Marriage and Virginity (continued)
virgin, but who is obedient, which would we say is better? The one who is less commendable than if she were a virgin, or the one who is damnable though a virgin? Likewise, if you compared a drunken virgin with a sober married woman, who would hesitate to make the same judgment? Marriage and virginity are indeed both good, though one better than the other; but sobriety and drunkenness, like obedience and insolence, are respectively good and bad. It is better to have only good things, even though lesser ones, than to have a great good together with a great evil. Even with bodily goods, it is better to have the stature of Zacchaeus and good health than that of Goliath and a fever.
30. Clearly the right question to ask is not whether a virgin who is utterly disobedient is comparable to an obedient wife, but whether a less obedient virgin is comparable to a more obedient wife; for married chastity is still chastity, and therefore a good thing, although it is inferior to virginal chastity. The virgin is as inferior in the good of obedience as she is superior in the good of chastity. To compare the two, and decide which is the better, one must first compare obedience and chastity themselves and see how obedience is the mother of all the virtues. The reason why there can be obedience without virginity is that virginity is a counsel, not a command. I am speaking of that obedience whereby the commandments are obeyed. Accordingly, there can be obedience to the commandments without virginity, but not without chastity. For chastity there must be no fornicating, no adultery, no defiling oneself with unlawful intercourse. Whoever does not abide by this acts contrary to God's commandments, and on that account is excluded from the virtue of obedience. On the other hand, virginity is possible without obedience, because a woman who accepts the counsel of virginity and preserves her virginity can show contempt for the commandments, like the many consecrated virgins we know who are gossipers, inquisitive, drunkards, quarrelsome, avaricious and proud; all these things are forbidden by the commandments, and, as happened with Eve, they will bring destruction for the offense of disobedience. Therefore, not only should an obedient woman be more highly regarded than a disobedient one, but a more obedient married woman should be more highly regarded than a less obedient virgin.
31. Because of this obedience that father, who was not without a wife, was prepared to lose his only son by killing him himself.†54 It is not wrong for me to call him his only son, as he heard the Lord say about him, Your line will take its name from Isaac (Gn 21:12). How much more would he have been swift to take heed if the command had been to remain unmarried?
Hence we are often astonished, with good cause, that some celibate persons, of both sexes, who so zealously undertake not to avail themselves of what is permitted, do not trouble to obey the commandments. Who, therefore, can have any doubt that the men and women of our time, celibate though they may be, who are less perfect in the virtue of obedience, cannot rightly be compared in degree of perfection to the holy fathers and mothers, parents of children, of those times, even if these lacked even in mental attitude the virtue that is clearly practiced by those others? Let the young ones, therefore, who, in the words of the Book of Revelation, have not defiled themselves with women (Rv 14:4), follow the Lamb singing a new hymn, and do so only because they have remained virgins. But let them not think that this makes them better than the first holy fathers, who, if I may so put it, used matrimony in an unmatrimonial way. Its proper use is such that, if anything occurs there by way of bodily union that goes beyond what is required for the purpose of having children, pardonable though it may be, it is an imperfection. What does the pardon absolve, if that excess is no imperfection at all? It would be surprising if the youths who follow the Lamb could avoid that imperfection, if they did not remain virgins.
Summary: The Three Goods of Marriage
24, 32. The value of marriage, therefore, for all races and all people, lies in the objective of procreation and the faithful observance of chastity. For the people of God, however, it lies also in the sanctity of the sacrament, and this has the consequence that it is forbidden for a woman to marry anyone else while her husband is still living, even if she has been divorced by him, and even if it is only for the purpose of having children. Although this is the only purpose there can be for a marriage, the bond of matrimony is not broken when its purpose is not achieved, but only by the death of husband or wife. It is like ordination to the priesthood, which takes place for the purpose of forming a community of the faithful, but even if the community of faithful does not eventuate, the sacrament of ordination remains in those who were ordained. If anyone is dismissed from office for some wrongdoing, he will not be deprived of the Lord's sacrament once it has been received, although it will remain as something he must answer for at the judgment. The apostle, therefore, bore witness that the purpose of marriage is procreation, when he said, I want the younger ones to marry. As though someone had said, "Why?" he immediately adds: To have children and be mothers of families (1 Tm 5:14). Concerning faithful observance of chastity, there is the text, The wife does not have authority over her own body, but her husband does; and likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but his wife does (1 Cor
7:4); and concerning the sanctity of the sacrament, the text, a wife should not leave her husband, but if she does leave him, she should either remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband, and a husband should not divorce his wife (1 Cor 7:10-11). These things, namely, offspring, fidelity and the sacrament, are all good, and because of them marriage is good. In this age, however, it is certainly better and holier not to set out to have children physically, and so to keep oneself free from any activity of that kind, and to be subject spiritually to only one man, Christ. One must use this freedom, however, in the way scripture says, to think about the Lord's interests, how to please God.†55 In other words, celibacy will be concerned that obedience should not be diminished. Being the fundamental virtue, and, as is commonly said, the source of all the others, the ancient fathers put this virtue into actual practice.
Celibacy, on the other hand, they maintained as a state of mind, and no doubt, because they were righteous and holy, if they had been commanded to abstain from all intercourse, out of obedience they would have done so. When they were capable of sacrificing the offspring which was the only reason for having intercourse, how much more readily could they have held back from intercourse if that were God's command or request?
The Heretical Rejection of Marriage Has Been Refuted
25, 33. This being the position, the heretics have been answered more than adequately, both the Manichees and any others who slander the fathers of the Old Testament for having more than one wife by putting forward as evidence that they were lacking in self-control. They must appreciate that there was no sin committed. What they did was not contrary to nature, as they did not have union with those women for sensual pleasure but for the sake of having children. Nor was it contrary to custom, as that was the common practice in those times. Nor was it in breach of any commandment, as there was no law forbidding it. On the other hand, those who had relations with women unlawfully either have judgment pronounced on them by God in scripture, or else the account is presented for us to read in order for us to judge them and avoid doing what they do, not to approve or imitate them.
Conclusion