I do not doubt, brother, that after your wife has been sent on before you in peace, being now turned to the composing of your mind, you are pondering upon the outcome of the single life, and certainly are in need of counsel. Although in matters of this kind each one ought to confer with his own faith and to consult its strength, yet, since in this particular case the necessity of the flesh stirs up thought—a necessity which for the most part sets itself against the very conscience of faith—there is need of counsel for faith from without, as it were of an advocate against the necessity of the flesh. Which necessity indeed can most easily be circumscribed, if the will of God rather than his indulgence be considered. No one earns merit by using indulgence, but by obeying his will. The will of God is our sanctification.
For he wills that we who are his image should become his likeness also, that we may be holy as he himself is holy. This good, I mean sanctification, he has distributed into several kinds, that we may be found in some one of them. The first kind is virginity from birth; the second, virginity from the second birth, that is, from the laver, which either purifies within marriage by agreement, or perseveres in widowhood by choice. There remains a third degree, monogamy, when after a single marriage has been broken off, sexual union is thereafter renounced. The first virginity is of happiness—not to know at all that from which afterwards you will wish to be freed; the second is of virtue—to despise that whose force you know full well;
the remaining kind—marrying only thus far, after a marriage severed by death—besides being a praise of virtue, is also a praise of moderation. For moderation is not to desire what has been taken away, and taken away by the Lord God, without whose will neither does a leaf fall from a tree nor does a sparrow fall to the ground for a single farthing. How modest, in short, is that saying: 'The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; as it seemed good to the Lord, so is it done.' And therefore if we restore marriages that have been taken away, without doubt we strive against the will of God, wishing to have again what he did not wish us to have. For if he had wished it, he would not have taken it away—unless indeed we should interpret even this as the will of God, as though he had again wished us to have what he had already refused.
It is not the mark of a sound and solid faith thus to refer all things to the will of God, and so to flatter oneself, each man saying that nothing comes to pass without his nod, so that we do not understand that there is something in ourselves. Otherwise every sin will be excused, if we contend that nothing is done by us without the will of God; and this definition will go on to the destruction of all discipline, and even of God himself, if either he produces of his own will things that he does not wish, or there is nothing that God does not wish. But just as he forbids certain things, with which he even threatens eternal punishment (for surely those things which he forbids he does not wish, and by them he is offended), so on the contrary those things which he wishes he both enjoins and takes as done, and requites with the reward of eternity.
Therefore, when from his precepts we have learned both things—what he does not wish and what he wishes—yet there remains to us a will and a choice of electing 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 that which has been set forth to our own choice, as though he wished, or did not wish, that which is good—he who does not wish evil. Thus it is our own will, when we will evil against the will of God, who wills good. Further, if you ask whence comes this will by which we will something against the will of God, I will say: from ourselves. And not rashly. For it is necessary that you answer to your own seed, since that first author both of the race and of sin, Adam, willed that which he transgressed.
For the devil did not impose upon him the will to transgress, but supplied the material for the will. Otherwise, the will to disobedience had come to him from himself. Likewise you too, if you obey not God, who established you upon the proposed precept of free power, by the liberty of your will you willingly turn aside into that which God does not wish; and thus you think yourself subverted by the devil, who, even if he wishes you to will what God does not wish, yet does not bring it about that you should also will, because not even then did he compel the first-formed pair, unwilling, to the will of transgression—nay, they were neither unwilling nor ignorant of what God did not wish. For surely he did not wish that to be done, for the committing of which he was appointing death. Thus the work of the devil is one thing: to tempt whatever is in you, whether you will.
But when you have willed, it follows that he subjects you to himself, not having wrought the will in you, but having found the occasion of your will. Therefore, since to will alone is within us, and in this our mind toward God is tested—whether we will those things which accord with his will—I say that the will of God must be deeply and diligently pondered, even as to what he wishes in secret. For those things which are in the open we all know, and even these must be scrutinized as to how they are in the open. For although certain things seem to savour of the will of God, since they are permitted by him, yet not everything that is permitted at once proceeds from the pure and entire will of him who permits. Whatever is permitted comes of indulgence.
Which, although it is not without will, since nevertheless it has some cause in the one to whom indulgence is granted, comes as it were from an unwilling will, having suffered its own cause, which compels the will. See what sort of will that is, of which another is the cause. Likewise a second kind must be considered, that of pure will. God wills us to do certain things pleasing to himself, in which indulgence does not act as patron, but discipline holds sway. If, however, he has set other things before these—those, that is, which he wishes more—is there any doubt that we ought to follow those which he prefers, since those which he wishes less, because he wishes others more, are to be held as if he did not wish them at all?
For in showing what he wishes more, he has blotted out the lesser will by the greater; and by as much as he has set both before your knowledge, by so much has he defined that you ought to follow that which he has declared he wishes more. Therefore if he has declared it for this reason, that you should follow that which he wishes more, then without doubt, unless you do so, you are minded against his will, being minded against his more powerful will; and you offend more than you earn merit, by doing indeed what he wishes and by spurning what he prefers. In part you sin; in part, if you do not sin, yet you do not earn merit. And is not the unwillingness to earn merit itself a sinning?
As regards second marriage, therefore, if it derives from that will of God which is called indulgence, we shall deny that it is a pure will, seeing that indulgence is its cause; if it derives from that will to which another—the more preferable will of continence, which is to be more earnestly sought—is preferred, we shall have learned that the preferable is not annulled by the more preferable. Let me have laid these foundations, that I may now run through the utterances of the apostle. But first of all I shall not seem irreligious if I take note of what he himself professes—that he introduced all that indulgence of marriages of his own, that is, from human judgment, not from divine prescription. For even when concerning widows and the unmarried he defined that they should marry if they cannot contain themselves, because it is better to marry than to burn, turning to another case he says: 'But to the married I give charge, not I indeed, but the Lord.'
Thus he shows, by the transference 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.' Although this saying pertains to those who are found unmarried or widowed at the time of their conversion, yet since all embrace it as a licence for marrying, I should like to reconsider what sort of good it points to, which is better than a penalty—a good which cannot seem to be good except when compared with the worst, so that for this reason marrying is good, because burning is worse. A thing is good only if, retaining its name, it perseveres without comparison—I do not say of an evil, but even of another good—so that, even if it be compared with another good and be overshadowed by another, it nonetheless remains under the name of good.
But if it is compelled to be called good through comparison with an evil, then it is not so much good as a kind of lesser evil, which, being obscured by a greater 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 removed and taken away the condition of comparison, which, while it makes it 'better,' thereby compels it to be held good. 'It is better to marry than to burn' is to be understood just as 'it is better to lack one eye than two'; yet if you depart from comparison, it will not be better to have one eye, because neither is it good.
Let no one, therefore, seize upon a defence from this chapter, which properly regards the unmarried and widowed, for whom no union is as yet counted—although I have shown that even to them the condition of the thing permitted is to be understood. But concerning second marriage we know plainly that the apostle has pronounced: 'Are you loosed from a wife? Seek not a wife; but if you also marry, you do not sin.' Yet likewise he introduces the tenor of this discourse also from his own counsel, not from divine precept. And there is much difference between the precept of God and the counsel of man. 'I have no precept of the Lord,' he says, 'but I give counsel, as one that has obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful.'
But neither in the Gospel nor in Paul's own epistles will you find the repetition of marriage permitted by any precept of God. Whence it is confirmed that only one is to be had, because what is not found permitted by the Lord is recognized as forbidden. Add that this very interjection of human counsel, as though it had already suffered a reconsideration of its own excess, at once reins itself in and calls itself back, when it subjoins: 'Nevertheless such shall have tribulation of the flesh'; when he says that he 'spares them'; when he adds that 'the time is short,' in which it behoves even those who have wives to act as though they had none; when he commits to consideration the anxiety of the married and of the unmarried. For by these things, teaching why it is not expedient to marry, he dissuades from that which he had above 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. Thus he too, when he wills one thing, permits that which he wills not, neither willingly nor in truth. For if he willed it, he would not have permitted it—nay, he would have commanded it. 'But behold, again he says that a woman, upon her husband's death, may marry whom she will, only in the Lord.' 'But she will be more blessed,' he says, 'if she so remains, according to my counsel; and I think that I too have the Spirit of God.' We see two counsels: one whereby above he grants indulgence for marrying, and one whereby afterwards he teaches continence from marrying. To which then, you ask, shall we assent? Look and read.
When he grants 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 faithful indeed also have the Spirit of God, but not all the faithful are apostles. When, therefore, he who had called himself faithful added afterwards that he had the Spirit of God—which no one would doubt even of a faithful man—he said this for this reason: that he might restore to himself the eminence of an apostle. For properly the apostles have the Holy Spirit, who have him fully in the works of prophecy and the efficacy of powers and the evidences of tongues, not in part, as the rest.
Thus he made the authority of the Holy Spirit approach to that kind of life to which he wished us rather to yield ourselves; and it became now no longer a counsel of the divine Spirit, but, in accordance with his majesty, a precept. To the establishing of the law of marrying but once, the very origin of the human race lends its patronage, testifying what God ordained in the beginning as a norm to be recorded for posterity. For when he had moulded man and had provided for him a necessary equal, he borrowed one of his ribs and shaped for him a single woman, though surely neither the craftsman nor the material had failed. There were more ribs in Adam and untiring hands in God, yet not more wives with God.
And therefore Adam, the man of God, and Eve, the woman of God, having performed one marriage between themselves, sanctioned for men a norm of God 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 two into one flesh. They shall be so, if the conjunction and coalescence into unity take place but once. But if it is done again, or oftener, it has now ceased to be one, and there will now be not two into one flesh, but plainly one flesh in many.
But when the apostle interprets 'they shall be two in one flesh' of the Church and Christ, according to the spiritual marriage of the Church and Christ (for Christ is one, and one is his Church), we ought to recognize that the law of a single marriage has been for us doubled and heightened, as much according to the foundation of the race as according to the sacrament of Christ. On both sides we are reckoned of one marriage, both carnally in Adam and spiritually in Christ. Of the two births there is one prescription of monogamy. In each he degenerates who strays from monogamy. The plurality of marriage began with an accursed man. The first, Lamech, married to two women, made three in one flesh.
'But,' you say, 'the blessed patriarchs mingled in wedlock not only with several wives, but even with concubines.' Shall it therefore be permitted to us also to marry without number? Surely it will be permitted, if there yet remain any types of some future sacrament which your marriages may prefigure, or if even now there is place for that voice: 'Increase and multiply'—that is, if no other voice has yet supervened: that the time is now short, that it remains for even those who have wives to act as though they had none. For surely, in enjoining continence and restraining the intercourse that is the seed-plot of the race, he has abolished that 'increase and multiply.'
As I think, however, both the pronouncement and the disposition are of one and the same God, who at that time in the beginning sent forth the seed of the race, with the reins of wedlock let loose, until the world should be filled, until the material for a new discipline should advance; but now, under the extremities of the times, has compressed what he had sent forth and recalled what he had indulged—not without reason for the prolonging at the beginning and the pruning-back at the last. Beginnings are always relaxed, endings are drawn in. For this reason a man plants a wood and lets it grow, that in its own time he may cut it down. The wood was the old disposition, which is being pruned by the new Gospel, in which also the axe has been laid to the root of the tree.
So too 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth' has now grown old, from the time when 'let no one render evil for evil' grew young. And I think that even human ordinances and later decrees prevail over the earlier. But why should we not rather recognize, from among the earlier examples, those which share in discipline with the later and transmit the form of antiquity to newness? For behold, in the old law I observe the licence of marrying repeatedly to have been curtailed. It was provided in Leviticus: 'My priests shall not marry more.' I may say that even 'more' is that which is not just once. What is not one is a number. In short, after one, number begins. But one is everything that is but once.
But it was reserved for Christ that, as in other things, so in this also the fulfilment of the law should come. Hence therefore among us it is prescribed more fully and more instructively that those who are chosen into the sacerdotal order ought to be of one marriage. To such a degree that I remember certain twice-married men to have been removed from office. But you will say: therefore it is permitted to the rest, since he excepts those to whom it is not permitted. We shall be vain if we suppose that what is not permitted to priests is permitted to laymen. Are not we laymen also priests? It is written: 'He has made us also a kingdom 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 sanctified by the assembly of the order.
So that where there is no assembly of the ecclesiastical order, you both offer and baptize, and are priest for yourself alone. But where there are three, there is a church, though they be laymen. For each one lives by his own faith, and there is no respect of persons with God, since not the hearers of the law are justified by the Lord, but the doers, according to what the apostle also says. Therefore, if you have the right of a priest in yourself where it is necessary, you ought to have also the discipline of a priest, wherever it may be 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 offence for a twice-married layman to act as priest, when from the very priest who has become twice married the acting as priest is taken away! 'But,' you say, 'indulgence is granted to necessity.' No necessity is excused which can be avoided.
In short, do not be found twice married, and you do not fall into the necessity of administering what is not permitted to a twice-married man. God wills us all to be so ordered that we may everywhere be fit for undertaking his sacraments. There is one God, one faith, one discipline also. To such a degree 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, before the layman is bidden to abstain from a second marriage, seeing that a presbyter cannot be other than a layman who has once been married. Let it now be permitted to marry again, if everything that is permitted is good. The same apostle exclaims: 'All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable.' What is not profitable, I ask you, can it be called good?
If even those things which are not profitable are lawful, then those things also which are not good are lawful. But which ought you rather to will—that which is good because it is lawful, or that which is good because it is profitable? I reckon there is much difference 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 whose goodness is in doubt, which might just as well not be permitted, were there not some cause of its own for it: first, because marriage is permitted on account of the danger of incontinence; secondly, because, unless one were subject to the license of some not wholly good thing, there would be no field in which to prove who obeys the divine will and who obeys his own inclination, which of us pursues present advantage and who embraces the occasion of license. License is for the most part a testing of discipline, since discipline is proved through testing, and testing operates through license. Thus it comes about that all things are lawful, but not all things are expedient, since he to whom something is permitted is being tested, and is being judged while he is tempted in what is permitted him.
15:28
Licebatetapostolisnubereetuxorescircumducere. Licebatetdeeuangelioali. Sedquiiurehocususnonestinoccasionem, adexemplumnossuumprouocat, docensineoesseprobationeminquolicentiaexperimentumabstinentiaepraestruxit. IX. Sipenitussensuseiusinterpretemur, nonaliuddicendumeritsecundummatrimoniumquamspeciesstupri.
The apostles too were permitted to marry and to take wives about with them. They were permitted also to be fed from the gospel. But he who did not use this right as an occasion for himself summons us by his example, teaching that the proof lies in that very thing in which license had laid the groundwork for a trial of abstinence. IX. If we interpret his meaning thoroughly, a second marriage will have to be called nothing other than a species of fornication.
For when he says that husbands have this care, how they may please themselves — surely not concerning their morals (for he would not have censured a good care), but he wishes it to be understood as concerning adornment and finery and every zeal for beauty in order to contrive allurements — and since to please by beauty and adornment is a trait of carnal concupiscence, which is also the cause of fornication, does not a second marriage seem to you akin to fornication, since those very things are found in it which belong to fornication? The Lord himself says: whoever looks upon a woman to lust after her has already committed fornication with her in his heart. But he who looks upon her to take her in marriage — has he done less or more? What if he has even taken her?
which he would not do unless he had both desired to take her in marriage and had looked upon her to lust after her — unless, forsooth, a wife can be taken whom you have neither seen nor desired. It makes a great difference, to be sure, whether a married man or an unmarried man lusts after another woman. Every woman, even to the unmarried man, is another's so long as she is not his own; nor yet does she become a wife by any other means than that by which she also becomes an adulteress. The laws seem to make a distinction between marriage and fornication by the diversity of what is unlawful, not by the condition of the thing itself. Otherwise, what is the thing that is present to all men and women, both for marriage and for fornication? Namely, the commingling of the flesh, whose lust the Lord has equated with fornication.
'Then,' someone says, 'you are now destroying even first, that is, single marriages?' And not without reason, since these too consist of that which is fornication. Therefore it is best for a man not to touch a woman, and therefore the sanctity of the virgin is preeminent, because she is free from any kinship with fornication. And since these things can be alleged even concerning first and single marriages in support of the cause of continence, how much more will they prejudge against a second marriage that ought to be refused? Be grateful if God has once permitted you to marry. But you will be grateful if you know nothing of his having permitted you a second time. For the rest, you abuse indulgence when you use it without moderation. Moderation (modestia) is understood from measure (modus).
It does not suffice you to have fallen by marrying from that highest rank of unspotted virginity into the second, but you slide down still further into the third, and into the fourth, and perhaps into more, after you have failed to be continent in the second station — for he who drew back from provoking second marriages did not thereby will to forbid a plurality of marriages. Let us then marry daily, and, still marrying, let us be overtaken by the last day, like Sodom and Gomorrah, on which day that 'woe' shall be fulfilled upon those with child and those who give suck (Matt 24:19), that is, upon the married and the incontinent; for wombs and breasts and infants come of marriage. And when is the end of marrying? I believe, after the end of living. X. Let us renounce carnal things, that we may at length bring forth spiritual fruit.
Seize the occasion, if not the most longed-for, yet at least the opportune one, of having no one to whom you must render the debt and by whom you would be exacted of it. You have ceased to be a debtor: O happy you! You have dismissed your debtor: bear the loss. What if you shall find that what we called a loss is gain? For through continence you will trade in a great substance of sanctity; by sparing of the flesh you will acquire the Spirit. Let us reflect upon our very conscience, how a man feels himself to be another when perchance he abstains from his wife. He is wise in spiritual things; 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 pleases himself; if he adjures a demon, he trusts in himself.
Therefore the apostle added a temporary purification for the sake of prayers to be commended (1 Cor 7:5), that we might know that what profits for a time ought always to be practiced by us, so that it may always profit. Daily, at every moment, prayer is necessary for men — assuredly continence also, since prayer is necessary. Prayer proceeds from the conscience: if the conscience blush, the prayer blushes. The Spirit conducts prayer to God. If the Spirit is guilty before itself of a blushing conscience, how shall it dare to conduct the prayer to the altar, since, while it blushes, the holy minister himself is also suffused with shame? For there is a prophetic voice of the Old Testament: You shall be holy, because I your God am holy (Lev 11:44); and again:
With the holy man you shall be sanctified, and with the innocent man you shall be innocent, and with the elect you shall be elect (Ps 18:26-27). 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 thus also the apostle says that to be wise according to the flesh is death, but to be wise according to the Spirit is life eternal in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8:6). Likewise, through the holy prophetess Prisca it is thus proclaimed as good news, that the holy minister knows how to minister holiness.
'For purity brings concord,' she says, 'and they see visions, and turning their faces downward they also hear manifest voices, as salutary as they are secret.' If this dulling, even when the affair of the flesh is exercised in a single marriage, turns away the Holy Spirit, how much more when it is transacted in a second marriage? XI. For it is a twofold shame, since in a second marriage two wives surround the same husband, one in the spirit, the other in the flesh. For you will not be able to hate your former wife, for whom you even reserve a more religious affection, as for one already received with the Lord, for whose spirit you make petition, for whom you render 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 upon a rule of monogamy, or even consecrated in virginity, surrounded by widows married but once? And will your sacrifice ascend with a free brow, and among your other petitions of a good mind will you ask for yourself and your wife chastity? XII. I know by what pleas we color the insatiable lust of the flesh. We put forward the necessities of supports: a household to be administered, a family to be governed, coffers and keys to be guarded, wool-spinning to be dispensed, food to be provided for, cares to be lessened. As if, forsooth, only the houses of married men are well off.
Have the households of the celibate perished, the affairs of eunuchs, the fortunes of soldiers or of those who travel abroad without wives? For are not we also soldiers — of a discipline indeed all the greater as our Commander is so great? Are not we also travelers in this world? But why have you been so disposed, O Christian, that you cannot manage without a wife? Now is a partner in domestic burdens also necessary? Have some spiritual wife. Take from among the widows one fair in faith, dowered with poverty, marked by age: you will have made a good marriage. To have several wives of this kind is even pleasing to God. But do Christians take thought for posterity — Christians, for whom there is no tomorrow? Will a servant of God long for heirs, who has disinherited himself from the world?
And so why should anyone repeat marriage, if from his former wife he has no children? He will therefore have this as his first 'good': that he wishes to live longer, while the apostle himself hastens to the Lord! Surely one most unencumbered in persecutions, most steadfast in martyrdoms, most ready in the sharing of goods, most temperate in acquisitions, will at last die untroubled, leaving children — who perhaps will perform funeral rites for him. Are such things then done also out of regard for the commonwealth? — lest cities fail if offspring be not raised up, lest the rights of law, lest commerce collapse, lest the temples be forsaken, lest there be none to shout 'The lion for the Christians!' For these are the things they desire to hear who seek children.
Let even this suffice as counsel toward widowhood, especially among us: the burdensomeness of children, to the rearing of whom men are compelled by the laws, since every wise man would never have willingly desired children. What then will you do, if you have filled a new wife by your own contrivance? Will you dissolve the conception by drugs? I think it is even less 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 — a remedy which, when it lay within your own power, you refused? Some barren woman, I suppose, will be provided for, one now even of a colder age. Prudently enough, and above all faithfully. For we have believed that none, if God will it, is barren or too old to bring forth.
This may indeed the more come to pass, if anyone by presumption of this providence of his provoke God's rivalry. In short, we know a certain one of the brethren who, when on account of his daughter he had sought a wife in a second marriage as being barren, was made a father again just as he was made a husband again. XIII. To this my exhortation, most beloved brother, there are added also secular examples, which have often been set before us even for a testimony, since whatever is good and pleasing to God is recognized even by outsiders and honored with their testimony. In short, monogamy is held in such high honor among the heathen that even for virgins lawfully marrying a bridesmatron married but once is employed; and if this be for the sake of an omen, it is assuredly the omen of a good thing;
likewise, so that in certain solemnities and offices the place of one married but once takes precedence. Certainly the Flaminica is none but a woman married once; and this is also the law of the Flamen. For as to the fact that even to the Pontifex Maximus himself it is not lawful to repeat marriage, that assuredly is the glory of monogamy. But since Satan affects the sacraments of God, it is our own challenge — nay, our own confusion — if we are sluggish to render to God that continence which certain persons 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 priests of that Egyptian bull;
and, as for women, those of the African Ceres, to whom they even grow old in a marriage of their own accord renounced, thenceforth shunning contact with males, even to the kisses of their sons. The devil has indeed found, after luxury, even a chastity that destroys, so that the Christian may be the more guilty who has refused a chastity that preserves. There will be for us, as a testimony, certain secular women too who have won fame for their obstinacy in being married but once: a certain Dido, who, a fugitive on foreign soil, where she ought rather of her own accord to have desired marriage with the king, chose on the contrary to burn rather than to marry, that she might not experience a second marriage; or that Lucretia, who, though she once suffered another man by force and against her will, washed away with her own blood her defiled flesh, that she might no longer live as one no longer married to but a single husband.
You may find, if you search more carefully, more examples of our own, and indeed ones superior to those others, inasmuch as it is a greater thing to live in chastity than to die for it. You may more easily lay down your life because you have lost a good, than by living preserve that for which you would rather die. How many men, then, and how many women in the ecclesiastical orders are enrolled for their continence, who have preferred to be wedded to God, who have restored the honor of their flesh, and who have already dedicated themselves as sons 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 wish at last to be received within paradise ought to cease from that thing from which paradise remained untouched. Text edited by Claudio Moreschini, SC319, Paris: Cerf, 1985.