Marriage

The nature, purpose, and obligations of marriage.

Passages that substantially address this topic, in date order.

• 1 Clement 1.3Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · The Corinthians once respected their leaders and elders, and their households were well ordered.
• 1 Clement 21.6Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Reverence Christ, respect leaders, honor elders, teach the young, guide wives in goodness.
• 1 Clement 21.7Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Wives should show purity, gentleness, and impartial love.
• 1 Clement 33.5Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · God made man male and female in his image.
• 1 Clement 6.3Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Jealousy has broken up marriages.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 12.2.1 (45.1)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Chief evil desires: another's spouse, wealth, food, drink, luxury.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 4.1.1 (29.1)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Keep purity; let no thought of another's wife enter your heart.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 4.1.10 (29.10)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Separated spouses must stay unmarried because repentance is possible.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 4.1.11 (29.11)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · This is not permission to sin, but a way back for the sinner; God can heal past sin.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 4.1.2 (29.2)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Even the thought is sin; the deed brings death.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 4.1.4 (29.4)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Hermas asks: does a husband sin by living with an adulterous wife?
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 4.1.5 (29.5)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · A husband who knowingly stays with an unrepentant adulterous wife shares her sin.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 4.1.6 (29.6)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The husband should separate but not remarry; remarriage is adultery.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 4.1.7 (29.7)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Hermas asks whether a repentant wife may return.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 4.1.8 (29.8)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The husband must take back a repentant wife; this is why he must not remarry. The rule applies equally to both.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 4.1.9 (29.9)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Idolatry is also adultery; do not live with one who persists in it.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 4.4.1 (32.1)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Hermas asks whether a widow or widower sins by remarrying.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 4.4.2 (32.2)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Remarriage after a spouse's death is no sin, though remaining single brings more honor.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 2.2.3 (6.3)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Hermas must warn his children and his wife.
• To Polycarp 5.1Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · Wives should be content with their husbands, and husbands should love their wives as Christ loves the church.
• To Polycarp 5.2Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · Celibacy must be kept humbly, and marriages should be made with the bishop's consent so that they are according to the Lord.
• To the Philippians 4.2Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · Wives are to be taught to live in faith, love, and purity, to cherish their husbands, and to raise their children in the fear of God.
• To Diognetus 5.6Anonymous · ca. 150–200 (disputed) · They marry and have children, but do not abandon infants.
• First Apology 15Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Christ's teaching on purity, divorce, celibacy, repentance, love of enemies, generosity, and trust in God.
• First Apology 27Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Christians do not expose infants, who are often raised for prostitution; the pagans do the vices they falsely charge to Christians.
• First Apology 29Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Christians marry only to raise children or remain continent; one young man even sought castration to prove Christian chastity.
• Second Apology 2Justin Martyr · ca. 150–160 · A Christian wife who divorced her dissolute husband is denounced by him; her teacher Ptolemaeus and two others are executed under Urbicus simply for confessing the name of Christ.
• Dialogue with Trypho 110.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Christians have beaten swords into plowshares; each sits under his own vine, that is, is faithful to his own wife.
• Dialogue with Trypho 134.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin criticizes rabbis who permit polygamy by appealing to the patriarchs.
• Dialogue with Trypho 134.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · The patriarchs' marriages were mysteries, not examples of lust.
• Dialogue with Trypho 134.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Jacob's two wives prefigure the synagogue (Leah) and the church (Rachel), for whom Christ serves.
• Dialogue with Trypho 141.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · David's fall shows that the patriarchs' marriages were not license; Justin criticizes polygamy.
• Dialogue with Trypho 78.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Joseph, thinking Mary guilty of fornication, was told by an angel that her child was of the Holy Spirit.
• To Autolycus 2.20Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Genesis 2:8–25 is quoted: the garden, its rivers, the command about the tree of knowledge, the creation of the woman, and the first marriage.
• To Autolycus 2.28Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · God made Eve from Adam's rib to show that one God made both, and marriage fulfills Adam's prophecy; Satan, a fallen angel, deceived Eve and is still invoked in the Bacchic cry “Euan.”
• To Autolycus 3.13Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Scripture forbids unchastity even in thought; the Gospel forbids lustful looks, marrying a divorced woman, and divorce except for sexual immorality.
• To Autolycus 3.15Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Christians, who may not even watch gladiatorial shows or immoral plays, cannot be guilty of promiscuity or cannibalism; their life is marked by chastity, monogamy, righteousness, and the rule of God.
• A Plea for the Christians 33Athenagoras · ca. 176–180 · Christians marry only for children, many remain celibate, and marriage is for life: divorce and remarriage, and even remarriage after a spouse's death, are condemned as adultery.
• On the Resurrection of the Dead 23Athenagoras · ca. 177–180 (if by Athenagoras) · God's commandments (honor parents, do not commit adultery, do not steal) were given to embodied human beings, not to souls, so the whole person must be judged.
• The Instructor 1.4.10Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Men and women have the same virtue, the same Instructor, and the same salvation; in the age to come the distinction of sex no longer matters.
• The Instructor 2.1.9Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Food is indifferent in itself, but Christians must not eat at the table of demons or cause the weak to stumble; they should use God's gifts as masters and seek the heavenly food.
• The Instructor 2.10.100Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The light within us is not overcome by darkness; the fornicator is dead to God; modesty must never be put off, and in the resurrection the pure flesh will put on incorruption like the angels.
• The Instructor 2.10.102Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Sexual desire must be ruled; only the married may sow, at the right time; and the Lord's words about ravens and lilies teach that we need not care for costly food or clothing.
• The Instructor 2.10.109Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Embroidered and dyed clothing is for display; Scripture forbids boasting in clothing; the faithful are clothed with incorruption; a wife who loves finery falls away from God and her husband, like Eriphyle.
• The Instructor 2.10.114Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Women should not bare any part of the body; Scripture commands the head to be veiled; purple clothing draws the eyes of men and inflames vanity.
• The Instructor 2.10.83Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The aim of marital intercourse is children, and in begetting a human being cooperates with God; seed must not be wasted in unnatural acts. Moses's prohibition of the hare and the hyena was read as a symbolic ban on pederasty and adultery.
• The Instructor 2.10.87Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Nature itself, by the structure of the body, forbids homosexual acts and other unfruitful intercourse; Jeremiah's “hyena's den” condemns idolatry.
• The Instructor 2.10.88Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The hare's constant mating was read as a symbol; the prohibition of eating it teaches abstinence from excessive intercourse, intercourse with pregnant women, homosexual acts, pederasty, and adultery.
• The Instructor 2.10.90Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · We should regard boys as sons and other men's wives as daughters, and control the sexual organs with modesty; nature permits marriage for procreation, not excess or relations with youths.
• The Instructor 2.10.91Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Plato, learning from Moses, forbade sowing where seed cannot grow; the law forbids homosexual intercourse and adultery; sexual union is lawful only with one's own wife.
• The Instructor 2.10.92Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Seed must not be wasted; Moses forbade intercourse during menstruation, and Clement holds that intercourse during pregnancy is also wrong, since pleasure alone, even in marriage, is not a lawful aim.
• The Instructor 2.10.93Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The organs of generation, which God created, are not shameful to name; during pregnancy nature is at work and should not be disturbed; lust breeds many passions, and Scripture prays to be delivered from them.
• The Instructor 2.10.94Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Whether to marry at all is a real question; even within marriage intercourse is not to be used freely, since, as Democritus said, it exhausts the body.
• The Instructor 2.10.95Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Marriage is to be accepted, for God wills humanity to multiply, but not for licentiousness; intercourse not aimed at children outrages nature.
• The Instructor 2.10.96Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Marriage aims at children; abortion, used to hide sexual immorality, destroys humanity with the embryo; the married should not have intercourse by day, the time for prayer, reading, and good works.
• The Instructor 2.10.97Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Marital intercourse should be occasional and modest, at night after the day's prayers, and marked by dignity toward one's wife; love founded on lust soon fades and turns to hate.
• The Instructor 2.10.98Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Licentious speech must not even be named among Christians; intercourse is risky except for procreation, and adultery leads to death.
• The Instructor 2.10.99Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Even pagan poetry condemns adultery and homosexual acts; those who sin in darkness forget that God's eyes see all, as Sirach, Isaiah, and Heraclitus say.
• The Instructor 2.3.36Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Paul's teaching on living “as though not” applies all the more to luxury; the Lord bids us sell our goods and follow him, possessing only faith, confession, and kindness.
• The Instructor 2.6.52Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Instructor cuts off sin at its root, forbidding foul words as the path to foul deeds; the body and marriage are not shameful, only their misuse; idle chatter must also be avoided.
• The Instructor 2.7.54Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Wisdom warns against dining and drinking with married women; if women must be present they should be modestly dressed, and men should keep their eyes and posture decorous.
• The Instructor 2.8.66Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Some mild perfumes may be allowed to women, but in excess they smell of the funeral; perfume can make men effeminate.
• The Instructor 2.8.71Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Flowers and beauty fade; the Christian's crowns are spouse, marriage, and children, and Christ is the crown of the church; flowers have medicinal properties but garlands are for revelers.
• The Instructor 3.10.49Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Young men should exercise in the gymnasium; women should exercise in spinning, weaving, and housework, like the woman of Proverbs 31, Sarah, and Rachel.
• The Instructor 3.11.57Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Women may wear a gold ring only as a seal for household goods; a wife with an unchaste husband may adorn herself to please him alone, while gently leading him to simplicity.
• The Instructor 3.11.58Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Dignity comes from removing excess; husbands should entrust the household to their wives; men may have a signet ring for sealing only; freedom lies in the soul, not in ornaments.
• The Instructor 3.11.63Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Wigs are godless: when the presbyter lays on hands in blessing he blesses someone else's hair; wives who wear false hair deceive their husbands and shame Christ; gray hair should not be dyed.
• The Instructor 3.11.66Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Idleness breeds excess and lust, which exercise dissolves; those made in God's image should not dishonor him with cosmetics; wives should adorn themselves with modesty and the hidden beauty of the heart.
• The Instructor 3.11.67Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Women's true adornment is their own handiwork and household care, in which husband, children, and God rejoice; the valiant woman of Proverbs is a crown to her husband.
• The Instructor 3.12.84Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Husbands should show restraint toward their wives before the servants; the greatest bond of marriage is self-control, sweeter than gold or power.
• The Instructor 3.12.95Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The apostolic household code: wives, husbands, children, fathers, slaves, and masters; then Paul's exhortations to walk by the Spirit, bear burdens, be at peace, pray, and speak graciously.
• The Instructor 3.2.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Made-up women are like Egyptian temples: behind the curtain of cosmetics is no image of God but a harlot and the serpent; love of finery turns wives into courtesans.
• The Instructor 3.2.7Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Made-up women are idle ornaments who ruin households and marriages, as the comic poets mock with their catalogue of a woman's toilet.
• The Instructor 3.2.8Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Cosmetics made of vile substances deserve contempt; even the comic poet Alexis ridicules women's tricks to disguise their bodies.
• The Instructor 3.3.19Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The beard is a sign of manhood older than Eve, who was taken from Adam's side; to remove it is to transgress nature; smoothing marks the effeminate and the adulteress.
• The Instructor 3.3.21Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Licentiousness is everywhere: prostitution of women and boys, homosexual acts, and, because of the exposure of infants, fathers unknowingly committing incest with their own children in the brothels.
• The Instructor 3.4.27Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The true eunuch is one who does not wish to indulge; Samuel warned that a king would take daughters as servants; rich women neglect housework for idle and corrupting company.
• The Instructor 3.4.28Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Rich women parade in litters, visit temples and diviners, and learn love charms that destroy marriages, trading purity for shame.
• The Instructor 3.5.32Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Women who will not undress before their husbands bathe naked in mixed public baths or before their slaves, feeding lust.
• The Instructor 3.7.38Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Elijah's simple meal and the Lord's command to carry no purse teach frugality: Christians should share, give up excess possessions and servants, and travel light, household and all.
• The Instructor 3.7.39Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Husband and wife should travel together with frugality; the body is the measure of possessions; generosity is the staff for the road to heaven, and like a well it refills as it gives.
• The Instructor 3.8.41Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Frugality trains Christians to endure persecution, having no fatherland on earth; examples teach virtue, as Penelope's faithfulness and the Spartans' drunken Helots did.
• Exhortation to the Greeks 10.107Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Whoever seeks God finds life; the human being in whom the virtues are written is God's hymn, and wisdom makes good fathers, sons, husbands, and masters.
• Excerpts from Theodotus 67.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Christ's saying to Salome, that death lasts as long as women bear children, does not condemn birth,
• Miscellanies 2.18.88Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law commands love of strangers as oneself, forbids abhorring an Egyptian, requires offering peace before war, and protects the captive woman, allowing intercourse only in marriage and for children.
• Miscellanies 2.18.89Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law restrains the captor's desire by a waiting period and by cutting the captive's hair; if he no longer wants her, he may not sell her or keep her as a slave but must set her free.
• Miscellanies 2.18.93Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · There is no excuse for exposing children: one who does not want children should not marry; the law forbids killing an animal with its young, and the Romans spare pregnant condemned women, showing the law's humane concern.
• Miscellanies 2.19.99Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Noah was saved by devotion to God; of Abraham's many children only Isaac inherited, and of Isaac's twins the younger received the blessing, a prophetic type; all things belong to the wise, who long for the one through whom all things were made.
• Miscellanies 2.20.107Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The tragedians mock Menelaus for yielding to Helen; Antisthenes would shoot Aphrodite for corrupting women; pleasure, even if God-given for procreation, must not be admitted; Xenophon's Virtue rebukes pleasure's luxuries.
• Miscellanies 2.22.135Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Ezekiel describes the righteous man who avoids idolatry, adultery, and oppression, gives to the poor, and takes no interest; he shall live; Isaiah calls the wicked to seek the Lord and turn to him.
• Miscellanies 2.23.137Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement begins his discussion of marriage: it is the lawful union of man and woman for legitimate children; whether to marry depends on the person, time, and age, and should be for children, with a willing and suitable wife.
• Miscellanies 2.23.138Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Abraham's words teach that half-sisters by the same mother may not marry; philosophers differed on marriage, Plato approving, Democritus and Epicurus refusing, the Stoics indifferent, but in practice many were slaves to pleasure.
• Miscellanies 2.23.139Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · One should not urge on others what one would not do oneself; defenders of marriage appeal to nature and “increase and multiply,” but humans should be more faithful than the birds that keep one mate; the childless, they say, lack natural perfection.
• Miscellanies 2.23.140Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · One should marry for one's country, children, and the completion of the world; the poets pity childless marriage; in sickness a wife's constant care surpasses all others, a true helper as Scripture says.
• Miscellanies 2.23.141Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Even Menander admits marriage's goods; it supports the aged, and children preserve a man's memory; the Spartan and Platonic laws penalized not marrying, since without children cities would perish.
• Miscellanies 2.23.142Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Refusing marriage is impious and unmanly; since losing children is a great evil, having them is good, and so marriage is good; a child needs both father and mother.
• Miscellanies 2.23.143Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Homer prays for a husband and home with like-mindedness; Christian marriage seeks rational concord, adorns character not appearance, treats the wife as life's helper, and must be purged of all impurity, since human seed is more precious than grain.
• Miscellanies 2.23.144Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Animals mate in season and depart; Polyxena, even when slain, fell modestly; yielding to the passions is the worst slavery and mastering them the only freedom; transgressors are sold to foreign sins until they repent.
• Miscellanies 2.23.145Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Marriage must be kept pure like a sacred image, with prayer morning and night and decency in word and deed; Scripture forbids divorce except for sexual immorality and counts remarriage adultery while the other spouse lives.
• Miscellanies 2.23.146Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · A wife is beyond suspicion through modesty, prayer, and care of her home; whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery, and the man who divorces her makes her an adulteress, as does the one who receives her, since otherwise she would return to her husband.
• Miscellanies 2.23.147Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law's death penalty for adultery agrees with the gospel, since one Lord gave both: the adulteress dies to the commandments, but the one who repents is reborn; more is required of those given more. Book 2 ends here.
• Miscellanies 3.1.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Book 3 opens with the heretics' views on marriage: the Valentinians approve it; the Basilidians explain Christ's saying about eunuchs, praising those who renounce marriage for the kingdom to avoid its cares.
• Miscellanies 3.1.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Basilidians read “better to marry than to burn” as advice not to wear out the soul in struggle; Isidore counsels marriage for those who cannot pray free of desire, and otherwise brotherly help.
• Miscellanies 3.1.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Self-control covers the tongue, possessions, and desires, and is a gift of divine grace; the church blesses celibacy given by God, admires a single marriage, bears with others' weakness, and permits second marriage to those who burn.
• Miscellanies 3.10.68Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · “Where two or three are gathered” may mean husband, wife, and child, since God joins them; the heretics set the Creator with the many and the Savior with the one elect, but the same God is with the married and the celibate.
• Miscellanies 3.10.70Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The two or three may also be Jews and Gentiles made one new man in the church, and law, prophets, and gospel united in one knowledge; those who refuse marriage from hatred or misuse the flesh from desire are not among them.
• Miscellanies 3.11.71Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement turns to the Scriptures that refute the heretics: the law's “you shall not covet” anticipated Christ's “you shall not desire”; the law's rule on captive women shows it meant marriage to be used with restraint and for children.
• Miscellanies 3.11.72Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement claims the patriarchs did not approach pregnant or nursing wives, citing the three years between Aaron and Moses and the small numbers of the tribe of Levi.
• Miscellanies 3.11.73Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Moses required three days' abstinence before Sinai; Paul's call to “come out and be separate” means separation from pagan immorality and heresy, not from the married.
• Miscellanies 3.11.74Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul wants the church presented as a pure virgin to Christ, its only Bridegroom; but each believer may lawfully marry, meaning a first marriage; Paul fears deception like Eve's.
• Miscellanies 3.12.79Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul's permission for spouses to abstain by consent and for a time teaches self-control without endangering marriage; celibacy and marriage each have their own service to the Lord, and bishops should be tested by ruling their households.
• Miscellanies 3.12.80Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul's image of the wife bound to her husband applies allegorically to the church's union with the risen Christ; his permission for a widow to remarry “only in the Lord” and his preference that she remain establishes monogamy, and does not make marriage devilish.
• Miscellanies 3.12.81Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Tatian taught that returning to marital relations after prayer serves the devil; Clement answers that sexual immorality is devilish, but chaste marriage unites for prayer and children, as Scripture's “Adam knew Eve … God raised up seed” shows.
• Miscellanies 3.12.82Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul's “come together again” prevents temptation; Christ, the same Lord of law and gospel, replaced polygamy with monogamy; second marriage after a spouse's death is permitted but falls short of the gospel's perfection; baptism replaces the law's washings after intercourse.
• Miscellanies 3.12.83Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law's washing after emission of seed foreshadowed baptismal rebirth without condemning birth; marriage is not merely of the old law, for the same God gave law and gospel, and what God joined man may not separate.
• Miscellanies 3.12.84Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law is holy and shows sin without creating it; so marriage according to the law is holy, a mystery of Christ and the church; sexual immorality and marriage are as far apart as the devil from God.
• Miscellanies 3.12.85Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul foretold that some would forbid marriage and foods, which God created good to be received with thanksgiving; no one may be compelled to abstain from marriage, meat, or wine, though abstaining with thanksgiving is also good.
• Miscellanies 3.12.86Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul's letters never reject chaste marriage but accept both marriage and celibacy; a heretic reads “do not store up treasure on earth” as forbidding children, but Christ was urging the rich to share with the needy.
• Miscellanies 3.12.87Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · “They neither marry nor are given in marriage” does not reject marriage but corrects hopes of fleshly pleasure in the resurrection; “call no one father on earth” means the earthly father is only a servant of birth, God the true Father.
• Miscellanies 3.12.88Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · We become children again, reborn through water; the married too may care for the Lord's things, and both wife and virgin are holy in the Lord; Paul speaks sternly to restrain those inclined to a second marriage.
• Miscellanies 3.12.89Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · To call marriage fornication is blasphemy; fornication, like idolatry, is falling from the one to the many, and defilement is union with another's body; Paul wants younger widows to marry and bear children.
• Miscellanies 3.12.90Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul accepts the husband of one wife, whether presbyter, deacon, or layman; Christ called the Jews adulterous for abandoning the law's intent; the man who excused himself from the supper because of marriage illustrates preferring pleasure to God, not a condemnation of marriage.
• Miscellanies 3.13.91Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Julius Cassianus, founder of Docetism, argues that sexual organs do not prove intercourse is from God, since Christ blessed eunuchs and Isaiah calls them not fruitless trees.
• Miscellanies 3.13.92Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Cassianus, like Tatian but from Valentinus's school, thinks Christ freed us from sexual union; he cites the Lord's saying to Salome: “when you tread on the garment of shame, and the two become one.”
• Miscellanies 3.14.94Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Cassianus misreads Paul's warning about Eve's deception as saying birth came from deception; Christ came to those who had strayed in mind through disobedience, perhaps because Adam sought marriage before God's time.
• Miscellanies 3.14.95Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The old and new man mean disobedient and obedient life, not birth and rebirth; Cassianus wrongly takes the garments of skin as bodies; Christians, citizens of heaven, should marry and possess as though not doing so, using creation with thanksgiving.
• Miscellanies 3.15.96Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul's “because of sexual immorality let each have his own wife … lest Satan tempt you” is addressed not to those who use marriage restrainedly for children but to those tempted beyond that, whom Satan seeks to lead astray.
• Miscellanies 3.15.97Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · “Better to marry than to burn” preserves mutual marital duty; “hate father, mother, wife” means not to be led by irrational impulses, since the same Scripture commands honoring parents; the married should not divorce, and the one vowed to celibacy should stay unmarried.
• Miscellanies 3.15.98Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Isaiah promises both the faithful eunuch and the married their reward: celibacy justifies only with obedience, and the children of the chosen are blessed, not cursed, as the heretics claim.
• Miscellanies 3.15.99Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The true eunuch is the one who begets no truth; by obedience he bears fruit; the apostles begot spiritual children; the eunuch barred from God's assembly is the barren in word and deed, but those who make themselves eunuchs from sin are blessed.
• Miscellanies 3.16.100Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Jeremiah's curse on his birthday laments the people's sins, not birth; Ezra and Job lament too; a newborn has committed no sin; David's “in sin my mother conceived me” refers to Eve, mother of the living, not to his own sinfulness.
• Miscellanies 3.16.101Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Micah's “firstborn for ungodliness” refers to sinful habits, not birth; birth is also good, since in it we learn the truth; Paul disciplines his body like an athlete, using things with self-control; some prefer widows to virgins for self-control.
• Miscellanies 3.17.102Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · If birth were evil, then Christ and the Virgin would be in evil; this is the root of Docetism in Cassianus, Marcion, and Valentinus; man becomes a beast not in marriage but in adultery; the view that the serpent taught Adam intercourse insults the Creator.
• Miscellanies 3.17.103Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Even if Adam and Eve sinned by coming together too soon, birth itself is holy, the means by which all things exist; the church's life needs the body, since Christ came in the flesh; good desire is a tree of life.
• Miscellanies 3.17.104Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Some claim marital “knowledge” was the sin of the tree of knowledge; but then knowledge of truth is the tree of life, and chaste marriage shares in it; Christ healed bodies, so the flesh is not the enemy; “flesh and blood” that cannot inherit the kingdom is sin.
• Miscellanies 3.18.105Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement sums up: some, strict to the point of blasphemy, reject creation and marriage, though celibacy should be chosen with thanksgiving and without despising the married; others, libertines, follow the words of the wicked in Proverbs about a common purse.
• Miscellanies 3.18.107Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ warns against leading his elect astray; Paul forbids association with the sexually immoral but does not call marriage immorality; spouses must not deprive each other except by agreement for a time.
• Miscellanies 3.18.108Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul, citing the Lord, forbids divorce, requiring a separated wife to remain unmarried or be reconciled; he also makes good household management a qualification for bishops; this refutes those who say marriage belongs only to the old law.
• Miscellanies 3.2.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Carpocratians hold wives in common; Epiphanes, son of Carpocrates, died at seventeen and was worshiped as a god in Cephallenia; he taught a doctrine of the Monad.
• Miscellanies 3.2.8Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Epiphanes says God made male and female for common union and gave men strong desire, which no law can abolish; Clement answers that this destroys both law and gospel, which forbid adultery and coveting a neighbor's wife.
• Miscellanies 3.2.9Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law's death penalty and Christ's “but I say, do not desire” show the force of the commandment; Epiphanes mocks “you shall not covet” as absurd, since God gave desire, and calls marriage private ownership.
• Miscellanies 3.3.12Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Marcionites refuse marriage not from choice but from hatred of the Creator, whose world they think evil; yet they eat his food, breathe his air, and received the gospel in his world.
• Miscellanies 3.3.18Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Plato says the philosopher's soul flees the body, like Paul's cry about “the body of this death”; in the Republic he welcomes old age for freeing him from sexual desire, a savage master.
• Miscellanies 3.3.22Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Greek tragedians complained of the pains of bearing and raising children; the Marcionites took such complaints godlessly and turned them against the Creator.
• Miscellanies 3.3.24Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement thinks the Pythagoreans married for children and then abstained; their ban on beans, he suggests, was because beans were thought to cause barrenness.
• Miscellanies 3.4.25Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Marcion is self-controlled only out of hatred of the Creator; Christ's “let the dead bury their dead” does not condemn the flesh; the Nicolaitans misuse a story of Nicolaus giving up his wife to justify sexual immorality.
• Miscellanies 3.4.26Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Nicolaus himself was faithful to one wife and his children lived chastely; his gesture renounced passion, and “abusing the flesh” meant self-control, as Matthias also taught.
• Miscellanies 3.4.27Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Some heretics call promiscuity “mystical fellowship”; one quoted “give to everyone who asks” to a Christian virgin, who answered innocently that he should speak to her mother about marriage; they falsify Christ's words.
• Miscellanies 3.6.45Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Against ascetics who reject marriage as feeding death, Clement cites John on antichrists who left the church, and explains the saying to Salome, “as long as women bear children,” as teaching the natural order, not that birth is evil.
• Miscellanies 3.6.46Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law aims at self-restrained marriage and family life; Christ fulfilled, not abolished it; marriage can be used with self-control, and those who call intercourse polluted, being born of it, condemn themselves.
• Miscellanies 3.6.47Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The seed of the sanctified is holy, and spouses sanctify each other; Christ forbade divorce except for sexual immorality, citing “the two shall be one flesh”; that there is no marriage after the resurrection, like the end of food, does not license indulgence now.
• Miscellanies 3.6.48Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · If the ascetics have already received the resurrection, they should stop eating too; abstinence alone proves nothing, since pagans and the Magi practice it; the kingdom is not food and drink, and self-control is a hidden virtue of the soul.
• Miscellanies 3.6.49Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Some call marriage fornication from the devil and claim to imitate the unmarried Lord; but Christ's bride was the church, he needed no helper or heirs, and he himself upheld marriage and spoke of it continuing until his coming.
• Miscellanies 3.6.50Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ's saying about eunuchs followed the disciples' question about divorce: they asked whether a man could remarry after putting away an adulterous wife; even pagan athletes and musicians practiced sexual abstinence.
• Miscellanies 3.6.51Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Aristotle of Cyrene kept his oath to Lais by sending her portrait home; celibacy is no virtue unless for love of God; Paul condemns those who forbid marriage and counsels spouses to stay together.
• Miscellanies 3.6.52Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The righteous of old ate with thanksgiving and married with self-control; Paul forbids judging over food; Christ himself ate and drank; the ascetics cannot claim to surpass them.
• Miscellanies 3.6.53Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Peter and Philip had children, and Paul had a wife; the apostles took their wives along as sisters and fellow ministers to women; the kingdom is not food and drink; the ascetics do not match the prophets, who lived austerely yet thanked the Creator.
• Miscellanies 3.7.58Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · In marriage, food, and all else we should act by will, not desire; the husband who marries for children should love his wife but beget them with a reverent will, walking decently as in the day.
• Miscellanies 3.7.60Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Those who reject marriage and food out of hatred for the flesh are like pagan ascetics, such as the Brahmans and the Indian “Holy Men,” who abstain from meat, wine, and women.
• Miscellanies 3.9.63Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The ascetics cite the Gospel of the Egyptians, “I came to destroy the works of the female”; but the world still goes on, so Christ destroyed the works of desire, the vices that are the soul's decay, not natural birth.
• Miscellanies 3.9.64Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ's answer, “as long as women bear children,” means as long as desires are active, since sin is the soul's death; death follows birth by God's order, and woman, bearing children, is also the source of life.
• Miscellanies 3.9.65Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Eve was called Life as mother of all, righteous and unrighteous; Paul did not despise life in the flesh but saw it as thankful endurance for others, while departure to be with Christ is love's perfection.
• Miscellanies 3.9.66Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The ascetics omit the rest of the Salome dialogue: when she said she did well not to bear children, the Lord answered, “Eat every plant, but not the bitter one,” leaving marriage or celibacy to free choice.
• Miscellanies 3.9.67Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Marriage according to reason is no sin; each is free to choose regarding children; some who reject marriage fall into hatred of humanity and lose love, while others indulge within marriage and become like beasts.
• Miscellanies 4.15.97Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Knowledge about idol meat must yield to the weak; Paul's permission to buy market meat excludes what the apostolic decree forbade (idol meat, blood, strangled things, fornication); Paul renounced his right to a wife and food to set an example.
• Miscellanies 4.17.108Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Following 1 Clement: respect leaders and elders, instruct the young, lead wives to purity, gentleness, and impartial love, and teach children humility, pure love, and the fear of the Lord, who searches hearts.
• Miscellanies 4.19.123Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Noble women of old did humble work, like Sarah serving the angels; a wife should first try to win her husband to the way of salvation, otherwise pursue virtue alone, obeying him in all but what concerns virtue and salvation.
• Miscellanies 4.20.125Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Euripides describes the loving wife who honors her husband's words, shares his sorrows and joys, and bears his sickness with him.
• Miscellanies 4.20.126Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Marriage conducted according to reason, in faith, with hearts cleansed and bodies washed in baptism, is sanctified; a good marriage is judged by virtue, not wealth or beauty; the wife is God's gift to the husband as a helper.
• Miscellanies 4.20.127Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · A wife troubled by her husband will first try reason and persuasion; if he will not listen, she will live sinlessly, even to death, with God as her helper and guide, aiming at his friendship.
• Miscellanies 4.20.128Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul tells older women to train the younger to love their husbands and children and live purely; Hebrews urges peace and holiness, warning against immorality like Esau's.
• Miscellanies 4.20.129Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Hebrews crowns the discussion of marriage: it is honorable and the bed undefiled; for man and woman alike, Peter says, faith tested in trials brings joy and salvation; Paul boasts of his sufferings for Christ.
• Miscellanies 4.22.146Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The knower would do no wrong even with impunity, reward, or secrecy, having chosen the good for itself; food, marriage, or celibacy without knowledge do not commend us; abstinence from fear is no better than a dog's fear of the stick.
• Miscellanies 4.23.147Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · All created things, including marriage and childbearing with self-restraint, are good, though freedom from passion is better; those who abstain from fear or dislike slander the Creator; true obedience to “do not desire” comes from within.
• Miscellanies 4.23.149Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul teaches choosing the better among goods, not rejecting marriage as bad; God made necessities easy to obtain; as Democritus says, teaching reshapes nature; God gave both nature and renewal; the one who trusts God finds peace and may become a god.
• Miscellanies 4.8.59Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Man and woman share one human nature and so the same virtue; women, like men, free and slave, must pursue self-restraint and justice; they differ only in what belongs to sex, such as childbearing.
• Miscellanies 4.8.60Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Woman shares man's virtue in soul and differs in body; Paul teaches headship yet mutual dependence in the Lord; women, like men, must master pleasure by walking in the Spirit.
• Miscellanies 4.8.63Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · All humanity needs education and virtue; Euripides speaks both ill and well of wives, and Homer praises like-minded spouses; as Christ is head of man, the husband is head of his wife, being God's image and glory.
• Miscellanies 4.8.64Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul in Ephesians calls for mutual submission: wives to husbands as the church to Christ, and husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church.
• Miscellanies 4.8.65Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul's household code in Colossians sets out the duties of wives and husbands, children and fathers, slaves and masters, all under the one Lord in whom there is neither Greek nor Jew, slave nor free.
• Miscellanies 4.8.67Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Wives and slaves may pursue true philosophy even against husbands' or masters' threats, and free men even under tyrants; to die for virtue is noble for women as for men, for it belongs to the good, not to one sex.
• Miscellanies 6.12.100Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The knower limits his desires, values living well above life, and puts no family bond before love for God; after childbearing his wife becomes like a sister, since souls are neither male nor female and do not marry in the resurrection.
• Miscellanies 6.12.101Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Sarah laughed from modesty, not unbelief, and Abraham called her his sister; God grants the prayers of the repentant when they ask, but gives to the knower at a mere thought, as with Hannah, since he knows the heart and foreknew that creation was good.
• Miscellanies 6.2.13Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Simonides echoes Hesiod on good and bad wives, and several poets repeat one another on the uncertainty and troubles of human life.
• Miscellanies 6.2.8Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · More parallels: Euripides and Theognis on the exile, Epicharmus and Euripides on ill-matched marriages, Sophocles and Euripides on bad men's gifts, and Solon, Theognis, Thucydides, and Philistus on prosperity breeding insolence.
• Miscellanies 7.11.63Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Looking to the patriarchs, prophets, angels, and the Lord, the one who knows endures suffering out of firm hope in what is to come; so Peter, seeing his wife led to martyrdom, encouraged her to remember the Lord.
• Miscellanies 7.11.64Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Peter and his wife show what Christian marriage should be: free of possessive passion and undistracted from love for the Lord; the soul of the one who knows is strong in every trial, an image of God's power and a temple of the Holy Spirit.
• Miscellanies 7.12.70Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Self-control begins in fear of God and is perfected in love; the one who knows eats, drinks, and marries as need and reason require, and the married man who serves God amid family cares surpasses the solitary man, whose virtue is less tested.
• Octavius 31.5Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Christians keep to one marriage, sober meals, and many to lifelong virginity.
• Octavius 35.6Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Christians avoid even sinful thoughts, and none are in prison except for their faith.
• On Prayer 22Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Tertullian argues that Paul's command to veil “women” includes virgins, from the use of the word in Genesis and in Greek, from “every woman,” from the angels, and from nature; at the least, betrothed girls and consecrated virgins should be veiled.
• Prescription against Heretics 33Tertullian · ca. 203 · Many heresies were already present or foreshadowed in the apostles' day and condemned by them: denial of the resurrection, Judaizing, forbidding marriage, endless genealogies, the Nicolaitans, docetism, and Simon's magic.
• Against Marcion 1.1Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Tertullian explains that this is the third edition of his work, paints Marcion's homeland Pontus as a land of savagery, and declares Marcion a heretic because his teaching is newer than the faith he once held.
• Against Marcion 1.29Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Marcion baptized only the celibate and those who divorced, condemning marriage; Tertullian answers that marriage is good, blessed by the Creator, and that celibacy is better only as a free choice, while abolishing marriage would destroy both holiness and the human race.
• Against Marcion 4.11Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The call of Levi, the question of fasting, Christ as bridegroom, and the sayings on new wine and patches all show Christ fulfilling the Creator's law and prophets, not separating from a foreign god.
• Against Marcion 4.34Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Tertullian argues that Christ's saying on divorce and remarriage forbids putting away a wife in order to marry another, allows divorce for adultery as Moses did, and was aimed at Herod's unlawful marriage; the parable of the rich man and Lazarus likewise upholds Moses and the prophets.
• Against Marcion 4.38Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Christ's questions about John's baptism, his answer about Caesar's coin, his reply to the Sadducees on marriage and the resurrection, and his words on David's son and Lord all belong to the Creator's Christ.
• Against Marcion 5.15Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · In 1 Thessalonians the Jews' guilt for killing both the prophets and the Lord, the call to holiness in marriage, the rapture to meet the Lord, the command not to quench the Spirit, and the prayer for spirit, soul, and body all fit only the Creator.
• Against Marcion 5.18Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Marcion altered Ephesians 3:9 to make the mystery hidden from the Creator, but the context, Paul's spiritual allegories, his moral commands, his teaching on marriage as a great mystery, and the powers of darkness in Ephesians 3–6 all point to the Creator.
• Against Marcion 5.7Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · In 1 Corinthians 4–10 Tertullian finds the Creator's judgment, his festivals fulfilled in Christ, the resurrection of the body, the regulation (not abolition) of marriage, the one Father from whom are all things, and the law of the ox and the rock in the wilderness as figures of Christ.
• Refutation of All Heresies 10.18.1Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Summary of Tatian: invisible Aeons, a Cynic life, and Marcion-like blasphemy and rules against marriage.
• Refutation of All Heresies 10.19.4Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Marcion denies the resurrection of the flesh and calls marriage corruption, to spite the Creator.
• Refutation of All Heresies 5.7.15Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The Naassenes forbid marital intercourse, reading Attis's castration as passage to a sexless new creation.
• Refutation of All Heresies 5.8.33Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · They read "do not throw pearls to swine" as a condemnation of sexual union.
• Refutation of All Heresies 5.9.11Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The Naassenes forbid intercourse with women and worship the serpent.
• Refutation of All Heresies 7.28.7Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Saturnilus said marriage and procreation come from Satan, and his followers abstained from meat; prophecies came partly from the world-making angels and partly from Satan.
• Refutation of All Heresies 7.29.22Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Empedocles taught his followers to abstain from meat, as housing punished souls, and from sexual intercourse, which serves Strife.
• Refutation of All Heresies 7.30.3Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Marcion's good God is Empedocles' Love, and his ban on marriage and foods is Empedocles' purifications.
• Refutation of All Heresies 7.30.4Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Marcion forbids meat and dissolves marriages joined by God, following Empedocles' view that marriage divides the One.
• Refutation of All Heresies 8.16.1Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Tatian, Justin's disciple, taught invisible Aeons, called marriage corruption, and denied Adam's salvation.
• Refutation of All Heresies 8.20.1Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The Encratites, orthodox about God and Christ, abstain from meat and wine and forbid marriage, more like Cynics than Christians.
• Refutation of All Heresies 8.20.2Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Paul foretold those who would forbid marriage and certain foods, which God created good.
• Refutation of All Heresies 9.12.22Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Hippolytus complains that under Callistus men married more than once were ordained, and clergy who married after ordination kept their office, justified by Rom 14:4 and the parable of the weeds.
• Refutation of All Heresies 9.12.24Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Hippolytus charges that Callistus allowed unmarried women of rank to take a slave or free man as a partner, regarded as a husband without legal marriage.
• Refutation of All Heresies 9.12.25Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Hippolytus says that as a result some Christian women used contraceptives and procured abortions, and he calls Callistus's teaching adultery and murder.
• Refutation of All Heresies 9.18.3Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The Essenes live in self-control and mutual love, abstain from marriage themselves without forbidding it, and adopt others' children.
• Refutation of All Heresies 9.28.1Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Another order of Essenes marries, holding that renouncing marriage would end the human race.
• Refutation of All Heresies 9.28.2Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · These Essenes test brides for fertility, abstain during pregnancy to show they marry for children, and their women also bathe in linen.
• On Prayer 2.2Origen · ca. 233–234 · Origen distinguishes what we should pray for, such as heavenly things and laborers for the harvest, from the right disposition in prayer, such as reconciliation, purity, and self-control in marriage.
• On Prayer 28.4Origen · ca. 233–234 · Widows, deacons, presbyters, and above all bishops have special debts to pay, as do husband and wife to each other; in this life no one is ever free of debt.
• On Prayer 31.4Origen · ca. 233–234 · Any place can serve for prayer, but it is best to have a quiet, set place at home, free of past sin; Origen even suggests avoiding the place of marital intercourse.
• Exhortation to Martyrdom 16Origen · 235 · Christ's promise of a hundredfold reward does not include a wife, because in the resurrection there is no marriage.
• Against Celsus 6.47Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus says Christians took the idea of a Son of God from pagan talk of the world as God's child, but Origen replies that the prophets spoke of the Son long before, and that Jesus' soul is so united with the Word that they are not two.
• Against Celsus 7.48Origen · ca. 248 · Many simple Christians keep complete chastity without the hemlock used by the Athenian hierophant, and Christian virgins keep virginity not for honour or pay but out of devotion to God.
• Against Celsus 7.63Origen · ca. 248 · The same act can spring from different doctrines, as Stoics, Epicureans, and the uneducated all avoid adultery for very different reasons, so Christians' refusal of images must be judged by its reasons.
• Against Celsus 8.55Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus says Christians must either leave life altogether or honour the demons who govern it; Origen answers that the only reasonable death is martyrdom, that Christians may marry and must raise their children, and that they resist the demons with God's armour.
• Against Celsus 8.56Origen · ca. 248 · Christians will live in God's world by his laws, may marry and have children, and will bear hardships as trials; but they will not honour the demons, since they worship God alone, as Christ did, and cannot serve God and mammon.
• On the Lapsed 6Cyprian of Carthage · 251 · Cyprian lists the sins that provoked the persecution: greed, vanity, fraud, marriage with unbelievers, perjury, quarreling, and bishops who neglected their people for business and usury.