De Exhortatione Castitatis Liber

I do not doubt, brother, that, after your wife was sent before you into peace, you have turned to the composing of your mind to think about the issue of remaining single, and that you have, of course, need of counsel. Although in a matter of this kind each man ought to confer with his own faith and consult its strength, yet, since in this case the necessity of the flesh stirs up the thought — a necessity which generally sets itself against the consciousness of one and the same faith — there is need of a counsel of faith from without, as it were of an advocate against the necessities of the flesh. And that necessity indeed can most easily be circumvented, if the will of God rather than his indulgence be considered. No one deserves well by using indulgence, but by obeying the will. The will of God is our sanctification. For he wills that we, his image, become also his likeness, that we may be holy, as he himself is holy. That good — sanctification, I mean — I distribute into several kinds, that we may be found in one or another of them. The first kind is virginity from birth; the second, virginity from the second birth, that is, from the bath, which either, by compact, purifies in marriage, or, by choice, perseveres in widowhood; a third grade remains, monogamy, when, after one marriage cut short, thenceforth there is a renouncing of the sex. The first virginity is of happiness, to know nothing at all of that from which you will afterwards wish to be freed; the second is of virtue, to despise that whose force you know full well; the remaining kind — to marry no further after a marriage severed by death — is, besides the praise of virtue, also one of modesty. For it is modesty not to desire what has been taken away — and taken away by the Lord God, without whose will not even a leaf falls from the tree, nor a sparrow worth a single penny falls to the ground.

How modest, in short, is that saying: The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; as it seemed good to the Lord, so has it been done. And therefore, if we restore a marriage that has been taken away, without doubt we strive against the will of God, wishing to have again what he was unwilling for us to have. For if he had been willing, he would not have taken it away. Unless indeed we interpret even this as the will of God — as though he had again willed us to have what he already did not will. It is not the part of a good and solid faith so to refer all things to the will of God, and so for each man to flatter himself by saying that nothing is done without his nod, that we do not understand there to be something in ourselves. For otherwise every transgression will be excused, if we contend that nothing is done by us without the will of God; and that definition will tend to the destruction of all discipline, even of God himself, if either he produces by his own will the things he does not will, or there is nothing which God does not will. But just as he forbids certain things, with which he even threatens eternal punishment — for surely the things he forbids he does not will, by which he is also offended — so, on the contrary, the things he wills he commands, and accounts them acceptable, and discharges them with the reward of eternity. And so, when from his precepts we have learned both — what he does not will and what he wills — yet there is in us a will and a choice of choosing the one or the other, as it is written: Behold, I have set before you good and evil; for you have tasted of the tree of knowledge. And therefore we ought not to refer to the will of the Lord what has been set forth to our own choice, as though he himself willed, or did not will, what is good — he who does not will evil. So our own is the will, when we will evil against the will of God, who wills good. Moreover, if you ask whence comes that will by which we will something against the will of God, I shall say, From our own selves. And not rashly. For you must needs answer to your seed; since indeed that prince both of the race and of transgression, Adam, willed what he transgressed in. For the devil did not impose on him the will of transgressing, but supplied the matter to the will. For the rest, the will of God had come into a command of obedience. Accordingly you too, if you obey not God, who has constituted you, by the setting forth of a precept, of free power, willingly through the freedom of your will swerve into that which God does not will, and so you think yourself overthrown by the devil — who, even if he wills you to will what God does not will, yet does not bring it about that you also will it, since not even then did he subdue those first-formed ones to the will of transgression — nay, neither unwilling nor ignorant of what God did not will. For surely God was unwilling that it should be done, since with the offence he had appointed death. Thus the work of the devil is one: to tempt, whether you will what is in you to will. But when you have willed, it follows that he subdues you to himself, not having worked the will in you, but having got the occasion of your will. Therefore, since to will alone is in us, and in this our mind toward God is tested — whether we will the things that accord with his will — I say that the will of God is to be reconsidered, deeply and impressively, what he wills even in secret.

For the things in the open, we all know; and as to those very things, how they are in the open must be examined. For even though certain things seem to savour of the will of God, in that they are permitted by him, not at once does everything that is permitted proceed from the pure and entire will of him who permits. Of indulgence is whatever is permitted. Which, even though it is not without will, yet, because it has some cause in him to whom it is indulged, comes as it were from an unwilling will, having suffered a cause of itself which constrains the will. See of what sort that will is, of which another is the cause. Likewise the second kind, of pure will, is to be considered. God wills us to do certain things pleasing to himself, in which indulgence does not plead a patronage, but discipline holds sway. If, however, he has set certain other things before these — those, namely, which he the more wills — is it doubtful that the things he prefers are to be pursued by us, since the things he wills less, because he wills other things more, are to be held as though he did not will them? For in showing what he wills more, he has cancelled the lesser will by the greater. And the more he has set both before your knowledge, the more he has defined that you ought to pursue what he has declared he wills more. Therefore, if he declared it for this end, that you should pursue what he wills more, without doubt, unless you so act, you savour against his will, by savouring against his more potent will, and you offend more than you deserve well, by doing indeed what he wills and by spurning what he prefers. In part you transgress; in part, if you do not transgress, yet you do not deserve well. And is not to be unwilling to deserve well itself a transgressing? Therefore second marriage, if it is of that will of God which is called indulgence, we shall deny to be a pure will, of which indulgence is the cause; if it is of that will to which another, more potent, is preferred, we shall learn that the more potent — of a continence more to be sought — is not rescinded by the more potent. These things I would touch on in passing, that I may now run through the apostle's words. But first of all I shall not seem irreligious, if I note what he himself professes: that he introduced all that indulgence of marriage from his own store — that is, from human sense, not from divine prescription. For even when he defined concerning widows and the unmarried, that they should marry, if they cannot contain, because it is better to marry than to burn, turning to the other kind, But to the married, he says, I give charge — not indeed I, but the Lord. So he shows, by the transferring of his own person to the Lord, that what he had said above he had pronounced, not from the Lord's person, but from his own: It is better to marry than to burn. Which saying, although it pertains to those who are found unmarried or widowed at their conversion, yet, since all embrace it as a licence for marrying, I would treat thoroughly what sort of good it shows to be — a thing which is better than a penalty, which cannot seem good except compared with the worst; so that to marry is therefore good, because to burn is worse. A thing is good if it perseveres in holding the name without comparison — I do not say with an evil, but even with another good — so that, even if it is compared with another good and overshadowed by another, it nonetheless remains in the name of good. But if, through the condition of an evil, it is forced to be called good, it is not so much good as a kind of inferior evil, which, obscured by a superior evil, is driven to the name of good. Take away, in short, the condition of comparison, so that you do not say, It is better to marry than to burn, and I ask whether you would dare to say, It is better to marry, without adding what that is than which it is better. Therefore what is not better is surely not good either, because you have taken away and removed the condition of comparison, which, while it makes that thing better, thus forces it to be held good. It is better to marry than to burn is to be taken as, It is better to lack one eye than two: yet, if you depart from the comparison, it will not be better to have one eye, because it is not good either. Let no one, then, catch at a defence from this passage, which properly regards the unmarried and the widowed, to whom as yet no conjunction is reckoned. Although I have shown that even to them the condition of the thing permitted must be understood.

But concerning second marriage we know plainly that the apostle has pronounced, You are loosed from a wife? do not seek a wife; but if you take one, you will not transgress. Yet likewise he introduced the tenor of this saying too of his own counsel, not of a divine precept. But there is a great difference between a precept of God and the counsel of a man. I have no precept of the Lord, he says, but I give counsel, as one who has obtained mercy from the Lord to be faithful. For the rest, neither in the gospel nor in Paul's own epistles will you find, from a precept of God, the repetition of marriage permitted. Whence it is confirmed that one is to be held; because what is not found permitted by the Lord is recognized as forbidden. Add that this very interjection of human counsel, as though now suffering a reconsideration of its own excess, straightway reins itself in and recalls itself, when it subjoins, Yet such shall have tribulation of the flesh; when he says that he spares them; when he adds that the time is gathered short, in which it behoves even those who have marriages to act as not having them; when he weighs the anxiety of the married and the unmarried. For by these things, teaching why it is not expedient to marry, he dissuades from that which above he had indulged. And this concerning first marriage — how much more concerning second? But when he exhorts us to his own example, surely, in showing what he wills us to be, that is, continent, he equally declares what he wills us not to be, that is, incontinent. So he too, when he wills one thing, permits that which he does not will, neither willingly nor truly. For if he willed it, he would not have permitted, but would rather have commanded. But behold, again he says that a woman, when her husband is dead, can marry whom she will, only in the Lord. But, he says, she will be the more blessed, if she so remain, according to my counsel. And I think that I too have the Spirit of God. We see two counsels, that in which above he grants the indulgence of marrying, and that in which afterwards he teaches continence in marrying. To which then, you say, shall we assent? Look and read. When he grants the indulgence, he alleges the counsel of a prudent man; when he enjoins continence, he affirms the counsel of the Holy Spirit. Follow the admonition which divinity patronizes. The Spirit of God indeed even the faithful have, but not all the faithful are apostles. When therefore he who had called himself faithful added afterwards that he has the Spirit of God — which no one would doubt even of a faithful man — he said it for this reason, that he might restore to himself the eminence of an apostle. For properly the apostles have the Holy Spirit, who have it fully in the works of prophecy and in the efficacy of powers and in the proofs of tongues, not in part, as the rest. So he made the authority of the Holy Spirit attach to that kind to which he the rather willed us to be compliant; and it became now not a counsel of the divine Spirit, but, by reason of his majesty, a precept.

To establish the law of marrying once, the very origin of the human race pleads as patron, attesting what God constituted in the beginning as a model to be reviewed by posterity. For when he had fashioned man, and had foreseen a necessary mate for him, borrowing one of his ribs he formed for him one woman, though surely neither artificer nor material had failed. There were more ribs in Adam, and unwearying hands in God, but not more wives with God. And therefore the man of God, Adam, and the woman of God, Eve, having performed one marriage between themselves, sanctioned for men a model from the authority of their origin and the first will of God. In short, They shall be, he says, two in one flesh — not three, nor four. Otherwise it is no longer one flesh, nor are they two in one flesh. They shall then be so, if the conjunction and the growing-together into unity be made once. But if again, or oftener, it has now ceased to be one, and they shall be, not two in one flesh, but plainly one rib in many. But when the apostle interprets it of the Church and Christ, They shall be two in one flesh — according to the spiritual marriage of the Church and Christ (for Christ is one, and his Church one) — we ought to recognize that the law of one marriage has been doubled and heightened for us, both according to the foundation of the race and according to the sacrament of Christ. We are reckoned of one marriage on both counts, both carnally in Adam and spiritually in Christ. Of two births there is one prescription, of monogamy. In both he degenerates who deviates from monogamy. The number of marriage began from a man who was accursed. Lamech first, wedded to two, made three in one flesh.

But the blessed patriarchs, you say, mingled their wedlock not only with several wives, but even with concubines. Will it therefore be lawful for us too to marry without number? Surely it will be lawful, if there still remain types, sacraments of some future thing, which your marriages figure; or if even now there is room for that saying, Increase and multiply — that is, if there has not yet supervened another saying, that the time is now gathered short, that it remains that even those who have wives should act as not having them. For surely, in enjoining continence and checking intercourse, the seed-plot of the race, he abolished that Increase and multiply. But, as I suppose, of one and the same God is each pronouncement and disposition, who then indeed, in the beginning, sent forth the sowing of the race with the reins of wedlock loosed, until the world should be filled, until the material of the new discipline should advance. But now, under the last extremities of the times, he has compressed what he sent forth, and recalled what he indulged — not without a reason for the lengthening-out in the beginning and the re-trimming at the last. Beginnings are always loosely given. For this reason one plants a wood and lets it grow, that in its own time he may cut it. The old disposition was a wood, which is reckoned away by the new gospel, in which the axe too is laid to the roots. So Eye for eye and tooth for tooth has now grown old, since Let no one render evil for evil grew young. And I think that even in human constitutions and decrees the later prevail over the former.

But why, of the former examples, should we not rather recognize those which share with the later in discipline, and transmit the model of the old to the new? For behold, in the old law I observe that the licence of marrying oftener was gelded. It is provided in Leviticus: My priests shall not marry more than once. I can say that even that is more which is not once. What is not one is a number. In short, after one, number begins. But one is all that is once. But to Christ was reserved, as in other matters, so in this too, the fullness of the law. Hence, therefore, among us it is more fully and instructively prescribed that those who are chosen into the priestly order ought to be of one marriage. So far so that I remember certain twice-married men cast down from their place. But you will say: Therefore it is lawful for the rest, whom he excepts. We shall be vain, if we suppose that what is not lawful for priests is lawful for the laity. Are not we laity too priests? It is written: He has made us a kingdom too, and priests to God and his Father. The authority of the Church has constituted the difference between the order and the people, and the honour hallowed through the joint session of the order. So that, where there is no joint session of the ecclesiastical order, you both offer and baptize, and are a priest to yourself alone. But where three are, there is a Church, even though they be laity. For each man lives by his own faith, nor is there respect of persons with God; since not the hearers of the law are justified by the Lord, but the doers, as the apostle too says. Therefore, if you have the right of a priest in yourself where it is necessary, you ought also to have the discipline of a priest, where it is necessary to have the right of a priest. Do you, twice married, baptize? do you, twice married, offer? How much more is it a capital thing for a twice-married layman to act as a priest, when from the priest himself, when become twice married, the acting as priest is taken away? But, you say, it is indulged to necessity. No necessity is excused which can be avoided. In short, do not be found twice married, and you do not bring yourself into the necessity of administering what is not lawful for the twice married. God wills us all to be so disposed that everywhere we may be fit for the discharging of his sacraments. One God, one faith, one discipline too. So far so that, unless the laity too observe those things through which presbyters are chosen, how shall there be presbyters who are chosen from the laity? Therefore we ought to contend that the layman too is bidden to abstain from second marriage, since a presbyter can be no other than one who, as a layman, has been once married.

Let it now be lawful to marry afresh, if all that is lawful is good. The same apostle exclaims, All things are lawful, but not all are profitable. What is not profitable, I ask you, can it be called good? If even the things that are not for salvation are lawful, then even the things that are not good are lawful. But which ought you the more to will — that which is good because it is lawful, or that which is good because it is profitable? I reckon there is much between licence and salvation. Of a good thing it is not said, IT IS LAWFUL, because a good thing does not wait to be permitted, but to be taken up. But that is permitted of which it is in doubt whether it is good, which can also not be permitted, if it have not some prior cause of itself; because, on account of the peril of incontinence, it is permitted to marry a second time; because, unless the licence of some not-good thing were laid open, there would be nothing in which one might be tested, who obeys the divine will and who his own power — which of us pursues the presence of profit and which embraces the occasion of licence. Licence is for the most part a temptation of discipline, since discipline is tested through temptation, temptation works through licence. So it comes about that all things are lawful, but not all expedient, while he to whom it is permitted is tempted, and is judged while in the permission he is tempted. It was lawful for the apostles too to marry and to lead about wives. It was lawful too to be fed from the gospel. But he who used not this right as an occasion provokes us to his own example, teaching that the test lies in that very thing in which licence built beforehand a trial of abstinence.

If we interpret his meaning thoroughly, second marriage will have to be called nothing other than a kind of fornication. For when he says that married men have this anxiety, how they may please themselves — surely not about their morals, for he would not stigmatize a good anxiety — and would have us understand them to be anxious about adornment and ornament and every study of beauty, with a view to working up allurements; and since to please by beauty and adornment is a device of carnal concupiscence, which is also the cause of fornication — does not second marriage seem to you to be akin to fornication, since the things are found in it which suit with fornication? The Lord himself says, He who has looked upon a woman to lust after her has already fornicated with her in his heart. But he who has looked upon her to wed her — has he done less or more? And what if he has even wedded her? which he would not do, unless he had both lusted to wed her and looked to lust after her. Unless a wife can be wedded whom you have neither seen nor lusted after. There is, to be sure, much difference whether a married man or a celibate lusts after another. To even the celibate every woman is another, so long as she is another's; nor yet does she become a wife by anything other than that by which she becomes an adulteress too. Let the laws seem to make the difference between marriage and fornication, by the diversity of the unlawful, not by the condition of the thing itself. Otherwise, what is the thing that is present to all men and women alike for marriage and for fornication? The commingling of flesh, of course, the concupiscence of which the Lord equated with fornication. Therefore, you say, do you now destroy even first — that is, single — marriage? And not undeservedly, because it too consists of that which is fornication. Therefore it is best for a man not to touch a woman, and therefore the holiness of the virgin is principal, because it lacks the kinship of fornication. And since these things can be held forth, even of first and single marriage, to the cause of continence, how much more will they prejudge against the refusing of second marriage? Be grateful, if God has once indulged you to marry. But you will be grateful, if you do not know that he has indulged you a second time. For the rest, you abuse indulgence, when you use it without modesty. Modesty is understood from measure. It does not suffice you to have fallen from that highest grade of immaculate virginity into the second by marrying, but you roll yet down into the third, and into the fourth, and perhaps into more, after you have been not continent in the second station — since he willed not to forbid more marriages either, who reconsidered concerning the provoking of second. Let us marry, then, daily, and, marrying, let us be caught by the last day, like Sodom and Gomorrah, on which day that WOE upon the pregnant and the nursing shall be fulfilled — that is, upon the married and the incontinent; for of marriages are the womb and the breasts and the infants. And when is there an end of marrying? After the end of living, I believe.

Let us renounce the carnal, that at length we may bear spiritual fruit. Seize the occasion, even if not the most longed-for, yet the opportune — to have no one to whom you might pay the debt, and by whom you might be required of it. You have ceased to be a debtor. O happy you! You have dismissed your debtor: bear the loss. What if, the thing we have called a loss, you shall feel to be a gain? For through continence you will negotiate a great substance of holiness; by a thrift of the flesh you will acquire the spirit. For let us reconsider our very conscience — how another man one feels himself, when by chance he refrains from his woman. He is spiritually wise. If he makes prayer to the Lord, he is near to heaven. If he leans upon the Scriptures, he is wholly there. If he sings a psalm, he is well pleased. If he adjures a demon, he is confident of himself. And therefore the apostle added a temporary purification for the sake of commending prayers, that we might know that what profits for a time ought always to be practised by us, that it may always profit. Daily, in every moment, prayer is necessary to men; surely continence too, since prayer is necessary. Prayer proceeds from the conscience. If the conscience blushes, the prayer blushes. The spirit conducts prayer to God. If the spirit is guilty before itself of a blushing conscience, how will it dare to conduct prayer to the altar, at whose blushing the holy minister himself too is suffused? For there is a prophetic voice of the old testament: You shall be holy, because God is holy; and again: With the holy you shall be sanctified, and with the innocent man you shall be innocent, and with the elect elect. For we ought so to walk in the discipline of the Lord as is worthy, not according to the squalid concupiscences of the flesh. For so too the apostle says, that to be wise according to the flesh is death, but to be wise according to the spirit is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Likewise, through the holy prophetess Prisca, it is thus proclaimed as good news, that the holy minister knows how to minister holiness. For purity is in concord, she says, and they see visions, and, turning their face downward, they hear also manifest voices, as salutary as they are secret. If this dulling, even when in single marriage the affair of the flesh is exercised, turns away the Holy Spirit, how much more when in a second marriage it is engaged in?

For the blush is doubled, because in second marriage two wives stand about the same husband, one in spirit, the other in flesh. For you cannot hate your former wife, for whom you reserve an even more religious affection, as for one already received with the Lord, for whose spirit you make request, for whom you render the yearly oblations. Will you, then, stand before the Lord with as many wives as you commemorate in prayer? and will you offer for two, and will you commend those two through a priest ordained out of monogamy, or even hallowed out of virginity, surrounded by widows who have had but one husband? And will your sacrifice ascend with free brow, and among other requests of a good mind will you ask for yourself and your wife chastity?

I know with what pretexts we colour an insatiable cupidity of the flesh. We hold forth the necessities of supports — a house to be administered, a household to be governed, the chests and keys to be kept, the wool-working to be dispensed, the food to be provided, the cares to be lessened. Forsooth, the houses of married men alone are well off. The households of celibates have gone to ruin, the property of eunuchs, the fortunes of soldiers or of those who travel without wives. For are not we soldiers too? and that indeed of a stricter discipline, in proportion as we serve so great an Emperor. Are not we too travellers in this world? But why are you so disposed, O Christian, that you cannot be without a wife? Now indeed a partner of domestic burdens is necessary. Have some spiritual wife. Take from among the widows one fair in faith, dowered with poverty, sealed by age. You will have made a good marriage. To have several wives of this kind is even pleasing to God. But Christians reconsider their posterity, for whom there is no morrow. Shall the servant of God desire heirs, who has disinherited himself from the world? And therefore, shall anyone seek again a marriage, if from his former one he has no children? He will then have this first good — to wish to live longer, while the apostle himself hastens to the Lord? He, surely, is most ready in persecutions, most steadfast in martyrdoms, most prompt in the sharing of goods, most temperate in acquisitions, and finally will die secure, leaving children, who perhaps may perform his funeral rites. Are men of this kind moved, then, even by regard for the commonwealth — lest the cities fail, if no offspring be raised; lest the rights of law, lest commerce, fall away; lest the temples be forsaken; lest there be none to shout, The lion for the Christians! For these are the things which those who seek children desire to hear. Let even these things suffice for the counsel of widowhood, especially among us — the importunity of children, for the taking-up of whom men are compelled by laws; since every wise man would never willingly have desired children. What then will you do, if you have filled your new wife from your own conscience? Will you dissolve the conception by drugs? I think it is no more lawful for us to harm one being born than one already born. But perhaps at that time, when your wife is pregnant, you will dare to ask of God a remedy for so great an anxiety, which, set in your own power, you refused? Some barren woman, I suppose, will be looked out, of an age now somewhat colder. Wisely enough, and above all faithfully. For we have believed that none, God willing, is barren, or has brought forth in old age. But this may the rather come to pass, if anyone, in the presumption of this his own providence, has provoked the rivalry of God. For in short we know one of the brethren who, when on account of his daughter he had caught at a barren wife in second marriage, was made a father again as well as a husband again.

To this my exhortation, most beloved brother, there accede also secular examples, which have often been set before us even by way of testimony, when something good and pleasing to God is acknowledged even by strangers and honoured by their testimony. In short, monogamy among the heathen is in such high honour that even for virgins lawfully marrying a matron of one husband is employed as bride-attendant; and if for the sake of an omen, surely it is of a good omen. Likewise, that in certain solemnities and offices the first place is the one-husbanded woman's. Certainly the Flaminica is none but a one-husbanded woman; which is also the law of the Flamen. For the fact that to the Pontifex Maximus himself it is not lawful to repeat marriage is surely a glory of monogamy. But when Satan affects the sacraments of God, it is a challenge to us — nay, a reason for the blush — if we be slothful in exhibiting to God the continence which certain ones render to the devil, now by virginity, now by perpetual widowhood. We know the virgins of Vesta, and of Juno at a town of Achaia, and of Apollo at Delphi, and of Minerva and Diana in certain places. We know also continent men, and indeed the attendants of that Egyptian bull; women, moreover, dedicated to the African Ceres, to whom they grow old with marriage even of their own accord renounced, turning away thenceforth from the contact of males, even to the kisses of their sons. The devil, forsooth, has found, after luxury, even chastity for a destroyer — that the Christian may be the more guilty who has refused the chastity that preserves. There shall be for us, by way of testimony, certain secular women too who have attained fame for their obstinate adherence to one husband — some Dido, who, a fugitive on foreign soil, where she ought rather of her own accord to have desired the marriage of a king, yet, that she might not experience a second, chose rather to burn than to marry; or that Lucretia, who, although once by force and against her will she suffered another man, washed away with her own blood the flesh that had been stained, that she might not live, now no longer a one-husbanded woman to herself. More examples, and indeed weightier than these others, you may find with more care among our own; because it is a greater thing to live in chastity than to die for it. More easily may you lay down the soul because you have lost a good, than preserve by living that for which you would rather die. How many men, then, and how many women, in the ecclesiastical orders are reckoned for their continence, who have chosen rather to wed God, who have restored the honour of their flesh, and who have dedicated themselves as children already of that age to come, slaying in themselves the concupiscence of lust, and all that which could not be admitted within paradise! Whence it is to be presumed that these, who shall wish to be received within paradise, ought at length to cease from that thing from which paradise is untouched.