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Part Fourth
For the laying down[526] of the law of once marrying, the very origin of the human race is our authority; witnessing as it emphatically does what God constituted in the beginning for a type to be examined with care by posterity. For when He had moulded man, and had foreseen that a peer was necessary for him, He borrowed from his ribs one, and fashioned for him one woman;[527] whereas, of course, neither the Artificer nor the material would have been insufficient (for the creation of more). There were more ribs in Adam, and hands that knew no weariness in God; but not more wives[528] in the eye of God.[529] And accordingly the man of God, Adam, and the woman of God, Eve, discharging mutually (the duties of) one marriage, sanctioned for mankind a type by (the considerations of) the authoritative precedent of their origin and the primal will of God. Finally, “there shall be,” said He, “two in one flesh,”[530] not three nor four. On any other hypothesis, there would no longer be “one flesh,” nor “two (joined) into one flesh.” These will be so, if the conjunction and the growing together in unity take place once for all. If, however, (it take place) a second time, or oftener, immediately (the flesh) ceases to be “one,” and there will not be “two (joined) into one flesh,” but plainly one rib (divided) into more. But when the apostle interprets, “The two shall be (joined) into one flesh”[531] of the Church and Christ, according to the spiritual nuptials of the Church and Christ (for Christ is one, and one is His Church), we are bound to recognise a duplication and additional enforcement for us of the law of unity of marriage, not only in accordance with the foundation of our race, but in accordance with the sacrament of Christ. From one marriage do we derive our origin in each case; carnally in Adam, spiritually in Christ. The two births combine in laying down one prescriptive rule of monogamy. In regard of each of the two, is he degenerate who transgresses the limit of monogamy. Plurality of marriage began with an accursed man. Lamech was the first who, by marrying himself to two women, caused three to be (joined) “into one flesh.”[532]
“But withal the blessed patriarchs,” you say, “made mingled alliances not only with more wives (than one), but with concubines likewise.” Shall that, then, make it lawful for us also to marry without limit? I grant that it will, if there still remain types—sacraments of something future—for your nuptials to figure; or if even now there is room for that command, “Grow and multiply;”[533] that is, if no other command has yet supervened: “The time is already wound up; it remains that both they who have wives act as if they had not:” for, of course, by enjoining continence, and restraining concubitance, the seminary of our race, (this latter command) has abolished that “Grow and multiply.” As I think, moreover, each pronouncement and arrangement is (the act) of one and the same God; who did then indeed, in the beginning, send forth a sowing of the race by an indulgent laxity granted to the reins of connubial alliances, until the world should be replenished, until the material of the new discipline should attain to forwardness: now, however, at the extreme boundaries of the times, has checked (the command) which He had sent out, and recalled the indulgence which He had granted; not without a reasonable ground for the extension (of that indulgence) in the beginning, and the limitation[534] of it in the end. Laxity is always allowed to the beginning (of things). The reason why any one plants a wood and lets it grow, is that at his own time he may cut it. The wood was the old order, which is being pruned down by the new Gospel, in which withal “the axe has been laid at the roots.”[535] So, too, “Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth,”[536] has now grown old, ever since “Let none render evil for evil”[537] grew young. I think, moreover, that even with a view to human institutions and decrees, things later prevail over things primitive.
Why, moreover, should we not rather recognise, from among (the store of) primitive precedents, those which communicate with the later (order of things) in respect of discipline, and transmit to novelty the typical form of antiquity? For look, in the old law I find the pruning-knife applied to the licence of repeated marriage. There is a caution in Leviticus: “My priests shall not pluralize marriages.”[538] I may affirm even that that is plural which is not once for all. That which is not unity is number. In short, after unity begins number. Unity, moreover, is everything which is once for all. But for Christ was reserved, as in all other points so in this also, the “fulfilling of the law.”[539] Thence, therefore, among us the prescript is more fully and more carefully laid down, that they who are chosen into the sacerdotal order must be men of one marriage;[540] which rule is so rigidly observed, that I remember some removed from their office for digamy. But you will say, “Then all others may (marry more than once), whom he excepts.” Vain shall we be if we think that what is not lawful for priests[541] is lawful for laics. Are not even we laics priests? It is written: “A kingdom also, and priests to His God and Father, hath He made us.”[542] It is the authority of the Church, and the honour which has acquired sanctity through the joint session of the Order, which has established the difference between the Order and the laity. Accordingly, where there is no joint session of the ecclesiastical Order, you offer, and baptize, and are priest, alone for yourself. But where three are, a church is, albeit they be laics. For each individual lives by his own faith,[543] nor is there exception of persons with God; since it is not hearers of the law who are justified by the Lord, but doers, according to what the apostle withal says.[544] Therefore, if you have the right of a priest in your own person, in cases of necessity, it behoves you to have likewise the discipline of a priest whenever it may be necessary to have the right of a priest. If you are a digamist, do you baptize? If you are a digamist, do you offer? How much more capital (a crime) is it for a digamist laic to act as a priest, when the priest himself, if he turn digamist, is deprived of the power of acting the priest! “But to necessity,” you say, “indulgence is granted.” No necessity is excusable which is avoidable. In a word, shun to be found guilty of digamy, and you do not expose yourself to the necessity of administering what a digamist may not lawfully administer. God wills us all to be so conditioned, as to be ready at all times and places to undertake (the duties of) His sacraments. There is “one God, one faith,”[545] one discipline too. So truly is this the case, that unless the laics as well observe the rules which are to guide the choice of presbyters, how will there be presbyters at all, who are chosen to that office from among the laics? Hence we are bound to contend that the command to abstain from second marriage relates first to the laic; so long as no other can be a presbyter than a laic, provided he have been once for all a husband.
Let it now be granted that repetition of marriage is lawful, if everything which is lawful is good. The same apostle exclaims: “All things are lawful, but all are not profitable.”[546] Pray, can what is “not profitable” be called good? If even things which do not make for salvation are “lawful,” it follows that even things which are not good are “lawful.” But what will it be your duty rather to choose; that which is good because it is “lawful,” or that which is so because it is “profitable?” A wide difference I take to exist between “licence” and salvation. Concerning the “good” it is not said “it is lawful;” inasmuch as “good” does not expect to be permitted, but to be assumed. But that is “permitted” about which a doubt exists whether it be “good;” which may likewise not be permitted, if it have not some first (extrinsic) cause of its being:—inasmuch as it is on account of the danger of incontinence that second marriage, (for instance), is permitted:—because, unless the “licence” of some not (absolutely) good thing were subject (so our choice), there were no means of proving who rendered a willing obedience to the Divine will, and who to his own power; which of us follows presentiality, and which embraces the opportunity of licence. “Licence,” for the most part, is a trial of discipline; since it is through trial that discipline is proved, and through “licence” that trial operates. Thus it comes to pass that “all things are lawful, but not all are expedient,” so long as (it remains true that) whoever has a “permission” granted is (thereby) tried, and is (consequently) judged during the process of trial in (the case of the particular) “permission.” Apostles, withal, had a “licence” to marry, and lead wives about (with them[547]). They had a “licence,” too, to “live by the Gospel.”[548] But he who, when occasion required,[549] “did not use this right,” provokes us to imitate his own example; teaching us that our probation consists in that wherein “licence” has laid the groundwork for the experimental proof of abstinence.
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