Are you, then, better than Abraham? When he hears this, let him not be disturbed, nor dare to say 'I am better,' nor be shaken from his purpose — for the one thing he would not be saying truly, and the other he would not be doing rightly — but let him say: 'I indeed am not better than Abraham, yet the chastity of the celibate is better than the chastity of marriage; and of these Abraham had the one in practice and both in disposition. For he lived chastely in the married state; yet he could have been chaste without marriage, though at that time it was not fitting. I, for my part, more easily do not use the marriage that Abraham used, than I would use marriage in the way that Abraham used it; and therefore I am better than those who through incontinence of soul cannot do what I do — not better than those who, because of the difference of the times, did not do what I do.'
For what I now do, they would have done better, had it then been the time to do it; but what they did, I would not do in that manner, even if it were now the time to do it. Or if such a man perceives and knows himself to be such that, with the virtue of continence remaining whole and abiding in the disposition of his soul, if from some duty of religion he should descend to the use of marriage, he would be such a husband and such a father as Abraham was — let him plainly dare to answer that captious questioner and say: 'I am indeed not better than Abraham in this particular kind of continence, which he did not lack, even though it did not appear; but I am such a man, not possessing another thing, but doing another thing.' Let him say these things plainly, for even if he should wish to glory, he will not be foolish; for he speaks the truth.
But if he refrains, lest anyone should think of him anything beyond what he sees or hears from him, let him remove the knot of the question from his own person, and answer not concerning the man but concerning the matter itself, and say: 'He who is capable of so much is such as Abraham was. Yet it may happen that the virtue of continence is less in the soul of him who does not use the marriage that Abraham used, and yet is greater than in the soul of him who held to the chastity of wedlock only because he could not attain a fuller one.' So too an unmarried woman, who considers the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit, when she hears that imprudent inquirer saying, 'Are you then better than Sarah?' — let her answer:
'I am better, but than those who lack the virtue of this continence — which I do not believe of Sarah. She then, with this same virtue, did what befitted her time, from which I am exempt, so that even in my body there might appear what she preserved in her soul.' If therefore we compare the matters themselves, it is in no way to be doubted that the chastity of continence is better than the chastity of marriage, though both are goods; but when we compare persons, that one is the better who possesses the greater good more than another. Moreover, he who possesses the greater of the same kind possesses also that which is less; but he who possesses only the lesser certainly does not possess the greater. For in sixty there are also thirty, but in thirty there are not sixty.
But not to act upon that which one possesses lies in the distribution of duties, not in the poverty of virtues; for neither does he lack the good of mercy who finds no wretched persons whom he might mercifully relieve. To this is added that men are not rightly compared to men on the basis of some one good. For it can happen that one man does not have something which another has, yet has another thing which is to be more highly esteemed. For the good of obedience is greater than that of continence. For marriage is nowhere condemned by the authority of our Scriptures, whereas disobedience is nowhere absolved. If, then, there be set before us a virgin who will so remain, yet is disobedient, and a married woman who could not remain a virgin, yet is obedient — which shall we call the better?
Shall we call her less praiseworthy than if she were a virgin, or damnable, as the virgin is? So too, if you compare a drunken virgin with a sober married woman, who would doubt that the same verdict must be given? For marriage and virginity are two goods, of which the one is the greater; but sobriety and drunkenness, like obedience and stubbornness, the former are goods, the latter evils. And it is better to have all the goods, even the lesser ones, than a great good together with a great evil; for even in the goods of the body it is better to have the stature of Zacchaeus with health than the stature of Goliath with a fever.
The question is quite rightly framed thus: not whether a virgin who is in every way disobedient is to be compared with an obedient married woman, but whether a less obedient one is to be compared with a more obedient one; for the latter's married chastity is also a good, though a lesser one than virginal chastity. She is, then, as much less in the good of obedience as she is greater in the good of chastity; and if the one be compared with the other, he judges which is to be preferred who, first comparing chastity and obedience themselves, sees that obedience is in a certain manner the mother of all virtues. And for this reason obedience can exist without virginity, because virginity is of counsel, not of precept. But I mean that obedience by which one submits to precepts.
And therefore obedience to the precepts can indeed exist without virginity, but it cannot exist without chastity. For to chastity it belongs not to fornicate, not to commit adultery, not to be defiled by any unlawful intercourse; and those who do not observe these things act against the precepts of God, and on that account are exiled from the virtue of obedience. But virginity can exist without obedience, because a woman can, having accepted the counsel of virginity and having guarded her virginity, despise the precepts; just as we have known many consecrated virgins who were talkative, curious, drunken, quarrelsome, greedy, proud — all of which things are against the precepts, and, like Eve herself, slay them by the crime of disobedience.
Wherefore not only is the obedient woman to be preferred to the disobedient, but the more obedient married woman is to be preferred to the less obedient virgin. Out of this obedience that father Abraham, who was not without a wife, was prepared to be without his only son, and that son slain by his own hand. For not without reason may I call him the only son, concerning whom he heard from the Lord, 'In Isaac shall your seed be called.' How much the more readily, then, would he have heard, that he should be even without a wife, if this had been commanded! Whence not in vain do we often marvel that some of both sexes, though continent from all intercourse, obey the precepts negligently, while so ardently they have seized upon not using what was permitted.
Hence who can doubt that the men and women of our time, though free from all intercourse, are not rightly compared, in the virtue of obedience wherein they are lesser, to the excellence of those holy fathers and mothers who begot children — even if in those men there had also been lacking in the disposition of the soul that which is manifest in the works of these? Let the youths, then, follow the Lamb, singing the new song, as it is written in the Apocalypse — those who did not defile themselves with women, for no other reason than that they remained virgins. Nor let them think themselves better than the first holy fathers because of this, who used marriage, if I may so speak, in a nuptial way.
For the use of these things is such that, if anything in them, through the intercourse of the flesh, should exceed the necessity of begetting — even though done pardonably — it is a defilement. For what does pardon expiate, if that going beyond does not defile at all? From which defilement it would be a wonder if the youths who follow the Lamb were free, unless they remained virgins. The good of marriage, therefore, throughout all nations and among all men, consists in the cause of begetting and in the fidelity of chastity; but as regards the people of God, it consists also in the holiness of the sacrament, by which it is unlawful, even for one who departs by divorce, to marry another while her husband lives — not even for the sake of bearing children:
And though this alone be the reason for which marriages are made, yet even when that for which they are made does not follow, the marriage bond is not dissolved except by the death of a spouse. Just as, if an ordination of the clergy be made for the gathering of a congregation, even if the gathering of the congregation does not follow, the sacrament of ordination nevertheless remains in those ordained; and if by some fault any one be removed from office, he will not lack the sacrament of the Lord once imposed — though it remains to his judgment. That marriages are made for the sake of procreation the Apostle thus bears witness: 'I will,' he says, 'that the younger women marry.' And as if it were said to him, 'To what end?' he immediately added, 'to bear children, to be mothers of families.' But to the fidelity of chastity belongs this: 'The wife has not power over her own body, but the husband;'
'Likewise also the husband has not power over his own body, but the wife.' And to the holiness of the sacrament belongs this: 'that the wife depart not from her husband; but if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband; and let not the husband put away his wife.' All these are goods, on account of which marriage is a good: offspring, fidelity, sacrament. But not to seek carnal offspring at this present time, and thereby to retain a certain perpetual exemption from every such work, and to be spiritually subject to the one husband Christ, is assuredly better and holier — provided, however, that men so use that leisure, as it is written, that they think on the things of the Lord, how they may please God; that is, that continence perpetually consider that obedience lack nothing:
Which virtue — as it were the root, and, as it is wont to be called, the matrix, and plainly the general one — the holy men of old exercised in their works, while they held that continence in the disposition of their soul; men who assuredly, through obedience, because they were just and holy and ever ready for every good work, would, even if they were commanded to abstain from all intercourse, have accomplished it. For how much more easily could they, either at God's command or exhortation, have refrained from intercourse — men who, by obeying, were able to immolate the offspring for whose propagation alone they served by intercourse!
Since these things are so, to the heretics indeed — whether the Manichaeans or any others who slander the fathers of the Old Testament on account of their several wives, reckoning this to be an argument by which they may convict them of incontinence — a sufficient and more than sufficient answer has been given: if only they can grasp that it is no sin which is committed neither against nature (since they used those women not for the sake of wantonness but of begetting), nor against custom (since in those times such things were commonly done), nor against precept (since they were forbidden by no law). But those who used women unlawfully are either censured in those Scriptures by the divine verdict, or our reading sets them before us to be judged and shunned, not approved or imitated.
But our own people who have wives we admonish, as far as we can, not to dare to judge those holy fathers according to their own weakness, comparing, as the Apostle says, themselves with themselves, and therefore not understanding how great the powers are of a soul serving righteousness against lusts, lest it acquiesce in carnal motions of this kind, and allow them to slip or advance into intercourse beyond the necessity of begetting — as far as the order of nature, as far as the custom of morals, as far as the ordinances of laws prescribe. For men suspect this of those fathers precisely because they themselves, through incontinence, have either chosen marriage or use their spouses intemperately.
But let the continent — whether men whose wives have died, or women whose husbands have died, or both who by equal consent have vowed continence to God — know that a greater reward is indeed owed to them than conjugal chastity demands; yet let them not only not despise, in comparison with their own resolve, the marriages of the holy fathers, who were joined together prophetically, who sought nothing in intercourse but offspring, and in offspring itself nothing but what should profit unto Christ who was to come in the flesh — but let them even, without hesitation, prefer those marriages to their own resolve. The youths also and virgins who dedicate their very integrity to God we most especially admonish that they know it must be guarded with as great humility as, being of heaven, is greater than what they meanwhile live upon earth.
For it is written: 'The greater you are, humble yourself the more in all things.' Ours, then, it is to say something concerning their greatness; theirs, to think upon their own great humility. Setting aside, therefore, certain of those married holy fathers and mothers — than whom these are not better, though they be unmarried, because, if they were married, they would not be their equals — let them not doubt that they surpass all other married persons whatever of this present time, or those continent after intercourse experienced, not as much as Susanna is surpassed by Anna, but as much as both are surpassed by Mary. I speak of what pertains to the very holy integrity of the flesh; for who is ignorant what other merits of Mary there are?
Let them therefore add manners befitting so great a resolve, that from the surpassing reward they may bear a sure security, knowing well that to themselves, and to all the faithful, beloved and elect members of Christ — many coming from the east and the west, though shining among themselves with the light of glory differing according to merits — this great thing is nevertheless granted in common: that they should recline with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God, men who were spouses not for the sake of this world but for the sake of Christ, fathers for the sake of Christ. And with how great humility it is to be guarded, I have shown, as best I could, in this one volume. Here ends Augustine's 'On the Good of Marriage.' Here begins the same author's 'On Holy Virginity.'
(Here end the subscriptions of the manuscripts: 'Here ends the book On the Good of Marriage. Here begins the book On Holy Virginity.' The subscription is absent from certain codices.) Passages of the book of the Retractations: On the Good of Marriage. Retractations II, 22. I also said in a certain place: 'For what food is to the health of a man, that intercourse is to the health of the race, and neither is without carnal pleasure, which nevertheless, moderated and reduced by restraining temperance to a natural use, cannot be lust.' This was said because lust is not the good and right use of desire.
For just as it is evil to use good things badly, so it is good to use evil things well: concerning which matter I have argued more diligently elsewhere, especially against the new Pelagian heretics. As to what I said of Abraham: 'Out of this obedience that father Abraham, who was not without a wife, was prepared to be without his only son, and that son slain by his own hand' — this I do not sufficiently approve. For he is rather to be believed to have believed that his son, if slain, would soon be restored to him by resurrection, as is read in the Epistle to the Hebrews (11, 19).