Marriage and Virginity
want is a quality of the great. Similarly, who is there who is incapable of being wealthy? But knowing how to be wealthy is a quality only of those whom wealth does not corrupt.
26. For a clearer understanding of how virtue exists as a disposition, even when it does not exist in deeds, I can mention an example which no one among Catholic Christians would question. No one who has received the faith from his gospel has any doubt that our Lord Jesus
Christ experienced bodily hunger and thirst, and ate and drank. Was it then that he did not have the virtue of restraint in eating and drinking to the same degree as John the Baptist? For when John came he did not eat and drink, and they said, "He has a devil." When the Son of Man came, he ate and drank, and they said, "See the glutton and wine bibber, the friend of tax-collectors and sinners" (Mt 11:18). Were not similar things said about his kinfolk, our ancestors, with regard to the use of earthly goods of another kind, in the matter of sexual intercourse: "Look at those people, licentious and impure, obsessed with women and obscenity"? What they said about him, however, was not true, however true it was that unlike John he did not fast from food and drink. He himself said with absolute candor and truth: "When John came, he did not eat and drink; when the Son of Man came, he ate and drank."
Likewise what they say about those fathers is not true. Christ's apostle has come now unmarried and without children; and the pagans say, "He was a magician." In the past Christ's prophet came, and was married and had children; and the Manichees say, "He was a womanizer." And wisdom is justified by her children (Mt 11:19); this was the Lord's comment after saying those things about John and himself. Wisdom, he said, is justified by her children.
They see that the virtue of celibacy ought always be present as a habitual disposition of mind, but it has to manifest itself in behavior according to the demands of different times and circumstances. In the same way, the virtue of patience in the holy martyrs showed itself in action, but is equally present in the other saints in their disposition. For this reason, just as the patience of Peter, who endured suffering, was not superior to that of John, who did not suffer, so too the chastity of John, who did not have the experience of marriage, was not superior to that of Abraham, who fathered children. The one's celibacy and the other's marriage were both practiced in the service of Christ in response to the different demands of the times. John, however, also practiced celibacy, whereas Abraham had it only as a disposition of mind.
Old Testament Saints Possessed Celibacy in Disposition
22, 27. At that time, therefore, when subsequent to the period of the patriarchs the law still declared that anyone who did not emit seed for Israel was accursed,†49 even those with the capacity for celibacy gave no outward evidence of this, but it was there just the same. When, however, the fullness of time came (Gal 4:1), the time for saying, Let anyone who is able to accept this accept it (Mt 19:12), from that time on, up to the present and henceforth until the end of time, whoever has the virtue puts it into practice, and if anyone is not prepared to put it into practice, let him not lie and say he does have it.†50 Because of this, with futile and shallow sophistry those who corrupt good morals with evil discourse†51 say to the Christian who is celibate and declines to marry, "Are you, then, better than Abraham?" The Christian must not be upset by this, and must neither be so rash as to say, "Yes; better," nor lapse from his resolution. To say the former would be to speak an untruth, and to do the latter would be to act wrongly. Rather, he should say this: "I am certainly not better than Abraham, but the chastity of a celibate person is better than the chastity of a married person, and Abraham had one of these in deed and both in disposition. Certainly he lived a chaste married life. Even so, he was capable of being chaste outside of marriage, but it was not the right thing to do at that time. Although Abraham made use of marriage, I myself would find it easier not to make use of it than to make use of it in the way Abraham did. Therefore I am better than those who because of lack of self-control are incapable of doing what I am capable of doing, but not better than those who, because of the different circumstances of the time, did not do what I do. What I now do they would have done more perfectly, if that was what had to be done then; but what they did I would not do so well, even if that were what has to be done now."
On the other hand, it may be that he feels that he is like that, and knows that if, while keeping intact the virtue of celibacy as a disposition of mind, he had consented to make use of marriage because of some religious duty, he would have been the kind of husband and father that Abraham was. In that case he should be bold enough to say this in reply to his crafty interrogator: "I am certainly not better than Abraham, in relation to this kind of celibacy in particular. He did not lack it, even though it was not apparent. I am the same as he, no different in what I am, but only acting differently." Let him say this openly, since even if he chooses to boast, he will not be acting foolishly, as he will be speaking the truth. If, however,