Marriage and Virginity
therefore includes married women and it includes unmarried women, although they differ in merit, like parts of the body, one of which is more important than another without either one ceasing to be part of the body. Therefore, in speaking of the unmarried woman and saying that she should be holy in both body and spirit (1 Cor 7:34), he meant the greater holiness in body and spirit of unmarried women, and did not deny all holiness to the bodies of married women.
9. Learn then the value of what you have; or, rather, call to mind what you have learned.
Because there is another excellence that it excels, the excellence you possess is more to be esteemed than it would be if it could not be good at all without that other thing being bad or not in fact existing. In our body the eyes are of great importance, but their importance would be less if they existed alone and there were not the other less important parts of the body. In the heavens the sun outshines the moon, but does not spoil it, and star differs from star in splendor (1 Cor 15:41), but they are not in proud competition with each other. Therefore God made everything and, see, it was very good (Gn 1:31); not just "good," but "very good," and this precisely because it was everything. When each of his works was mentioned separately, it was said, God saw that it was good (Gn 1:10-25); but when everything was spoken about together, the word "very" was added, and it was said, God saw everything he had made, and saw that it was very good (Gn 1:31).
Taken separately, some things are better than others, but all of them together are better than any of them separately. So through his grace may Christ's sound teaching make you a sound part of his body. In that way, your very spirit that rules your body will neither arrogantly exaggerate the superior perfection in body and spirit that you have, nor ignorantly misunderstand it.†11
10. Just because I said that Ruth was blessed, but Anna more blessed, since Ruth married twice and Anna lived for many years after the early death of her one husband, do not think at once that you are better than Ruth.
Marriage Served a Different Purpose in the Old Testament
7. In the times of the prophets what was required of holy women was different. They had to marry, not because of the desires of the flesh, but out of obedience. The people of God had to be propagated, so that from among them Christ's prophets could precede him. Because of the things that happened to them as a sign (1 Cor 10:11), whether recognized by them or not, that nation was also itself a prophet of Christ, and Christ's body was to be born from it. In order for that people to be propagated the law decreed that anyone who did not sow seed for the growth of Israel was accursed.†12 So it was that even holy women burned, not with desire for sexual union, but with zeal for their duty to have children, and there is no reason to doubt that they would not have wanted the sexual act, if children could have been born some other way.
Men were also allowed to have several wives at the one time. That the reason for this was not the desires of the flesh but the need to provide descendants is clear from the fact that, although holy men were allowed to have several wives at the one time, holy women were not allowed also to have union with more than one husband. That would not have made them more fertile, and the more they hungered for it, the more debased they would have been.
Hence when the holy woman, Ruth, did not have children for Israel, as was required at that time, after her husband died she looked for another husband in order to have children with him. The reason, therefore, why Anna, the widow who only married once, was more blessed than Ruth was because she was worthy to be Christ's prophetess.†13 Even if she had no children (something which the scripture does not mention and leaves uncertain) we have to believe that, by the same Spirit that enabled her to recognize the baby, she foresaw that Christ was about to come into the world from a virgin. Rightly, therefore, even though she had no children, if in fact she had none, she decided against marrying again. She knew that it was now the time when Christ would be better served, not by the duty of bearing children but by dedicated continence, not by making her body fertile in marriage but by making her conduct chaste in widowhood. If, however, Ruth also knew that from her body there was to come the seed from which Christ would take flesh, and she did service to this knowledge by marrying, I would not be so bold as to say that Anna's widowhood was more blessed than that woman's motherhood.
Marriage Is Better than a Broken Vow of Celibacy
8, 11. You, however, have children, and you are living in the final period of history. It is no longer a time for scattering stones but a time for gathering them, no longer a time to embrace but a time to refrain from embracing (Eccl 3:5). The apostle is crying out, I tell you this, my brothers and sisters: time is short; it remains for those who have wives to act as though they do not (1 Cor 7:29). If then you had wanted to marry again, it would not have been in obedience to any prophecy or law, nor even due to the natural desire to have children, but it would only have meant that you were unable to contain yourself. You would have been doing what the apostle said to do. When he said, It is good for them to stay as they are, as I do too (1
Cor 7:8), he immediately added, If they are unable to be continent, they should marry; I would rather they married than burned (1 Cor 7:9). He said this so that by being taken into the respectability of marriage the evil of unbridled sensuality would not become a headlong plunge into sinful depravity. Thanks be to God, however, you have given birth to the kind of person you yourself chose not to be, and your daughter's virginity makes up for you giving up your virginity. A careful investigation of Christian teaching discloses that in these present times, unless the weakness of the flesh is an obstacle, even a first marriage should be rejected.
Now that Christ has preached and risen from the dead, there are already so many children of all races waiting to be born spiritually. If there remained the same obligation to bear children in the flesh as there had been in earlier times, he who said, But if they are unable to be continent, they should marry (1 Cor 7:9), could also have said, "If they do not have children, they should marry."
When he says in another place, My desire for the younger ones is for them to marry, have children and be mothers of families (1 Tm 5:14), he is using his apostolic authority deliberately and carefully to praise marriage as something good, but he is not making the duty of having children an obligation of the law even for those who are able to accept celibacy. He reveals his reason for saying this when he goes on to say, Give the enemy no opportunity for scandal; already there are some who have turned back to follow Satan (1 Tm 5:14). From these words we understand him to mean that it would have been better if those he wanted to see married had been able to stay celibate rather than marry, but it is better for them to marry than to go back to Satan. That is to say, it is better to marry than to make that sublime commitment to virginity or chaste widowhood and afterward turn back and lapse from it and be destroyed. Hence those who are unable to stay continent should marry, before committing themselves to celibacy, before making that a vow to God. Once made, that vow must be kept, or they will justly incur damnation. In another place he says of such persons that Although they have lived in joy in Christ, they want to marry, incurring damnation, because they have made their first pledge void (1 Tm 5:11-12), that is, they have changed from wanting to keep their commitment to celibacy to wanting to marry. They have indeed broken their word, because previously they made a vow and now they choose not to persist in carrying it out. The essential good of marriage is indeed always good; but for the people of God it was once an obligation of the law, while now it is a cure for weakness, and in some cases a source of comfort for human nature. The natural human desire to contribute to the procreation of children, not acting like dogs and using women promiscuously, but in the proper relationship of marriage, is not to be condemned; but it is more praiseworthy when a Christian soul, with thoughts for heavenly things, transcends and overcomes even that.†14
The Vow of Celibacy Should Be Inviolable
9, 12. Since, as the Lord says, Not everyone accepts these words (Mt 19:11), let the one who is able to accept it accept it,†15 and let the one who cannot stay continent marry.†16 Let the one who has not yet made a beginning think about it; let the one who has committed herself persevere. Let the enemy be given no opportunity; let no offering made to Christ be withdrawn. If chastity is preserved within the bonds of marriage, there is no fear of damnation; but in virginity and chaste widowhood one aspires to the splendor of a greater gift.
Once this is aspired to, and chosen, and offered with a vow, not only is damnation incurred by actually marrying, but also by wanting to marry even if no marriage takes place. To make this clear, the apostle did not say, "Although they have lived with joy in Christ, they marry," but that they want to marry. He said they incur damnation, because they have made their first pledge void (1 Tm 5:11-12), even though this is not by marrying, but only by wanting to marry. It is not that marriage itself, even in cases like that, is considered to deserve condemnation, but the deceit in making the commitment is condemned, the breaking of the vow is condemned; it is not the acceptance of the lesser perfection that is condemned, but the lapse from the greater perfection. Finally, such persons are not condemned because they later pledge themselves in marriage, but because they make void their initial pledge of celibacy. To indicate this briefly, the apostle chose not to say that those who marry after committing themselves to more perfect sanctity incur damnation (not because they are not damned, but to avoid any thought that in them marriage itself was being condemned). Instead, he goes on to say, they incur damnation, immediately after saying, they want to marry; and he states the reason, because they have made their first pledge void, to make it clear that it is the will lapsing from its resolution that is condemned, whether or not there is a subsequent marriage.
Consecrated Virgins Who Marry Are Not Guilty of Adultery
10, 13. Those who say such people's marriages are not marriages, but rather adultery, do not seem to me to consider what they are saying closely or carefully enough. They are deceived by a semblance of truth. Because those who in Christian holiness do not marry are said to choose marriage with Christ, some argue like this: "If a woman marries someone else while her husband is still living, she is an adulteress, as the Lord himself declared in the gospel.†17
Therefore, as Christ is alive, since death no longer has power over him (Rom 6:9), if a woman who has chosen marriage with him marries some mere man, she is an adulteress." Those who say this, indeed, are very sharp, but they fail to notice the absurd consequences of this argument. If a woman makes a vow of absolute chastity to Christ, even though her husband is still living, but with his consent, this is regarded as praiseworthy.†18 According to their reasoning, however, no woman should do this, for fear of making Christ himself an adulterer, wicked as it would be to think that, because she becomes his spouse while her husband is still alive. Also, since a first marriage is more perfect than a second one, it is unthinkable that the holy widows see Christ as their second husband. He was already their spouse, not physically but spiritually, before that, when they were faithful and submissive to their husbands.†19 The whole Church, of which they are members, is itself his spouse, because by the integrity of her faith, hope and love she is a virgin, not only in holy virgins but in widows and the married faithful too. The apostle says to the whole Church, of which they are all members, I have prepared you to present you to the one husband, Christ, as a chaste virgin (2 Cor 11:2). He, whom even in the flesh his mother could conceive without defilement, knows how to make it possible for that virgin spouse to bear children without being defiled. As a consequence of this poorly considered view, which holds that the women who lapse from their holy vow and marry are not really married, great harm is done when wives are separated from their husbands, as though they were not wives but mistresses. Then too, because they want the women to separate and return to the life of celibacy, they actually make their husbands adulterers, since they then marry other women while their wives are still living.†20
To Break a Vow of Widowhood Is Worse Than Adultery
11, 14. For these reasons I would not say that women who lapse from the more perfect commitment and marry are not wives but adulteresses. Even so, I would not hesitate to say that the disaster of their fall from the more sacred form of chastity they vowed to the Lord is worse than adultery. Without any doubt it is an offense to Christ when one of his members is unfaithful to her husband; how much more serious then is the offense when the infidelity is to himself, when he claims the offering made to him, even though he did not demand that the offering be made? When some fail to carry out a vow they did not have to make because of some commandment, but that they made in response to advice, the wickedness of betraying the vow is greater to the extent that the need to make the vow was less. I am presenting these arguments, so that you will not think either that second marriages are a crime, or that any marriages, just by being marriages, are bad. You should not want them to be something you have condemned, but something you have put aside. The perfection of chaste widowhood shines forth with greater dignity, when in adopting it as a vow and a way of life women are able to look down on something else that would otherwise be pleasing and lawful. After making the vow, however, the pleasure that might have been must now be restrained and subdued, because it is no longer lawful.
Concerning Multiple Marriages
12, 15. Questions are sometimes asked about third, fourth and even more marriages. To give a quick answer to this: I would not venture to condemn any marriage, but neither would I dare to say that a plurality of them is no cause for embarrassment. If, however, anyone is upset by my answering in this brisk manner, I am prepared to listen to a fuller argument from my critic.
Perhaps some reason will be given for condemning third marriages but not condemning second marriages. In accordance with the advice I gave at the beginning of this instruction, I have no ambition to know more than one ought to know.†21 Who am I to think I must set a limit when I see the apostle did not set a limit? He said, A woman is bound to her husband, as long as he lives (1 Cor 7:39). He did not say, "first," or "second," or "third," or "fourth" husband, but said, A woman is bound to her husband, as long as he lives; but if her husband dies, she is free again, and she may marry as she chooses, although only in the Lord. In my opinion, however, it is better for her, if she stays as she is (1 Cor 7:39-40). I do not know what could be added to this statement, or taken away from it, in relation to the present matter. Then I hear our Lord and Master, and the apostles' Lord and Master, answering the Sadducees, when they brought up the case of a woman who married, not once or twice, but—is it possible?—seven times, and asked whose wife she would be after the resurrection. Rebuking them, he said, You are making a mistake, because you do not understand the scriptures or the power of God. In the resurrection there will be no marrying or giving in marriage; for they will not die, but will be like God's angels (Mt 22:29-
30). Obviously he was speaking of the resurrection of those who rise to have life,†22 not those who rise to be punished. Therefore he could have said, "You are making a mistake, because you do not understand the scriptures or the power of God; in that resurrection it is not possible for there to be women who have had more than one marriage," and could then have added, "because no one marries there." As we see, however, there is no way his statement can be taken as condemning even the woman who had as many husbands as that. Hence, I would not dare to say anything against the natural sense of embarrassment, and state that, if her husbands die, a woman may marry as often as she likes; but neither would I venture on the strength of my own thinking to go beyond the authority of holy scripture, and condemn any number of marriages. What I say to the widow who has had only one husband, however, I say to all widows: "It is better for you, if you stay as you are."†23
Relative Merits Among Widows
13, 16. Sometimes too the question is raised, not unreasonably, as to which widow has greater merit: one who has only one husband, and after living with her husband for a long time, and having children who are now provided for, embraces celibacy when she becomes a widow; or one who, while still a young woman, loses two husbands within the space of two years, and then, without the consolation of having had children, vows her chastity to God and perseveres unwaveringly in that holy state into old age. Here is an opportunity for those who assess the merits of widows by the number of husbands they have had, and not by the strength of their adherence to chastity, to present their arguments and show us something. If they say that the widow who had two husbands is better than the other who had only one husband, unless they produce some special reason or authority, they are obviously ranking natural happiness above spiritual virtue rather than giving preference to the greater spiritual virtue. Living with one's husband for a long time and having children both relate to natural happiness. If the reason they put her first is not because she had children, then it has to be because she lived with her husband for a long time, and what is this if not natural happiness? Yet Anna is particularly