Marriage and Virginity (continued)
frightened of being damned if she married, but desired to be crowned with greater honor for not marrying, can be confident there is a palm of greater glory being kept for her. Those then who have chosen to stay unmarried must not flee from marriage as if it were a pit of sin, but must pass over it as a hill of less grandeur, to settle on the higher mountain of celibacy. The law that holds for living on that hill is that one may not depart whenever one wants to, as A woman is not free, as long as her husband lives (1 Cor 7:39). On the other hand, one can use it as a step to climb from it to the celibacy of widowhood. For virginal chastity, however, it is necessary either to go around it by rejecting suitors, or leap over it by warding off suitors in advance.
Marriage Is Not Equal to Celibacy
19, 19. So that no one would think that the two accomplishments, the good one and the better one, would have the same rewards, it has been necessary to argue against those who interpret the apostle's words, Accordingly, my opinion is that because of present needs this is good (1
Cor 7:39), as meaning that virginity is not of any use for the kingdom of heaven but only for the present life, and so in that eternal life those who had chosen this better thing would not be any better off than the rest. In the course of that discussion, when we came to that text where that apostle says, Such people will be troubled by the flesh, but I will spare you that (1 Cor
7:28), we came upon other disputants, who did not make marriage the equal of perpetual chastity, but absolutely condemned it. While both are certainly errors, either making marriage equal to virginity or condemning it, by going to extremes to avoid each other the two errors end up in direct conflict with each other. This is because they refuse to take the middle position of truth. Relying both on sound reasoning and on the authority of the holy scripture, we neither conclude that marriage is a sin nor give it equality with celibacy, whether the celibacy of virgins or even that of widows.†17
Susanna Demonstrates the Value of Conjugal Chastity
20. Some indeed, attracted to virginity, have thought marriage should be shunned like adultery; others, defending marriage, have wanted the perfection of perpetual virginity to be no more meritorious than conjugal chastity, as if to say either that it was demeaning to Mary that Susanna was good, or that Susanna had to be condemned because Mary was better.†18