Marriage and Virginity
23. The apostle has given us to understand that there are three pairs: Christ and the Church, husband and wife, the spirit and the flesh. The first member of the pair cares for the second, the second is subordinate to the first. When they maintain among themselves the beauty and orderliness of one being superior and in charge and the other honorably subordinate, they are all good. Husband and wife have a commandment and a model of how they should treat each other. The commandment is this: Wives should be subject to their husbands, as they are to the Lord, because the husband is head of the wife (Eph 5:22-23), and Husbands, love your wives (Eph 5:25). The model then given for wives is that of the Church, and for husbands that of Christ. As the Church is subject to Christ, he says, so too wives are to their husbands in all things (Eph 5:24). Similarly, after giving husbands the commandment to love their wives he adds the model: As Christ loved the Church. Also, however, he appeals to husbands by referring to the inferior thing, namely their body, and not just the superior one, namely their Lord. Not only did he say, Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church (Eph 5:25), referring to the superior thing, but he also said, Husbands should love their wives like their own bodies (Eph 5:28), referring to the inferior thing because, superior and inferior, they are all good. At the same time, however, the wife is not given the body or the flesh as her model, for her to be subject to her husband as the flesh is to the spirit. Instead, either the apostle meant what he omitted to say to be taken as implied, or perhaps because in its weak mortal state in this life the flesh has desires opposed to the spirit, he did not want to present that as the model of obedience for a woman. He chose to do so for husbands, because even though the spirit has desires opposed to the flesh, even in this respect it looks after the interests of the flesh, whereas the flesh with desires opposed to the spirit and rebellious does not look after either the interests of the spirit or its own interests. The good spirit would not be concerned for its interests, whether by providing prudently for its care and nourishment or by resisting its vices through continence, if it were not the case that by this apt coordination between them both entities point to God being the maker of both of them. How is it then that with true madness you boast that you are Christians, but at the same time with your eyes closed, or rather with your eyes blinded, you argue so perversely against the Christian scriptures? How can you claim that Christ appeared to mortal creatures in a body that was not real, that the Church belongs to Christ in its soul and to the devil in its body, that male and female sexuality are the work of the devil, not of God, and that the flesh is attached to the spirit as an evil substance to a good one?
Scripture Contradicts the Manichean View of the Body
10, 24. If the texts we have cited from the writings of the apostle seem inadequate to you, then, if you have ears, listen to yet more. What does the mad Manichee say about Christ's flesh? That it was not real, but an imitation. What does the blessed apostle say about it?
Remember that Jesus Christ, of the line of David, rose from the dead, as my Gospel says (2
Tm 2:8). And Jesus Christ himself said, Touch and see, because a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have (Lk 24:39). How can there be any truth in their teaching, which preaches that Christ's flesh was deceptive? How is it that there was no evil in Christ, when there was that great lie? In other words, for these overly pure persons real flesh is too great an evil, but imaginary flesh passing for real is not an evil; the real flesh of the one born a descendant of David is evil, but the tongue that says, Touch and see, because a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have, is not evil! What, in his deadly error, does the deceiver of mankind say about the Church? That in its souls it belongs to Christ, and in its bodies to the devil? What, in truth and faith, does the doctor of the Gentiles say about this?
Do you not know, he says, that your bodies are the members of Christ (1 Cor 6:15)? What does the son of perdition say about the male and female sex? That neither is from God, but both are from the devil. What does the chosen vessel say about this? As woman came from man, so too a man comes through the agency of a woman; but everything comes from God (1
Cor 11:12). What, through the Manichee, does the unclean spirit say about the body? That it is an evil substance, not God's creation but the enemy's. What, through Paul, does the Holy
Spirit say about this? As there is one body, and it has many members, but, although there are many members of the body, there is only one body, so too it is with Christ (1 Cor 12:12); and a little further on, God put each of the members in the body as he chose (1
Cor 12:18). A little further on again he said, God put order in the body, giving greater honor where it was lacking, so that there would be no division in the body, but only the one, and the members would be concerned for each other. If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it (1 Cor 12:24-26). How can the body be evil, when even the souls are advised to imitate the harmony of its members?
How can creation be evil, when even the souls, which rule the bodies, take the members of the body as their model for not having divisions and enmities among themselves, and desire to have for themselves by grace what God endowed the body with naturally? With good reason he said in his letter to the Romans: I beg you, brothers and sisters, by God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God (Rom 12:1). If we offer a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, with bodies that belong to a nation of darkness, we could just as well argue that light is darkness and darkness light.
Though Subject to Christ, the Church Is Still Carnal
11, 25. "But," they say, "how can there be any analogy between the body and the Church?
Does the Church have desires opposed to Christ? That same apostle said, The Church is subject to Christ" (Eph 5:24). Obviously the Church is subject to Christ, since the reason why the spirit has desires opposed to the flesh is to make the Church subject to Christ in all its parts, and the reason why the flesh has desires opposed to the spirit is that the Church has not yet achieved the perfect peace it has been promised. So the Church is subject to Christ because of the salvation it has been pledged, and the flesh has desires opposed to the spirit because of the illness that infects it. It is not that he was not speaking to members of the Church when he said those words: Walk with the spirit and do not carry out the desires of the flesh. The flesh has desires opposed to those of the spirit, and the spirit desires opposed to those of the flesh. These two work against each other with the result that you do not do what you want to do (Gal 5:16-17). This was certainly said to the Church, and if it were not subject to Christ, there would not be in it any desires of the spirit opposed to those of the flesh through continence. This is why it was possible for them not to carry out the desires of the flesh; but because the flesh has desires opposed to those of the spirit, it was not possible for them to do what they wanted to do, namely, not even have those desires of the flesh. So then, why do we not proclaim that the Church is subject to Christ in spiritual persons, but in carnal persons it still has desires opposed to Christ? When it was said, Is Christ divided? (1 Cor
1:13), and I was not able to speak to you as spiritual persons but as carnal ones, like babies in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; you were not yet able to take it, and even now you are not able to take it, as you are still carnal persons. Because there is envy and rivalry among you, are you not carnal persons? (1 Cor 3:1-3), did not those to whom this was said have desires opposed to Christ? Who, other than Christ, is opposed by the desires of envy and rivalry? Christ heals these desires of the flesh in those who belong to him, but he does not like them in anyone.
Hence, as long as the Church has members who are like that, it is not yet without spot or wrinkle. Moreover, there are also the sins for which the whole Church daily prays: Forgive us our trespasses (Mt 6:12). Lest we think that spiritual persons are not included in this, this is what was said, not by one of the carnal persons, nor just by one of the spiritual persons, but by the one who rested his head on the Lord's breast, and whom the Lord loved more than the others:†14 If we say we are without sin, we deceive ourselves, and there is no truth in us (1 Jn
1:8). In all sins, however, there are desires opposed to what is right, more so in the case of more serious sins, less so in the case of less serious ones. About Christ it has been written, He became for us the wisdom from God, and justification and sanctification and redemption (1
Cor 1:30). In all sin, therefore, there are undoubtedly desires opposed to Christ; but when the one who heals all our infirmities (Ps 103:3) has brought the Church to the promised healing of its infirmities, there will then be no spot or wrinkle, however slight, in any of its members.
Then the flesh will have no desires in any way opposed to the spirit, and so there will also be no reason for the spirit to have desires opposed to the flesh. This whole struggle will then come to an end; there will then be absolute harmony; then no one will be carnal, so much so that even the flesh itself will be spiritual. All those who live according to Christ now act toward their body in this way: on the one hand, they have desires opposed to its evil inclinations, because they do not yet possess it in its healed condition, and while it still needs healing they restrain it; on the other hand, they nourish and nurture its natural goodness, because no one ever hates his own flesh (Eph 5:29). To the extent that one may compare greater and lesser things, this is also how Christ acts with his Church. He restrains it with corrections, lest it become puffed up and destroyed by being spared punishment, and he comforts it and supports it, lest it succumb under the weight of its infirmities. On this point we have that text of the apostle, If we judged ourselves, we would not be judged; when we are judged, however, we are corrected by the Lord, so that we will not be condemned with this world (1 Cor 11:13), and the one in the psalm, Your consolations have given my soul pleasure in proportion to the multitude of sorrows in my heart (Ps 94:19). So then, when Christ's
Church has unshakable security without any fear, we can hope for our flesh to be perfectly sound without any rebelliousness.
True and False Continence
12, 26. These arguments on behalf of true continence against the Manichees with their false continence will suffice. No one will believe now that when continence toils so splendidly and effectively to cool the fire in the lower part of our nature, that is our body, and holds it back