THE FIRST EPISTLE. On the conjugal debt, and on a vow of continence made by spouses. To the lord and deservedly venerable son, FULGENTIUS, the servant of the servants of Christ, greeting in the Lord. CHAPTER ONE. Excuse for the delayed reply. — 1. Having received your letter, the token of your holy solicitude, some months ago, when I desired to render a reply without delay, I was so seized by a sudden bodily sickness that the violent excess of fevers was taking from me the passage of the present life; had not the true physician of souls and bodies, who heals all our infirmities and redeems our life from destruction, deigned, for the removing of so great a scourge of infirmity, to grant the aid of His own medicine.
After health was recovered, the will to write back was indeed not lacking, but the harshness of winter stood in the way of dispatching it. Now therefore, because the Creator and Governor of the seasons has deigned to grant a mildness of the winds, I have not ceased to render back to your consultation that which I have received by the compassion and inspiration of the heavenly Giver. CHAPTER TWO. The tenor of the question concerning the wife's continence. Conjugal union is not in itself evil, but excess is. The conjugal debt. — 2.
You say, then, that our daughter, your wife, recently fell sick almost to the utmost peril, and, as very often happens, having received the imposition of the hand, performed penance according to the custom which the Christian religion has. But because afterward, by the gift of the divine goodness, she received full health of body, you confess the frailty of the flesh, and moreover the incontinence of youthful age; and in this ambiguity of thought, whereby you consider the flesh and dread the majesty, like a sailor ignorant of the places, tossed by waves and winds, while you guard against the uncertainties of dangers, you earnestly beg that by our reply there be shown to you the harbor where you may avoid the shipwreck of the soul. 3.
The tenor, therefore, of your question compels me to weigh two matters that are not to be considered sluggishly: namely, not only what quality conjugal intercourse has in itself, but also what the promise of one making a vow demands in each particular matter. 4. If, then, anyone should consider the intercourse of faithful spouses in itself under the guidance of reason, the culpable use will be found not in the conjugal embrace, but in the excess of those embracing; nor does conjugal coitus draw fault from the union of male and female, but from the immoderation of lust. In spouses, therefore, excess is justly reproved; yet nuptial dignity is not deprived of the gift of the honor divinely conferred upon it.
Therefore the authority of apostolic preaching cries out: Marriage honorable in all, and the bed undefiled (Heb. 13:4). Paul too, instructing the Corinthians on preserving the honesty of matrimony, when he had premised: It is good for a man not to touch a woman (1 Cor. 7:1), seeing the weakness of some, and busying himself with apostolic charity, did not neglect—like an inclined wall and a pushed-down enclosure—to place beneath it, as the excellent teacher, the prop of consolation, Christ speaking in him. Finally he subsequently adds: But for fear of fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband;
let the husband render the debt to the wife, and in like manner also the wife to the husband (ibid. 2, 3). 5. The tenor of the apostolic reading thus shows that the wife is joined to the husband, and the husband to the wife, by a certain sharing of a debt. Which the Apostle would doubtless not call a debt, unless he knew it must lawfully be rendered; nor would he command it to be rendered by the office of mutual consent, if the exaction of one demanding it back were unjust: for so far indeed does the Doctor of the Gentiles not hesitate to apply marriage to the divine work, that he confirms the power both of the husband over the wife's body and of the wife over the husband's body by an altogether equal right, saying: The woman has not power of her own body, but the man; and in like manner also the man has not power of his own body, but the woman (ibid. 4).
But in another place the same one says: For there is no power but from God (Rom. 13:1). CHAPTER THREE. Marriage is to be used for the sake of offspring, not for the sake of lust. — 6. Of this power, therefore, the use is inculpable, divinely assigned to the office of begetting, if a lustful excess be not permitted to transgress the boundary of justice. But the justice of using marriage is this: that spouses be joined together at a fitting time not with a view to sating lust, but to providing offspring. For in those good things which God made is found the chaste coupling of wife and husband; in which works of God lust cannot be found; nor does it ever agree with justice, seeing that it came to men not from the gift of their creation (or: their Creator),
but to sinners from the vice of the first transgression. But because without it, in the body of this death, the human offspring is not sown, chaste marriages do not affect it, but tolerate it; and nuptial honesty imposes a measure upon it, without which the office of natural fecundity cannot be fulfilled in the flesh of sin. 7. Thus, then, fruit ought to be sought from marriage, but the excess of slippery pleasure is to be curbed.
Wherefore, if the conjugal use be so tempered that the mind does not serve a burning lust, but attends to the coming forth of offspring to be born, and, when it has been born, does not neglect to have it more speedily cleansed by spiritual regeneration, the intercourse permitted to faithful spouses is not reckoned to them as a sin of the flesh, because both the conjugal covenant preserves chastity, and modest shame keeps its temperance, and conjugal fecundity presents offspring to be consecrated to God—so that man, already born, may be reformed by the Redeemer's help through the sacrament of baptism, by whose work he was first formed in the womb; and that human nature may have as father, by the benefit of the second nativity, Him whom in the first nativity of its condition it acknowledges as author. 8.
A married man, therefore, if he fornicates, sins damnably; but if he does not forsake the fidelity of the marriage bed, yet in his own wife, in the merely natural use, is somewhat intemperate and goes to excess—that is, not only seeking generation, but sometimes obeying the lust of the flesh—this indeed he does not do without fault; yet such a fault is the more speedily remitted to one working well and praying, because marital charity keeps faith with the very spouse, wherein marital weakness cannot maintain temperance; and if nuptial modesty is not held in the wife, yet from nuptial fidelity there is no departure by any immoderation. CHAPTER FOUR. Fidelity of the bed being preserved washes away the stain of lust. All fornication is damnable, especially in a spouse. — 9.
Therefore, when the fidelity of the marriage-bed is preserved, it washes away the stain which the weakness of the flesh contracts, provided that a man does not couple with a woman other than his own. Whoever unites with his wife not solely for the sake of begetting children, but also on account of the frailty of his own flesh — even if he oversteps the appointed measure of intercourse, he nevertheless does not pass beyond the bounds of marriage; and although carnal weakness contracts guilt, yet the integrity of the nuptial bond obtains pardon. Such a man therefore receives indulgence, not because he exacts more than is fitting of the conjugal debt from his one wife, but because, content with the one lawfully received, he does not seek another.
Yet let works of mercy not be lacking, which have such power in the Christian religion that not only those who make use of marriage, or those who are continent, but even virgins cannot attain to the reward of virginity if they neglect the works of mercy and of charity. But if anyone, intent upon good works, keeps such moderation with his wife that he unites with her only for the sake of procreating children, such a man is without doubt worthy of much praise — if indeed anyone in our times is able to fulfil this. Fornication, however, can never be without grave crime; and in it we do not doubt that a man separated from a wife sins damnably, yet I judge that a married man fornicates the more damnably.
Holy Scripture, moreover, pronounces both to be under judgement and alien to the kingdom of God. For it is written in the Epistle to the Hebrews: «For fornicators and adulterers God will judge» (Heb. 13:4). And in the Epistle which the Apostle wrote to the Corinthians it is said: «Do not err: neither fornicators, nor those who serve idols, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor the rapacious, shall possess the kingdom of God» (1 Cor. 6:9-10). Again, among the works of the flesh the same apostle Paul reckons fornication, uncleanness, and lust; and in their conclusion he says:
«For they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God» (Gal. 5:21). He also gives warning beforehand, lest he should mourn over many of those who had sinned before and had not done penance «for the uncleanness, and fornication, and lasciviousness which they had committed» (2 Cor. 12:21). CHAPTER V. — Vows are to be rendered to God without excuse. Since, therefore, we have spoken of the character of the marriage which the Lord has granted, this must next be treated with all care: namely, what your devotion (if any then existed) may have determined by your will. For it is not the case that, because in things granted by God the use of them is not forbidden to men, a man ought therefore not to render to God what he has vowed, since it is written:
«I will render to thee my vows, which my lips have uttered» (Ps. 65:13). And lest anyone should wish to take up for himself an excuse of tribulation as a licence for frustrating his promise, and should think himself not bound by the vow if he said that he was compelled to vow something not by his will but by tribulation, blessed David teaches that all things must be rendered to God which have been lawfully promised — even in tribulation; for when he had said to God, «I will render to thee my vows which my lips have uttered», he at once added: «And my mouth hath spoken in my tribulation» (ibid., 14). And in Deuteronomy also it is written:
«But if thou hast vowed a vow to the Lord thy God, thou shalt not delay to render it; because the Lord thy God will surely require it of thee, and it will be reckoned to thee as sin. But if thou wilt not vow, there shall be no sin in thee. That which goeth out of thy lips thou shalt keep, and shalt do as thou hast vowed to the Lord thy God the vow which thou hast spoken with thy mouth» (Deut. 23:21-23). Solomon also says: «As soon as thou hast vowed a vow to the Lord, thou shalt not delay to render it. Therefore whatsoever thou hast vowed, render it. It is better not to vow, than to have vowed and not to pay» (Eccl. 5:3-4). CHAPTER VI. — Things lawful become unlawful after a vow. To those bound by a vow of continence, marital union becomes unlawful.
Accordingly, the use of lawful things is lawfully carried on with moderation, so long as no renunciation of the lawful thing is vowed; and as long as there is not held, by the consent of both — that is, of husband and wife — a promise of perpetual continence, conjugal union is not unlawful. For it is written: «If thou hast taken a wife, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned» (1 Cor. 7:28). Yet although the virgin who marries does not sin, some virgin is found to sin if she marry: for the virgin who marries does not sin, unless before she married she had in her heart vowed her virginity to God.
But if (as the Apostle said) «she hath determined in her heart, having no necessity, but having power over her own will, and hath judged this in her heart, to keep her virginity» (ibid., 37), she afterwards sins grievously if, after her virginity has been dedicated to God, she should wish to serve human wedlock. For blessed Paul pronounces certain widows also to be bound by the bond of damnation, because, namely, after their profession of continence they do not cast off the will of marrying they have taken up again. Concerning the avoiding of such women he instructs Timothy thus: «But the younger widows avoid; for when they have grown wanton against Christ, they wish to marry, having damnation, because they have made void their first faith» (1 Tim. 5:11-12).
The promise of continence therefore takes away the licence of intercourse; and to such persons not only fornication is forbidden, but even marital union is prohibited, and a culpable bond holds fast a transgressing will, even if no effect follows in deed. For it is not in vain that it is written that «concupiscence, when it hath conceived, bringeth forth sin» (Jas. 1:15). CHAPTER VII. — Married persons do not have licence to vow as those who are free do, because they do not have power over their own body. A vow of continence is binding if it is made with the consent of both spouses. Wherefore not only integrity by virgins, but also continence dedicated to God by widows and by married persons, must be preserved with fear and trembling.
For before anyone becomes bound by a vow, he is not condemned, whether a virgin lawfully marry, or husband and wife render to each other the conjugal debt. But after anyone, pursuing better things, has bound himself by a profession of continence or of integrity, he transgresses most grievously if he thinks it thenceforth lawful for himself which had before been lawful. For in such matters, what the will, in vowing to God, takes away from itself, no necessity thereafter permits it to usurp with impunity; nor will the violator of a vow find any just excuse for his transgression, since no one compelled him to vow. There is plainly something to be distinguished between the vow of a virgin or widow, and the vow of those who are held by the conjugal bond.
For the licence or liberty of vowing is not so great for a man or woman who does not have power over his own body, as it is for any widow or virgin: for to a married man or married woman there is not fully available the power of vowing bodily continence, since his body stands not in his own power but in that of his spouse — according to that saying of the Apostle which we set down above: «The woman hath not power of her own body, but the husband; and in like manner the husband also hath not power of his own body, but the wife» (1 Cor. 7:4). Therefore it is not permitted, without the will of the spouse, to take up continence, when one's body is not in one's own power:
for each one, with right and firm devotion, promises alone only that which he knows to be of his own right. For it is just as if someone should wish to profess continence of his own body — which is in the power of his spouse — as if he should attempt to give alms out of another's property or to offer sacrifice from it: but our God (as He Himself testifies) «loveth justice, and hateth robbery in a holocaust» (Isa. 61:8). Therefore that continence between spouses is a sure promise which has been confirmed by the consent of both;
and when husband and wife, agreeing together with one accord of will, have offered it, as a sacrifice for an odour of sweetness, upon the altar of the true God and the Most High in the temple of their own heart, then neither may the woman any longer have lawful power over the man's body, nor the man over the woman's, to demand back the conjugal debt. For just as, before they vowed together to God, the offering of one alone was reprehensible because the assent of the lawful partner was lacking, so, when both have offered with equal consent that which is inseparably common to them both, he will not be unpunished if anyone should believe that a gift offered to God by voluntary devotion may be profaned by an unlawful deed. CHAPTER VIII. — He who has not vowed with his whole heart is the more damnable.
Concerning a vow, it is not permitted to retain or to reclaim anything. But if perchance anyone should plead that he did not vow with his whole heart, he will be the more damnable in that he approached God not sincerely but feignedly. For it is written that «the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee the deceitful, and will withdraw himself from thoughts that are without understanding» (Wis. 1:5). In another place also holy Scripture thus rebukes the feigned: «Woe to the double-hearted, and to wicked lips, and to the hands that do evil, and to the sinner that goeth upon the earth two ways» (Ecclus. 2:14).
But how great an evil it is, and how anxiously to be shunned, if anyone should attempt by a deadly transgression either to retain or to reclaim anything of what he has vowed to God — of this Ananias and Sapphira are an example, who, faithlessly withdrawing a certain part of the price of the field, were not only rebuked by the apostolic voice as violators of divine right, but were also slain by the severity of heavenly justice. Blessed Peter, finally, declared the aforesaid Ananias liable not only for the fault of fraud, but pronounced that his heart had been filled by Satan, saying: «Ananias, why hath Satan filled thy heart, that thou shouldst lie to the Holy Spirit, to defraud of the price of the field? While it remained, did it not remain to thee? And after it was sold, was it not in thy power?»
«Why hast thou conceived this thing in thy heart? Thou hast not lied to men, but to God» (Acts 5:3-4). If therefore anyone, overcome by the allurement of the flesh, should believe that a thing already dedicated to the Lord may be reclaimed anew, he is not the lawful possessor of his own property, but is pronounced an invader of divine right. And not undeservedly does the violator of continence already vowed hear himself called unclean, as the covetous defrauder of money heard. CHAPTER IX. — A reply to the questions asked at the beginning of the letter. Modesty is to be preserved in the conjugal act. Accordingly, weigh all the things that have been discussed above, with your conscience bearing you witness. And if indeed you have vowed continence by mutual assent, preserve the tenor of your love with the fear of God:
and if ever the weakness of the flesh assails the mind, let the soul run to the help of divine mercy, and let it not yield to lust, but as a faithful one entreat God with all humility, and let it not consent to the desire of the flesh warring against the soul, but resist it. But if one of you has vowed continence without the assent of the other, let him know that he vowed rashly, and let him render the debt to his spouse with chaste sincerity. Yet, that all your affairs may be done honourably, in the rendering of the conjugal debt let the conjugal use so receive the weakness of the flesh that the flesh may not serve lust, but that the strength of the soul, aided from on high, may restrain the reins of carnal concupiscence.
For the business of raising up offspring ought so to be carried on by spouses that, with modesty ministering while the faithful soul bends itself to the work of fecundity, it may at the same time, with God's help, keep the moderation of natural decency. But above all it must be observed by faithful spouses that they flee those acts which divine severity both forbids to be done and condemns when done. For apostolic teaching has not ceased to impress this upon the faithful, so that it might prudently instruct and wholesomely warn them to keep the rule of a good life. CHAPTER X. — Continence is to be sought from God by all. On the governance of the household and the education of offspring. The rule of progress and perfection in marriage.
It is therefore a great good «not to touch a woman», which every faithful person ought chiefly to observe; yet on account of fornications, whoever — whether married or free from marriage — has not vowed continence to God, and sees himself too weak to fulfil continence (although, where the will to be continent is full, and where the true humility of heart has not desisted from prayer and from good works, He who said, «Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you» (Matt. 7:7) — because He is truth and cannot lie — both gives to him who rightly asks, and prepares His resources for him who seeks, and Himself opens to him who rightly knocks, that he may enter into the inner chambers of a better life);
nevertheless, if anyone is still more anxious about his own weakness than secure in the Lord's power, if he has not vowed continence of the flesh, let him abstain from iniquity, and use his wife as is fitting: let him flee malice and avarice, and he will not be condemned if he renders the debt to his spouse. Let him not be a drunkard, nor envious, nor contentious, nor feigned, nor malignant, nor litigious, nor proud, nor rapacious, nor covetous: as far as it lies in himself, let him seek to have peace with all, let him hold no rancour, disparage no one, keep faith with friends, and never prove faithless or perjured toward enemies; let him not seize what belongs to others, nor set money before equity;
let him be just in his dealings, dutiful in his works, gentle in bearing injuries, slow to requite them; steadfast in faith, a lover of chastity and of peace. Let him attend to the saying of our Saviour, in which He both commands us what we should do and shows what we shall receive; for He says: «Forgive, and you shall be forgiven; give, and it shall be given to you» (Luke 6:37). Let him therefore be, as far as he is able, generous and cheerful in almsgiving, and ready and gracious to forgive those who sin; nor let him think that pardon must be so granted to sinners that he should reckon the discipline of his own household to be neglected, but, keeping a temperate measure of vigour and of clemency, let him preserve moderation in correction and censure in remission.
Let him urge, admonish, warn, rebuke, console, and cheer; nor let him do so much against sinning subordinates as the impulse of fury drives, but as much as the measure of deliberation demands; and if a servant is to be beaten for a fault, let not the lust of vengeance prevail, but rather let Christian equity mercifully take counsel for him whom it scourges; and thus, even when justice pursues the fault, let mercy not be lacking, which knows how modestly to lighten the punishment. Let sons be nurtured, according to the Apostle's precept, «in the discipline and correction of the Lord» (Eph. 6:4), nor let them be permitted to live unchastely or luxuriously, since Christian offspring ought to serve not wantonness, but chastity and temperance.
For in that terrible examination the negligence of parents will not fail to be judged even concerning the evil works of their children; since in this world too, on this account, the priest Eli (1 Sam. 2) was rejected and cast off by the Lord — not because he consented to his sons in iniquity, but because, though he admonished them when they sinned with a gentle word, he yet failed to restrain them with fitting severity. But rather let parents who truly love their sons take counsel for them by doing good, than by heaping up riches; lest, while property is tenaciously gathered for the sons, the opportunity of good work be let slip. Above all, let faithful spouses remember that they must always persist in prayers and almsgiving;
nor let them wish to lie perpetually in that very weakness of the flesh, but let them hasten to ascend to a higher grade of life. And that the soul may attain to the virtue of continence, let the excess of carnal concupiscence be more and more repressed: so that when, with God's help, they have surpassed that grade in which conjugal weakness begs for pardon, they may be able laudably to obtain a loftier one, in which the virtue of continence awaits the palm of a better life. LETTER II. TO GALLA THE WIDOW. On consolation over the death of her husband, and on the state of widows. To the lady truly illustrious and, in the fear of Christ, venerable daughter GALLA, Fulgentius, a little servant of the servants of Christ, sends greeting in the Lord. CHAPTER I. — Consolation of Galla over the death of her young husband.
Praise of the deceased husband. — Some months ago, from the sure account of my deacon returning from the city, I learned not only of the death of your husband, but also of the holy path of your resolve, in which you are already walking, led by Him who is «the way, the truth, and the life» (John 14:6), who knows how, through momentary sorrow, to bestow upon His faithful the gift of everlasting gladness, and to transfer whom He wills, by the dispensation of His fatherly goodness, wholesomely from earthly things to heavenly. For not in vain did the Lord — whose «incomprehensible judgements and unsearchable ways» the apostle Paul proclaims (Rom. 11:33) — swiftly transfer your husband, sincerely faithful in religion,
humble in heart, gentle in character, merciful in works, wholly innocent in conduct, young in age, from the pilgrimage of this life swiftly to the eternal dwelling of the heavenly homeland — save that He might both confer upon him eternal joys, and grant to you the means of living better. To him He gave that, stripped of the body, he should live with Christ without end; to you He gave that you should «think on the things of the Lord», and, according to the word of the apostle Paul, «be holy both in body and in spirit». Therefore believe without doubting what is divinely spoken, and hope with love for what is promised, that you may be able to do well what is commanded. CHAPTER II.
Christians ought not to grieve over the dead as the rest do who have no hope. Two kinds of sorrow. — First, therefore, learn from the apostle Paul what you ought faithfully to hold concerning your husband's death; for he says: «But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that are asleep, that you be not sorrowful, even as the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also them who have slept through Jesus, God will bring with him» (1 Thess. 4:13-14).
If therefore we are tenacious of the true faith, if we doubt nothing of the words of God, if we tend toward the life to come with most certain hope, if we worthily love God and our neighbour, if we look not for the vain glory of the Christian name from men, but for the true glory from God, we ought by no means to have any sorrow, as the unbelieving do, over the faithful dead, and — to speak properly — over those who are asleep among us. For there ought to remain in our heart a discernment of wholesome and of harmful sorrow, by which it comes about that a soul given over to eternal things does not sink down over the loss of temporal comfort, and yet takes wholesome sorrow from those things in which it considers that it has done something too little, or otherwise than it ought.