, having violated her marriage faithfulness, keeps faith with the adulterer is certainly wicked; but if she does not keep faith even with the adulterer, she is worse. But if she repents of the shameful deed, returns to conjugal chastity, and breaks off the adulterous agreements and arrangements, I would be surprised if even the adulterer himself should consider her a violator of faith.

It is also often asked whether it should be called a marriage when a man and a woman, he not the husband nor she the wife of another, come together not to propagate children but, out of incontinence, for the sake of intercourse alone, with this pledge between them, that he will not do this with another woman nor she with another man. Perhaps it may not absurdly be called a marriage, if they agree to this between them until the death of one of them, and if, although they did not come together for that reason, they have not avoided the begetting of offspring, either by not wanting children to be born to them or even by acting with some evil means to prevent their birth. But if both or either of these conditions is lacking, I do not see how we can call this a marriage. For if a man takes a woman to himself for a time, until he finds another worthy of his rank or wealth to marry as his equal, he is an adulterer in his very intention, and not with the one he wishes to find, but with the one he lies with in such a way that he has no marital partnership with her. Hence she too, knowing and willing this, certainly has unchaste relations with a man with whom she has no wifely covenant. Yet if she keeps faith with his bed, and when he has taken a wife does not think of marrying herself but prepares to abstain entirely from such activity, I would perhaps not readily dare to call her an adulteress; yet who would say she does not sin, when he knows that she has relations with a man whose wife she is not? But if from that intercourse, as far as she is concerned, she wants nothing but children, and whatever she undergoes beyond the purpose of procreation she undergoes unwillingly, she is indeed to be preferred to many married women, who, though they are not adulteresses, often compel their husbands, even when these wish to abstain, to render the carnal debt, not from desire for offspring but from the heat of concupiscence, using their own right intemperately. Yet in their marriages this very thing is good, that they are married. For they married so that concupiscence, brought under a lawful bond, might not float about deformed and dissolute, having of itself the unbridled weakness of the flesh, but from marriage the indissoluble fellowship of faithfulness; of itself the drive to unrestrained intercourse, from marriage the measure of chaste procreation. For even if it is shameful to use even a husband lustfully, it is honorable to be willing to have relations only with a husband and to bear children only by a husband. There are also men so incontinent that they do not spare their wives even when pregnant. Whatever immodest, shameless, or sordid thing married people do with each other is the vice of the persons, not the fault of marriage.

Even in the more immoderate demand for the carnal debt, which the apostle grants to them not by way of command but by way of concession (so that they may have relations even apart from the purpose of procreation), even if depraved habits drive them to such intercourse, marriage still defends them from adultery or sexual immorality. For that is not committed because of marriage, but it is pardoned because of marriage. Spouses therefore owe each other not only the faithfulness of their sexual union for the procreation of children, which is the first fellowship of the human race in this mortality, but also a kind of mutual service of bearing with each other's weakness in order to avoid unlawful intercourse, so that even if perpetual continence pleases one of them, he or she may not practice it without the other's consent. For this is why “the wife does not have power over her own body, but the husband; likewise the husband does not have power over his own body, but the wife”: so that what either he seeks from marriage or she from her husband, not for the sake of procreating children but out of weakness and incontinence, they may not refuse each other, lest through this they fall into damnable corruptions, Satan tempting them because of the incontinence of both or of either. Marital intercourse for the sake of begetting has no fault; for satisfying concupiscence, but still with one's spouse, it has a venial fault, because of the faithfulness of the marriage bed; but adultery or sexual immorality has a deadly fault. And so continence from all intercourse is indeed better even than marital intercourse itself that takes place for the sake of begetting. But since that continence is of greater merit, while rendering the conjugal debt is no crime, demanding it beyond the need of begetting is a venial fault, and committing sexual immorality or adultery is a crime to be punished, conjugal charity must take care that, while seeking for itself the means of greater honor, it does not give its spouse the means of damnation. For “whoever puts away his wife, except for the cause of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery.” So far is that nuptial covenant, once entered, a matter of a certain sacrament, that it is not made void even by separation; for while her husband lives, even the one by whom she was left, she commits adultery if she marries another, and he who left her is the cause of this evil.

I wonder, however, whether, just as it is permitted to put away an adulterous wife, so, having put her away, it is permitted to marry another. For holy Scripture makes a difficult knot on this matter, since the apostle says, by the Lord's command, that a woman ought not to depart from her husband, but if she departs, she should remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband; whereas she ought 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 she may rightly be reconciled to her husband, either by bearing with him, if she cannot contain herself, or perhaps after he has been corrected. But I do not see how the husband can have freedom to marry another if he has left an adulterous wife, when the wife is not free to marry another if she has left an adulterous husband. If this is so, the social bond of spouses is so strong that, though it is tied for the sake of procreation, it is not loosed even for the sake of procreation. For a man could put away a barren wife and marry one by whom he might have children, and yet it is not permitted; and in our times, at least, and by Roman custom, he may not even take a second wife in addition, so as to have more than one living. And certainly, if an adulterous wife or husband were left, more human beings could be born, if she married another or he married another woman. Yet if this is not permitted, as the divine rule seems to prescribe, whom would it not make attentive to ask what such great firmness of the conjugal bond means? I do not think it could have such force unless some sacrament of something greater were applied from this weak mortality of human beings, which would remain unshaken for those who abandon it and wish to dissolve it, to their punishment; since, even when divorce intervenes, that nuptial covenant is not abolished, so that they remain spouses to each other even when separated, and commit adultery with those to whom they are joined even after their divorce, whether she with a man or he with a woman. Yet only “in the city of our God, in his holy mountain” is this the case with a wife. For who does not know that the laws of the gentiles are otherwise? There, when a divorce has been given, without any liability to human penalty, she marries whom she will and he marries whom he will. Moses seems to have permitted something similar to this custom, because of the hardness of the Israelites, concerning the certificate of divorce; and in this matter a reproach of divorce appears rather than an approval of it.

“Marriage, then, is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled.” We do not call this good in the sense that it is good in comparison with sexual immorality; otherwise there will be two evils, one worse than the other. Or else sexual immorality will be good, because adultery is worse (for it is worse to violate another's marriage than to cling to a prostitute), and adultery good, because incest is worse (for it is worse to lie with one's mother than with another man's wife), and so on until we come to the things which, as the apostle says, it is shameful even to speak of, all will be good in comparison with worse. But who doubts that this is false? Marriage and sexual immorality, then, are not two evils, one worse than the other; rather marriage and continence are two goods, one better than the other; just as this temporal health and infirmity are not two evils, one worse, but this health and immortality are two goods, one better. Likewise knowledge and vanity are not two evils, of which vanity is the worse, but knowledge and charity are two goods, of which charity is the better. For “knowledge will be destroyed,” says the apostle, and yet it is necessary for this time; “but charity never fails.” So also this mortal generation, for the sake of which marriages take place, will be destroyed; but freedom from all intercourse is an angelic practice even here and remains forever. Just as the meals of the righteous are better than the fasts of the sacrilegious, so the marriages of the faithful are to be placed before the virginity of the ungodly. Yet in the one case it is not the meal that is preferred to fasting but righteousness to sacrilege, and in the other not marriage to virginity but faith to ungodliness. For the righteous eat, when there is need, so that, like good masters, they may give their servant bodies what is just and fair; but the sacrilegious fast so that they may serve demons. So the faithful marry so as to be chastely joined to husbands, but ungodly women are virgins so as to commit fornication away from the true God. Just as, then, what Martha did, busy with serving the saints, was good, but what Mary her sister did, sitting at the Lord's feet and hearing his word, was better; so we praise the good of Susanna in conjugal chastity, but still place before it the good of the widow Anna, and much more that of the virgin Mary. It was good that the women did who ministered to Christ and his disciples what they needed from their own means; but better that of those who left all their means in order to follow the same Lord more freely. In both these pairs of goods, whether what these did or what Martha and Mary did, the better could not be done unless the other was passed over or left behind. Hence it must be understood that marriage is not therefore to be thought evil because, unless one abstains from it, widowed chastity or virginal integrity cannot be had. For what Martha did was not evil because, unless her sister abstained from it, she would not do what was better; nor is it evil to receive a righteous man or a prophet into one's house, because one who wishes to follow Christ to perfection ought not even to have a house, so that he may do what is better.

We must of course observe that God gives us some goods that are to be sought for their own sake, such as wisdom, health, friendship; and others that are necessary for the sake of something else, such as learning, food, drink, sleep, marriage, intercourse. Some of these are necessary for the sake of wisdom, such as learning; some for the sake of health, such as food, drink, and sleep; some for the sake of friendship, such as marriage or intercourse, for from this the propagation of the human race subsists, in which friendly fellowship is a great good. Whoever, then, does not use these goods, which are necessary for the sake of something else, for the purpose for which they were instituted, sins, sometimes venially, sometimes damnably. But whoever uses them for the purpose for which they were given does well. The one, therefore, for whom they are not necessary does better if he does not use them. So, when we need these goods, we rightly want them; but it is better not to want them than to want them, because we are in a better state when we do not need them. And so it is good to marry, because it is good to beget children, to be a mother of a family; but it is better not to marry, because it is better not to need this work for human society itself. For the human race is now in such a state that, since others who do not contain themselves are occupied not only in marriage but many also run riot in unlawful intercourse, and the good Creator makes something good out of their evils, there is no lack of numerous offspring and abundant succession, from which holy friendships may be gathered. From this it follows that in the first times of the human race, chiefly for the propagation of 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 as sought for its own sake but as necessary for something else. But now, since from every side and from all nations an abundance of spiritual kinship overflows for entering a holy and sincere fellowship, even those who wish to join in marriage only for the sake of children should be urged to make use rather of the greater good of continence.

But I know what they mutter. “What if,” they say, “all human beings wanted to abstain from all intercourse? How would the human race survive?” Would that all wanted this, provided only that it were “in charity, from a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned”! The city of God would be filled much sooner, and the end of the age would be hastened. For what else does the apostle evidently urge when he says, speaking of this, “I would that all were as I myself am”? Or in that place: “But this I say, brothers: the time is short; it remains that those who have wives be as though they had none, and those who weep as though they did not weep, and those who rejoice as though they did not rejoice, and those who buy as though they did not buy, and those who use this world as though they did not use it; for the form of this world is passing away. I want you to be without anxiety.” Then he adds: “He who is without a wife thinks of the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord; but he who is joined in marriage thinks of the things 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 of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit; but she who is married is anxious about the things of the world, how she may please her husband.” Hence it seems to me that at this time only those who do not contain themselves ought to marry, according to that saying of the same apostle: “But if they do not contain themselves, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn.”

Yet not even for them is marriage a sin. If it were chosen in comparison with sexual immorality, it would be a lesser sin than sexual immorality, but still 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 wishes; he does not sin, let him marry,” and, “If you take a wife, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she does not sin”? From this, surely, it is no longer lawful to doubt that marriage is not a sin. So the apostle does not grant marriage by way of pardon (for who would doubt that it is most absurd to say that those to whom pardon is given have not sinned?), but he grants by way of pardon that intercourse which takes place through incontinence, not for the sake of procreation alone and sometimes with no purpose of procreation at all; which marriage does not cause to happen but obtains pardon for, provided it is not so excessive as to hinder the times that ought to be set aside for prayer, and is not changed into that use which is against nature, about which the apostle could not keep silent when he spoke of the corruptions of utterly unclean and ungodly men. For intercourse necessary for begetting is blameless, and it alone is properly nuptial. But that which goes beyond this necessity no longer obeys reason but lust. And yet not to demand this but to render it to one's spouse, lest he or she sin damnably by sexual immorality, belongs to the married person. But if both are subject to such concupiscence, they do something that plainly does not belong to marriage. Yet if in their union they love what is honorable more than what is dishonorable, that is, what belongs to marriage more than what does not, this is granted to them by way of pardon on the apostle's authority. For this fault they do not have marriage as an encourager but as an intercessor, provided they do not turn God's mercy away from themselves, either by not abstaining on certain days so as to be free for prayer, and by this abstinence, as by fasts, to commend their prayers, or by changing the natural use into the use that is against nature, which is done more damnably with a spouse.

For while that natural use, when it slips beyond the marriage compact, that is, beyond the need of propagation, is venial in a wife and damnable in a prostitute, the use which is against nature is done abominably with a prostitute, but more abominably with a wife. So great is the force of the Creator's ordinance and of the order of creation that in things granted for use, even when the measure is exceeded, it is far more tolerable than even a single or rare excess in things that have not been granted. And therefore a spouse's immoderation in a thing that is granted must be borne with, lest lust break out into what is not granted. Hence also a man sins far less by being however frequently with his wife than by going even very rarely to commit sexual immorality. But when a husband wishes to use a member of the woman not granted for this, the wife is more shameful if she allows it to be done in herself than in another woman. The honor of marriage, then, is the chastity of procreating and faithfulness in rendering the carnal debt: this is the work of marriage, this the apostle defends from all charge by saying, “If you take a wife, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she does not sin,” and, “Let him do what he wishes; he does not sin, let him marry.” But a more immoderate advance in demanding the debt, by either sex, is granted to spouses by way of pardon, for the reasons he gave above.

When, then, he says, “She who is unmarried thinks of the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit,” this is not to be taken as if we were to think that a chaste Christian wife is not holy in body. For it was said to all the faithful: “Do you not know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?” The bodies of married people, then, who keep faith with each other and with the Lord, are also holy. And the same apostle testifies that not even an unbelieving spouse stands in the way of the holiness of either of them, but rather that the holiness of the wife benefits an unbelieving husband, or the holiness of the husband benefits an unbelieving wife, when he says, “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the brother.” Accordingly, that saying refers to the greater holiness of unmarried women than of married, to which a greater reward is also due, in proportion as that good is better than this one, since she thinks only of this, how she may please the Lord. For it is not that a believing woman who keeps conjugal modesty does not think how she may please the Lord; but she certainly does so less, because she also thinks of the things of the world, how she may please her husband. This is what he meant to say of them: that from the necessity of marriage they may in some way have to think of the things of the world, how they may please their husbands.

Whether he said this of all married women, or of such as are so many that they might be thought almost all, may reasonably be doubted. For neither does what he says of unmarried women, “She who is unmarried thinks of the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit,” apply to all unmarried women, since there are some widows who are dead while living in pleasures. Nevertheless, as regards a certain distinction and, as it were, the proper character of unmarried and married women, just as a woman is greatly to be detested who abstains from marriage, that is, from a thing permitted, but does not abstain from the faults of luxury or pride or curiosity and talkativeness, so a married woman is rare who, even in her very service to her husband, thinks of nothing but how to please God, adorning herself “not with braided hair or gold and pearls and costly clothing, but as befits women who profess godliness, by good conduct.” The apostle Peter also describes such marriages in his instructions. “Likewise,” he says, “let women be obedient to their husbands, so that, even if some do not believe the word, they may be won without a word through the conduct of the wife, seeing your fear and chaste conduct; so that they may not be those who are adorned outwardly with the curling of hair or surrounded with gold or with fine clothing, but that hidden man of your heart, in that incorruptibility of a quiet and modest spirit, which is rich in the Lord's sight. For so certain holy women who hoped in the Lord adorned themselves, being obedient to their husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord; whose daughters you have become, doing good and not fearing any vain fear. Husbands, in the same way, live in harmony and chastely with your wives, and give honor to them as to the weaker and subject vessel, as fellow heirs of grace, and see that your prayers are not hindered.” Do such marriages, then, not think of the things of the Lord, how they may please the Lord? But they are very rare (who denies it?), and in that very rarity almost all who are such were not joined in order to be such, but became such when already joined.

For which Christians of our time, free from the bond of marriage and able to abstain from all intercourse, seeing that it is now the time, as it is written, not for embracing but for refraining from embracing, would not rather choose to keep virginal or widowed continence than to bear, with no duty to human society now compelling them, the tribulation of the flesh without which marriages cannot be (to say nothing of the other things from which the apostle spares them)? But when they have been joined while concupiscence ruled, if they afterwards overcome it, 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 higher degree of holiness, or, if both are not such, the one who is such will not demand but render the debt, keeping in all things a chaste and devout harmony. But in those times, when the mystery of our salvation was still veiled by prophetic sacraments, even those who were such before marriage joined in marriage for the duty of propagation, not overcome by lust but led by godliness. Anyone who reads attentively how they used their wives, when it was even permitted for one man to have several, whom he had more chastely than any of these now has one (to whom we see what the apostle grants by way of pardon), does not doubt that, if such a choice had been given them as was given when the New Testament was revealed, the Lord saying, “Let him who can receive it receive it,” they would have received it even with joy. For they had them for the work of begetting, not in the disease of desire, like the gentiles who do not know God. This is so great a thing that many today would more easily abstain from all intercourse their whole life than keep the measure of not coming together except for the sake of offspring, if they were joined in marriage. Indeed we have many brothers and fellow heirs of the heavenly inheritance of both sexes who are continent, whether they have experienced marriage or are untouched by any such union; indeed they are innumerable. Yet whom have we ever heard, in familiar conversation, whether among those who are married or those who have been, telling us that he never had relations with his spouse except in hope of conception? What the apostles command the married, then, belongs to marriage; but what they grant by way of pardon, or what hinders prayer, marriage does not compel but tolerates.

So if perhaps (I do not know whether this can happen, and I rather think it cannot), but still, if perhaps a man who has taken a concubine for a time sought only children from that union, not even so is this union to be preferred even to the marriages of those women who do that venial thing. For we must consider what belongs to marriage, not what belongs to those who marry and use marriage too immoderately. For if someone uses fields unjustly and wrongfully seized in such a way as to give generous alms from their produce, he does not thereby justify the robbery; nor, if another greedily broods over a paternal estate or one justly acquired, is the rule of civil law by which he became the lawful owner to be blamed on that account; 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 blameworthy 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 with a man for the sake of children, nor do married women, if they are wanton with their husbands, bring a charge against the order of marriage.

It is clear, certainly, that a marriage can come into being from those who were wrongly joined, when an honorable agreement follows afterward. But a 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 upon does not follow because of evident barrenness, so that, although the spouses now know they will not have children, it is still not permitted for them to separate, even for the sake of children, and join themselves to others. If they do so, they commit adultery with those to whom they have joined themselves, while they themselves remain spouses. Among the ancient fathers it was indeed lawful, with the wife's consent, to take another woman, from whom children common to both might be born, by the union and seed of the one, but by the right and authority of the other; whether it is also lawful now I would not rashly say. For there is not now the need of propagation that there was then, when it was permitted, even when wives were bearing children, to take others in addition for the sake of a more abundant posterity, which now is certainly not permitted. For the hidden distinction of times makes so much difference to the fitness of doing or not doing something justly that now a man does better who does not marry even one wife, unless he cannot contain himself; but then even those who could much more easily have contained themselves married even several without blame, unless godliness at that time demanded otherwise. For just as a wise and righteous man who already desires to be dissolved and to be with Christ, and delights more in this best thing, now takes food not from desire of living here but from the duty of caring for others, so as to remain in the flesh, which is necessary for the sake of others; so to have relations with women by the right of marriage was a duty for holy men then, not a matter of lust.

What food is to the health of the individual, intercourse is to the health of the race, and neither is without carnal pleasure, which, however, when moderated and brought back to its natural use by the restraint of temperance, cannot be lust. What unlawful food is in sustaining life, fornicating or adulterous intercourse is in seeking offspring; what unlawful food is in the luxury of belly and throat, unlawful intercourse is in a lust that seeks no offspring; and what a too immoderate appetite for lawful food is in some people, that venial intercourse is in spouses. Just as it is better to die of hunger than to eat food sacrificed to idols, so it is better to die childless than to seek descendants from unlawful intercourse. But wherever human beings are born from, if they do not follow the vices of their parents and worship God rightly, they will be honorable and saved. For the seed of man, from whatever man, is God's creature, and it will go badly with those who use it badly, but it will never itself be bad. Just as good children of adulterers are no defense of adultery, so bad children of married people are no charge against marriage. Accordingly, just as the fathers of the time of the New Testament, taking food from the duty of caring for others, although they received it with the natural pleasure of the flesh, were in no way comparable with the pleasure of those who ate what was sacrificed, or of those who consumed even lawful food too immoderately, so the fathers of the time of the Old Testament had intercourse from the duty of caring for others; and their natural pleasure, never relaxed into irrational or wicked lust, is in no way to be compared either with the shamefulness of illicit intercourse or with the intemperance of married people. For from the same vein of charity children were to be propagated, now spiritually, then carnally, for that mother Jerusalem; but only the difference of times made the works of the fathers different. So it was necessary that even prophets who were not carnal should come together carnally, just as it was necessary that even apostles who were not carnal should eat carnally.

All those, then, to whom it is now said, “If they do not contain themselves, let them marry,” are not to be compared with the saints who married then. Marriage itself is indeed the same among all nations, for the sake of procreating children; whatever kind of people they later turn out to be, marriage was instituted so that they might be born in an orderly and honorable way. But people who do not contain themselves, as it were, ascend into marriage by a step of honor; while those who would without doubt have contained themselves, had the reason of that time permitted it, in a way descended into marriage by a step of godliness. And so, although the marriages of both, insofar as they are marriages, being for the sake of procreation, are equally good, these married people are not to be compared with those married people. For these have something that is granted them by way of pardon because of the honor of marriage, though it does not belong to marriage, namely that advance which exceeds the need of begetting; and those did not have it. But not even these, if any are perhaps found now who seek and desire nothing in marriage except that for which marriage was instituted, can be made equal to those people. For in these the very desire for children is carnal, but in those it was spiritual, because it agreed with the sacrament of that time. For now no one perfect in godliness seeks to have children except spiritually; but then it was the work of godliness itself to propagate children even carnally, because the generation of that people was a herald of things to come and belonged to the prophetic dispensation.

Therefore, although one man was permitted to have even several wives, one woman was not permitted to have several husbands, not even for the sake of offspring, if perhaps she could bear children and he could not beget. For by a hidden law of nature, things that rule love singleness; but things subject are placed under, not only one to one, but also, if natural or social reason admits it, several to one, not without fitness. For one slave does not have several masters in the way that several slaves have one master. So we read of no holy woman who served two or more living husbands; but we read of several women with one man, when the social custom of that nation allowed it and the reason of the time recommended it. Nor is it against the nature of marriage. For several women can become pregnant by one man, but one woman cannot by several (such is the force of ruling principles), just as many souls are rightly subject to one God. And therefore there is no true God of souls except one; but one soul can commit fornication through many false gods, not be made fruitful.

But since from many souls there is to be one city of those who have one soul and one heart toward God (a perfection of our unity that will come after this pilgrimage, when the thoughts of all will neither be hidden from one another nor conflict with one another in anything), the sacrament of marriage in our time has therefore been brought back to one man and one wife, so that it is not permitted to ordain a steward of the church unless he is the husband of one wife. Those have understood this more acutely who judged that even a man who had another wife as a catechumen or a pagan should not be ordained. For it is a question 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,” and, “Let him do what he wishes; he does not sin, let him marry,” made it clear enough that marriage is no sin. But because 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 absurdly seemed that one who has gone beyond a single wife has not committed any sin but has lost a certain norm of the sacrament, necessary not for the merit of a good life but for the seal of church ordination. And so, just as the many wives of the ancient fathers signified our future churches from all nations, subject to one husband, Christ, so our bishop, the husband of one wife, signifies the unity from all nations subject to one husband, Christ; which will be perfected when he reveals the hidden things of darkness and makes manifest the secrets of the heart, so that then each one's praise will come from God. But now there are dissensions, some open, some hidden, even with charity preserved, among those who are to be one and in the one; then there will certainly be none. Just as, then, the sacrament of plural marriages of that time signified the future multitude subject to God in all the earthly nations, so the sacrament of single marriages of our time signifies the unity of all of us, subject to God, that is to be in the one heavenly city. Therefore, like serving two or more husbands, passing from a living husband into marriage with another was not permitted then, is not permitted now, and never will be permitted. For to apostatize from the one God and go into the adulterous superstition of another is always evil. Nor, therefore, did our saints, for the sake of more numerous offspring, do what the Roman Cato is said to have done, who handed over his wife while he was still alive to fill another man's house also with children. For in the marriages of our women the holiness of the sacrament counts for more than the fruitfulness of the womb.

If, then, even those who are joined only for the sake of begetting, for which marriage was instituted, are not compared with the fathers, who sought children in a very different way than these (for Abraham, commanded to sacrifice his son, whom he had received after such hopelessness, fearlessly and devoutly did not spare his only son, and would not have put down his hand had not the one who commanded him to raise it forbidden him), it remains for us to see whether at least our continent people are to be compared with those married fathers; unless perhaps these are already to be preferred to them, for whom we have not yet found anyone to compare. For there was a greater good in their marriages than the good proper to marriage, to which the good of continence is undoubtedly to be preferred; because they did not seek children from marriage from such a duty as that by which these are led, from a certain sense of mortal nature that requires succession for departure. Whoever denies that this is a good does not know God, the creator of all goods from heavenly to earthly, from immortal to mortal. Not even beasts are entirely without this sense of begetting, and especially birds, whose care in building nests is plain to see, and a certain likeness of marriage for procreating and rearing together. But those men far surpassed, with a much holier mind, this affection of mortal nature (whose chastity in its kind, when the worship of God is added, is placed, as some have understood, in the thirtyfold fruit), for they sought children from their marriages for Christ's sake, to distinguish his race according to the flesh from all nations, as it pleased God to dispose, so that this might serve above all for prophesying him, that it was foretold from what race and from what nation he would come in the flesh. There was, then, a far greater good than the chaste marriages of our faithful in that which father Abraham knew to be in his thigh, under which he ordered his servant to put his hand, that he might swear concerning the wife his son was to marry. For by putting 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 would come in that flesh which would take its origin from that thigh? Marriage, then, is a good, in which married people are better the more chastely and faithfully they fear God, especially if they also nourish spiritually the children they desire carnally.

Nor does the fact that the law commands a man to be purified even after conjugal intercourse show that it is a sin, unless it is that which is granted by way of pardon, which, when excessive, also hinders prayers. But as the law places many things among the sacraments and shadows of things to come, a certain material formlessness in the seed, which when formed will make a human body, was set there as a sign of an unformed and untaught life; and since a person must be cleansed from this formlessness by the form of teaching and instruction, that purification after the emission of seed was commanded as a sign of this. For it does not happen by sin even in sleep, and yet purification was commanded even there. Or if anyone thinks this too is a sin, supposing it happens only from some desire of this kind (which is undoubtedly false), are women's customary monthly periods also sins? Yet the same old law commanded them to be purified from these, only because of that material formlessness which, when conception has taken place, is added, as it were, to the building of the body. And so, since it flows formlessly, the law wished it to signify a mind without the form of discipline, flowing about unseemly and dissolute, which it signifies ought to be formed when it commands such a flow of the body to be purified. Finally, is it also a sin to die, or is it not even a good work of kindness to bury the dead? And yet purification was commanded for that too, because a dead body, deserted by life, is not a sin but signifies the sin of a soul deserted by righteousness.

Marriage, I say, is a good, and it can be defended by sound reason against all slanders. Yet with the marriages of the holy fathers I seek to compare, not what marriages, but what continence; or rather, not marriages with marriages (for the gift given to the mortal nature of human beings is equal in all), but, since I do not find people who use marriage whom I could set beside those people who used marriage very differently, we must ask which continent people are to be set beside those married ones. Unless perhaps Abraham could not have abstained from marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, who was able fearlessly to sacrifice, for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, the only pledge of offspring for which marriage is dear!

For continence is a virtue not of the body but of the soul. And virtues of the soul are sometimes shown in action and sometimes lie hidden in a disposition, as the virtue of martyrdom stood out and appeared by enduring sufferings. But how many there are with the same virtue of soul who lack the testing by which what is within, in God's sight, may come forth also into the sight of men, not beginning to exist then but becoming known then! Patience was already in Job, which God knew and to which he bore witness; but it became known to men by the test of temptation, and what lay hidden within was not born but made manifest through what was brought upon him from without. Timothy certainly had the virtue of abstaining from wine, and Paul did not take it away from him by advising him to use a little wine because of his stomach and his frequent illnesses (otherwise he would have been teaching harmfully, that for the health of the body there should be loss of virtue in the soul); but because what he advised could be done with that virtue intact, the benefit of drinking was allowed to the body in such a way that the disposition to abstain remained in the soul. For a disposition is that by which something is done when there is need; and when it is not done, it can be done, but there is no need. This disposition regarding continence from intercourse is not had by those to whom it is said, “If they do not contain themselves, let them marry.” But it is had by those to whom it is said, “Let him who can receive it receive it.” So perfect souls used earthly goods, necessary for something else, by this disposition of continence, through which they were not bound by them and through which they could also not use them if there were no need. And no one uses them well except one who can also not use them. Many indeed abstain more easily so as not to use them than temper themselves so as to use them well; yet no one can use them wisely except one who can also continently not use them. From this disposition Paul too said, “I know both how to abound and how to suffer need.” For to suffer need belongs to any people whatever; but to know how to suffer need belongs to the great. So also who cannot abound? But to know how to abound belongs only to those whom abundance does not corrupt.

But so that it may be understood more plainly how virtue can be in a disposition even if it is not in action, I speak from an example about which no Catholic Christian doubts. That our Lord Jesus Christ, in the truth of his flesh, was hungry and thirsty, ate and drank, none of those who are faithful according to his gospel doubts. Was there, then, not 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, ‘Look, a glutton and a wine-drinker, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’” Are not such things said against those of his household, our fathers, because of another way of using earthly things, as far as intercourse is concerned: “Look, lustful and unclean men, lovers of women and of wantonness”? And yet, just as that was not true of him (although it was true that he did not abstain from eating and drinking as John did; for he himself said most plainly and most truly, “John came neither eating nor drinking; the Son of Man came eating and drinking”), so this is not true of those fathers either, although there has come now an apostle of Christ, not married and not begetting, of whom pagans may say, “He was a magician,” and there came then a prophet of Christ, marrying and begetting children, of whom the Manichees may say, “He was a womanizer.” “And wisdom is justified by her children.” What the Lord added there, when he had said those things about John and himself, “Wisdom,” he says, “is justified by her children,” refers to those who see that the virtue of continence must always be in the disposition of the soul, but shown in action according to the fitness of circumstances and times; just as the virtue of patience of the holy martyrs appeared in action, while that of the others, equally holy, was in disposition. So, 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 sons. For both the celibacy of the one and the marriage of the other served as soldiers of Christ according to the allotment of times; but John had continence also in action, while Abraham had it in disposition alone.

So in that time, when the law, following the days of the patriarchs, pronounced cursed the one who did not raise up seed in Israel, even the one who was able did not bring it forth, yet he had it; but from the time the fullness of time came, so that it could be said, “Let him who can receive it receive it,” from then until now and onward to the end, the one who has it acts on it, and the one who is unwilling to act on it should not lie that he has it. And therefore, by those who corrupt good morals with evil talk, it is said with empty and vain cunning to a continent Christian who refuses marriage, “So you are better than Abraham?” When he hears this, let him not be disturbed, nor dare to say “Better,” nor slip from his resolve (for the one he would not say truly, the other he would not do rightly); but let him say: “I am not better than Abraham, but the chastity of the unmarried is better than the chastity of marriage; Abraham had one of these in use, both in disposition. For he lived chastely as a married man; he could have been chaste without marriage, but then it was not fitting. I more easily do not use the marriage that Abraham used than I would use marriage in the way Abraham used it; and so I am better than those who through incontinence of soul cannot do what I do, not than those who because of the difference of time did not do what I do. For what I now do, they would have done better, if it had been to be done then; but what they did, I would not do in the same way, even if it were to be done now.” Or if this man perceives and knows himself to be such that, with the virtue of continence safe and abiding in the disposition of his soul, if he had come down to the use of marriage from some religious duty, he would be such a husband and such a father as Abraham was, let him dare plainly to answer that captious questioner and say, “I am not better than Abraham, at least in this kind of continence, which he did not lack, though it did not appear; but I am such a one, not having something else, but doing something else.” Let him say this plainly, because even if he wishes to boast, he will not be foolish, for he speaks the truth. But if he refrains, lest anyone think of him above what he sees in him or hears from him, let him remove the knot of the question from his own person and answer not about the man but about the thing itself, and say, “Whoever can do so much is such as Abraham was.” It can happen, though, that the virtue of continence is less in the soul of the one who does not use the marriage that Abraham used; yet it is greater than in the soul of the one who kept the chastity of marriage because he could not keep a greater. So also the unmarried woman, who thinks of the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and spirit, when she hears that imprudent questioner saying, “So you are better than Sarah?” let her answer, “I am better, but than those women who lack the virtue of this continence, which I do not believe of Sarah. She, then, with this virtue, did what befitted that time, from which I am free, so that what she preserved in her soul may appear also in my body.”

If, then, we compare the things themselves, there is no doubt at all that the chastity of continence is better than the chastity of marriage, although both are good; but when we compare persons, the better is the one who has more good than another. Moreover, whoever has more of the same kind also has what is less; but whoever has only what is less certainly does not have what is more. For thirty is in sixty, not sixty in thirty. But not acting on what one has lies in the distribution of duties, not in a lack of virtues; for the one who finds no wretched people whom he can mercifully help does not lack the good of mercy either.

Add to this that people are not rightly compared with people on the basis of some one good. For it can happen that one person does not have something that another has, but has something else that should be valued more. For the good of obedience is greater than that of continence. Marriage is nowhere condemned by the authority of our Scriptures, but disobedience is nowhere excused. If, then, one were to set before us a virgin who will remain so but is disobedient, and a married woman who could not remain a virgin but is obedient, which should we call better? The one less praiseworthy than if she were a virgin, or the one worthy of condemnation, virgin though she is? So if you compare a drunken virgin with a sober married woman, who doubts that he would give the same verdict? For marriage and virginity are two goods, of which one is greater; but sobriety and drunkenness, like obedience and defiance, are the one good, the other evil. It is better to have all goods, even lesser ones, than a great good with a great evil; for even among goods of the body, it is better to have Zacchaeus's stature with health than Goliath's with a fever.

It is quite rightly asked, not whether an entirely disobedient virgin should be compared with an obedient married woman, but a less obedient one with a more obedient, since the other too has marital chastity and is therefore good, though less than virginal chastity. If, then, one is as much less in the good of obedience as she is greater in the good of chastity, which is to be preferred when the one is compared with the other is judged by the one who, first comparing chastity itself with obedience, sees that obedience is in a way the mother of all virtues. And for this reason there can be obedience without virginity, because virginity is from counsel, not from command. By obedience I mean that by which commands are obeyed. Therefore obedience to the commands can exist without virginity, but it cannot exist without chastity. For it belongs to chastity not to commit sexual immorality, not to commit adultery, not to be stained by any unlawful intercourse; those who do not keep these things act against God's commands and are therefore exiles from the virtue of obedience. But virginity can exist without obedience, because a woman can accept the counsel of virginity and keep her virginity and yet despise the commands: just as we know many consecrated virgins who are talkative, curious, drunken, quarrelsome, greedy, proud; all of which are against the commands and, as happened to Eve herself, bring death by the crime of disobedience. Therefore not only is an obedient married woman to be preferred to a disobedient virgin, but a more obedient married woman to a less obedient virgin.

It was from this obedience that that father, who was not without a wife, was prepared to be without his only son, and that slain by his own hand. For I might not unreasonably call him only, the son of whom he heard from the Lord, “In Isaac shall your seed be called.” How much more quickly, then, would he have obeyed so as to be even without a wife, if that were commanded! Hence it is not without reason that we often wonder at some of both sexes who abstain from all intercourse and yet obey the commands carelessly, though they have seized so ardently on not using what is permitted. Who, then, doubts that the men and women of our time, though free from all intercourse, are not rightly compared with the excellence of those holy fathers and mothers who begot children, being less than they in the virtue of obedience, even if those people had lacked, even in the disposition of the soul, what is manifest in the action of these? Let the boys, then, follow the Lamb, singing the new song, as it is written in the Apocalypse, “who have not defiled themselves with women,” for no other reason than that they remained virgins. But let them not therefore think themselves better than the first holy fathers, who used marriage, if I may put it so, in a marital way. For the use of marriage is such that, if anything is done in it through carnal union that exceeds the need of begetting, even though it is done venially, it is a defilement. For what does pardon expiate, if that advance does not defile at all? It would be surprising if the boys who follow the Lamb were free from this defilement, unless they remained virgins.

The good of marriage, then, among all nations and all people, lies in the purpose of begetting and in the faithfulness of chastity; but, as far as the people of God are concerned, also in the holiness of the sacrament, by which it is wrong for a woman, even one who departs with a certificate of divorce, to marry another while her husband lives, not even for the sake of bearing children. Though this is the only reason for which marriages are made, even when the thing for which they are made does not follow, the marriage bond is not loosed except by the death of a spouse. Just as, if the ordination of clergy takes place for gathering a congregation, even if the gathering of a congregation does not follow, the sacrament of ordination still 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 to his judgment. That marriages take place for the sake of begetting the apostle testifies thus: “I want the younger women to marry.” And as if someone had asked him, “For what?” he immediately added, “to bear children, to be mothers of families.” To the faithfulness of chastity belongs this: “The wife does not have power over her own body, but the husband; likewise the husband does not have power over his own body, but the wife.” To the holiness of the sacrament belongs this: “that the wife not depart from her husband; but if she departs, she is to remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband; and the husband is not to put away his wife.” These are all goods for which marriage is a good: offspring, faithfulness, sacrament. But not to seek carnal offspring any longer at this time, and so to keep a certain perpetual freedom from all such activity and to be spiritually subject to one husband, Christ, is certainly better and holier; provided that people use that freedom as it is written, so as to think of the things of the Lord, how they may please God; that is, that continence should think continually lest obedience have anything less. This virtue, as the root and, as people say, the mother, and plainly the general virtue, the holy fathers of old exercised in action, while they held that continence in the disposition of the soul; they would surely have practiced it through obedience, since they were righteous and holy and always ready for every good work, even if they had been commanded to abstain from all intercourse. For how much more easily could they refrain from intercourse at God's command or exhortation, who by obedience were able to sacrifice the offspring whose propagation alone they served by having intercourse!

This being so, a more than sufficient answer has been given to the heretics, whether Manichees or any others who slander the fathers of the Old Testament about their many wives, thinking this an argument by which to convict them of incontinence: provided they grasp that it is not a sin which is committed neither against nature, since they used those women not for wantonness but for begetting; nor against custom, since those things were commonly done in those times; nor against a command, since they were forbidden by no law. As for those who used women unlawfully, either the divine judgment rebukes them in those Scriptures, or the reading sets them before us to be judged and avoided, not approved and imitated.

But we warn our own people who have wives, as much as we can, not to dare to judge those holy fathers by their own weakness, “comparing themselves with themselves,” as the apostle says, and so not understanding how much strength a soul has that serves righteousness against lusts, so that it does not give way to carnal impulses of this kind or allow them to slip or advance into intercourse beyond the need of begetting, beyond what the order of nature, the custom of morals, and the decrees of the laws prescribe. People suspect this of those fathers because they themselves either chose marriage through incontinence or use their wives intemperately. But let the continent, whether men whose wives have died, or women whose husbands have died, or both who by mutual consent have vowed continence to God, know that a greater reward is indeed due to them than conjugal chastity requires; but let them not only not despise, in comparison with their own resolve, the marriages of the holy fathers, who were joined prophetically, who sought in intercourse nothing but offspring and in offspring nothing but what would profit Christ, who was to come in the flesh, but let them without hesitation even place those marriages before their own resolve.

Most of all we urge the boys and virgins who dedicate their very integrity to God to know that what they vow must be guarded with humility all the greater, the more it belongs to heaven, while they meanwhile live on earth. For it is written, “The greater you are, the more humble yourself in all things.” It is for us, then, to say something of their greatness; for them to think of great humility. Except, then, for certain of those married holy fathers and mothers, than whom these are not better, though they are not married, because if they were married they would not be their equals, let them not doubt that they surpass all the other married people of this time, or those who are 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 concerns the holy integrity of the flesh itself; for who does not know what other merits Mary has? Let them therefore join to so great a resolve a way of life that befits it, so that they may have certain security of the surpassing reward, knowing well that to them and to all the faithful, the beloved and chosen members of Christ, many coming from east and west, though shining with a light of glory that differs among them according to their merits, this great thing is given in common, that they recline in the kingdom of God with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, who were husbands not for the sake of this world but for Christ's sake, fathers for Christ's sake. And with how much humility this must be guarded, I have shown, as well as I could, in a single volume.