Marriage and Virginity (continued)
origin in that thigh? Marriage therefore is something good, and the more chastely and more faithfully they have respect for God in their marriage the better the spouses are, especially if they also nourish spiritually the children they desire physically.
Sex and the Levitical Purity Laws
20, 23. The fact that the law commands a person to be purified even after intercourse in marriage does not show that it is a sin, if it is not that intercourse that is allowed as excusable and is an excessive obstacle to prayer.†42 The law lays down many things by way of signs and shadows of the future. So a certain formlessness in the seed, which will take on form to become a human body, stands as a symbol of an unruly and undeveloped life. Since people must have this disorderliness corrected by formation and development through education, purification after the emission of seed was prescribed as a sign of this. There is no sin either when it happens in sleep; but the purification is still prescribed then.†43 On the other hand, if anyone thinks that this is a sin too, in the belief that it does not happen without some kind of desire for it (which is certainly not true), surely at least women's normal menstruation is not a sin? Yet the same ancient law requires them to be cleansed from that.†44 This is only because there is in the menstrual flow the same lack of physical form which is acquired, as it were, for the construction of a body when conception takes place. In this way the law intended that formless flow to symbolize a mind that lacks the formation that comes from education and is unstable and uncontrolled, and it symbolizes the need for it to be put in shape by insisting on purification for that bodily flow. Finally, surely it is not a sin to die? Surely burying the dead is even a good and humane deed? Yet purification is prescribed after that too,†45 because although the dead body is not sinful when life abandons it, it is nevertheless a symbol of the sinfulness of a soul that has been abandoned by justice.
24. Marriage, I say, is good, and it can be defended by sound arguments against all the lies about it. Yet I do not ask what marriages are comparable to the marriages of the holy fathers, but what life of celibacy is comparable to them. It is not that I do not find marriages comparable to their marriages (for the same gift to mortal human nature is present in all of them equally); but I do not find persons making use of marriage whom I would compare to the persons of those times who made use of marriage in a very different way. For this reason we have to go further, and ask what celibate persons might be comparable to those married persons. The alternative is to think that Abraham could not refrain from marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, although for the sake of the kingdom of heaven he could resolutely sacrifice his only guarantee of descendants, which is the reason why marriage is held dear.
Virtues May Be Present without Being Manifest in Action
21, 25. Celibacy, to be sure, is a virtue of the mind, not of the body. Virtues of the mind, however, sometimes manifest themselves in deeds, sometimes lie hidden as a habitual disposition.†46 The virtue of martyrdom shone and became visible when suffering was endured. Yet how many there are who possess the same virtue of mind, but miss out on the trial whereby what lies within them seen by God comes out also into human view! It is not that it comes into being then, but that is when it becomes known.
Job already possessed patience, and it was known to God and attested to by God, but it became known to mankind by the test of temptation. What lay hidden within did not come into being because of the things inflicted on him externally, but was revealed by them.†47
Timothy too certainly had the virtue of abstaining from wine, and Paul did not take this away from him by advising him to take a little wine for his stomach's sake on account of his frequent illnesses.†48 (Otherwise he would have been teaching a pernicious doctrine, to do something for the health of the body that was detrimental to spiritual virtue.) On the contrary, because the advice could be followed without loss of that virtue, the body was accorded the benefit that comes from drinking while the mind retained the disposition of abstinence. Of itself a disposition has the effect that something is done when it is needed, and when it is not done, it is still able to be done, but there is no need for it. Those who are told, If they are unable to be continent, they should marry; for it is better to marry than to burn (1 Cor 7:9), do not have this disposition to refrain from intercourse. Those, however, who are told, Let anyone who is able to accept this accept it (Mt 19:12), do have it. By means of this abstinence in disposition perfect souls have used the earthly goods needed as a means to other things without becoming attached to them, remaining able to refrain from using them when there is not that need. No one uses them well except the one who is able not to use them. Many indeed find it easier to abstain from making use of them than to control their use and use them properly. No one can use them wisely, unless he or she also is able to refrain from using them.
It was because of this habitual disposition that Paul was able to say, I know how to be well off and how to suffer want (Phil 4:12). Anyone indeed can suffer want, but knowing how to suffer