Marriage and Virginity (continued)
aided by the power of the Most High and the abundance of the Lord's merciful grace you will persevere in your present state and progress toward the perfection of your future state.
29. I beg you now, through him from whom you have received this gift and from whom you hope to receive the reward for it, to remember me too in your prayers, along with all your own
Church community.†45 It was very fitting that I already happened to be writing about prayer to your elderly mother.†46 It is especially important for her to support you with her prayers, as she is more concerned for you than for herself. It was very appropriate too that I composed this treatise about celibacy in widowhood for you rather than her, since you have still to overcome what her age has already overcome for her. If your daughter, the consecrated virgin, would like something of mine about her way of life, she has the substantial book, Holy
Virginity, for her to read. I had urged you to read that too, as it contains many things that are essential for the practice of both kinds of chastity, that of virgins and that of widows. Because I have discussed them at length there, here I have either touched on those matters only superficially, or else entirely passed over them. May you persevere in Christ's grace. Amen.
Notes
Augustine describes the two parts of this treatise. Part one offers "instruction" (doctrina: 2, 3—15, 19); part two presents "encouragement" (exhortatio: 16, 20—23, 29).
Augustine's instruction on widowhood will consist primarily of an extended commentary on Paul's discussion of marriage in 1 Corinthians 7.
†3 See 1 Tm 2:7; Acts 9:15.
For Augustine's idea that marital intercourse, apart from the intention to procreate, entails a "pardonable fault," see The Excellence of Marriage 6, 6.
See Ru 4:13-15; Lk 2:36-38. Augustine sees in Ruth an example of an honorable woman who remarried after the death of her husband. Anna, called in the gospel a "prophet," lived as a widow to the age of eighty-four.
Demetrias, the daughter of Juliana, had taken a vow of virginity shortly before Augustine composed this work. See below 23, 29.
The Cataphrygians or Montanists were the followers of Montanus, the second century prophet from Phrygia. In Heresies 26, Augustine notes that they considered second marriage to be fornication and claimed that the apostle Paul allowed it only because he lacked the full revelation of the Paraclete or Holy Spirit. According to Heresies 38, the Novatianists (also known as Cathari or "Pure Ones") also forbade second marriages and refused penance to apostates. They originated from Novatian, the third century Roman presbyter and schismatic.
Tertullian, who began his career as an orthodox Christian in North Africa, eventually embraced the tenets of the Montanists. See Tertullian, An Exhortation to Chastity and On Monogamy. In Heresies 86 Augustine notes that the Tertullianist sect in Carthage had disappeared only very recently.
†8 See 1 Cor 7:39.
†9 See 1 Cor 7:33.
†10 See Tertullian, To His Wife I, 2.
Augustine's concern that celibate Christians not exaggerate the importance of their virtue, expressed clearly in Holy Virginity, remained a preoccupation in his later years, especially during the Pelagian controversy.
†12 See Dt 25:5-10.
†13 See Ru 4:13-15.
See 1 Cor 7:33-34. In Augustine's day the Church had begun to formalize its penalties for lapsed virgins. See, for example, Letter 10 of Pope Siricius, To the Bishops of Gaul 1.3 (PL
13, 1182): if a woman who has been formally veiled as a virgin should subsequently marry, she is to be excommunicated until the death of her new husband. The case of those, for example, married couples, who took a private vow of continence, was less clear. See
Augustine, Letter 127, which discusses such a case.
†15 See Mt 19:12.
†16 See 1 Cor 7:9.
†17 See Mt 19:9.
†18 See 1 Cor 7:5.
†19 See 1 Pt 3:5-6.
Canon 104 of the Fourth Council of Carthage (398) had declared lapsed widows guilty of adultery and excommunicate (CCL 149, 353). Augustine's point is that their subsequent (human) marriage should not therefore be judged invalid.
†21 See Rom 12:3.
†22 See Jn 5:29.
†23 See 1 Cor 7:40.
†24 See Lk 2:36-38.
The "virgin" to whom Augustine refers is Demetrias, the daughter of Juliana. The "grandmother" is Proba, the mother-in-law of Juliana.
†26 See Phil 3:15.
According to the Revisions, Augustine's thirty-three books Answer to Faustus the Manichean were written shortly after the Confessions, that is, around 398.
†28 See above, 1, 2.
†29 See Rom 5:5.
Augustine refers to the prayers in the Preface to the Canon of the Mass. The dialogue form cited by Augustine is first found in Hippolytus, Apostolic Tradition IV, 3. See Gregory
Dix and Henry Chadwick, ed., The Treatise on the Apostolic Tradition of St. Hippolytus of Rome. Revised Edition (Ridgefield, CT: Morehouse, 1972) 7.
See Phil 3:18. Augustine refers here to Pelagius, who maintained a correspondence with Juliana and her family. Pelagius had written a letter to Demetrias on the occasion of her consecration to virginity, which contained his characteristic emphasis on the goodness of human nature and the strength of free will.
This passage is reminiscent of Confessions X, 29, 40, a passage which is said to have provoked the polemic of Pelagius. See Augustine, The Gift of Perseverance 20, 53.
†33 See 1 Cor 2:12.
Augustine points out that the word "continence" (continentia) is derived from the verb (continere), used to express the fact that married people "refrain from adultery and fornication" (contineant ab adulteriis et fornicationibus), just as virgins and widows "refrain from all sexual union" (contineant ab omni concubitu).
Prior to this time (414) Augustine had already written several treatises against Pelagian ideas, among them The Merits and Remission of Sins and the Baptism of Infants, The Spirit and the Letter, and Faith and Works. See volume I/23 in the present series.
It is not certain to whom Augustine is referring. He and the family of Juliana had a number of mutual friends who were receptive to the views of Pelagius (for example, Paulinus of Nola).
†37 See Ps 45:11; 1 Cor 12:7.
†38 See Rv 14:3-4.
Proba was the mother of three sons, one of whom, Anicius Hermogenianus Olybrius, was the husband of Juliana. Jerome, Letter 130, 7, also speaks of Proba's influence in the decision of Demetrias to consecrate herself to virginity.
†40 See Rom 12:12; Col 4:2.
†41 See Wis 1:11; 1 Cor 8:11-12.
†42 See Mt 5:11-12.
†43 See 1 Cor 9:25.
†44 See Mt 13:8.
Augustine refers to Juliana's household as a domestica… ecclesia. The expression was used of monastic communities centered in the homes of aristocratic Christians; see Jerome, Letter 30, 14, who speaks of the household of Paula as a domestica ecclesia.
Augustine's Letter 130 to Proba is an extended discussion of prayer.
ADULTEROUS MARRIAGES
Introduction
The two books Adulterous Marriages comprise the only treatise from the first five centuries devoted solely to the topic of divorce and remarriage.†1 In his Revisions Augustine treated the work between The Soul and Its Origin (419/420) and Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets (420); thus it is dated either to late 419 or early 420.†2 In Adulterous Marriages
Augustine responds to questions proposed to him in letters written by a certain Pollentius, whose identity is otherwise unknown. Pollentius had read Augustine's two books, The Lord's
Sermon on the Mount, and was troubled by his strict interpretation of Jesus' teaching on divorce in Matthew 5:31-32 and Matthew 19:9.†3 Augustine's initial replies to Pollentius' first letter were made public by some friends in Book One before he was able to respond to the questions in Pollentius' second letter. Therefore, Augustine was forced to publish his replies to the second letter in Book Two.
Book One is concerned primarily with the interpretation of biblical texts, particularly 1
Corinthians 7:10-18 and Matthew 19:9. In 1 Corinthians 7:10-11 Paul had written: To the married I give this command—not I but the Lord—that the wife should not separate from her husband; but if she does separate, let her remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. Matthew 19:9 reads: And I say to you, who divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another commits adultery. Reading Paul in the light of Matthew, Pollentius had argued that a distinction should be made between divorce that takes place because of unchastity and divorce that occurs on other grounds. In both cases, Pollentius argued, divorce is allowed. When adultery has occurred, Pollentius suggested, remarriage is allowed as well, because of Matthew's exception. Paul's prohibition of remarriage, he argued, applies only in cases where spouses separated for reasons other than adultery.
Augustine strongly rejects Pollentius' interpretation. He argues that Matthew 19:9 implies that the only legitimate reason for the separation of spouses is adultery. Augustine notes that neither the gospel nor Paul admits any other grounds for divorce; unilateral separation, even for the sake of pursuing a life of continence, is to be rejected. And in cases of divorce because of adultery, Augustine maintains, the marriage remains intact, and remarriage is forbidden. In response to Pollentius' objection that in Matthew 19:9 Jesus makes a clear exception for divorce in the case of adultery, Augustine suggests that this exception means that remarriage after a spouse has been divorced because of adultery is less culpable than remarriage in other cases; nonetheless, remarriage is prohibited in all cases (I.9.9). Augustine appeals to the fact that the gospels of Mark (10:11-12) and Luke (16:18) contain the prohibition of divorce in an unqualified form and, therefore, the qualified prohibition of Matthew 19:9 must be read in the light of these other gospels (I, 11, 12).
In Book One Augustine also discusses the text of 1 Corinthians 7:12-16, the passage of the socalled "Pauline privilege," where Paul suggests that Christians are not bound to remain in marriages with non-Christians, if the non-Christian spouse wishes to separate. In this case, Augustine acknowledges, the apostle has made an allowance for separation between a Christian and a non-Christian when the faith of the Christian is endangered. He emphasizes, however, that a separation which is "lawful" (licere) may not always be "beneficial" (expedire). When the non-Christian partner presents no obstacle to the Christian's faith, charity dictates that the spouses should remain together, so that the non-Christian partner might be converted (I, 14, 15; see I, 17, 18).
In Book Two Augustine turns to some additional questions that Pollentius had raised in his second letter. He begins with 1 Corinthians 7:39, where Paul had written: "A wife is bound as long as her husband lives. But if the husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but only in the Lord." Pollentius suggested that the "death" to which Paul refers is the spiritual death caused by adultery. In this way Pollentius had taken Paul to agree with Matthew 19:9, the passage in which (as he interpreted it) Jesus had allowed an exception to the rule against divorce and remarriage in cases where one spouse was guilty of adultery.
Augustine rejects Pollentius' interpretation, arguing that even when a spouse has been legitimately divorced because of adultery, the "bond of chastity" (vinculum pudoris) remains until the death of one of the spouses (II, 4, 4). Like the sacrament of baptism, which remains valid even after serious sin and excommunication, Augustine argues, the bond of marriage remains intact even when a divorce has occurred because of adultery (II, 5, 4).
The remainder of the work treats a variety of pastoral objections that Pollentius had raised to this strict teaching. Regarding the difficulty that a man might experience with forgiving an adulterous wife, Augustine argued that a Christian must be prepared to forgive any sin that has been forgiven by Jesus (II, 6, 5). When Pollentius objected that few people are able to live in celibacy and that for this reason remarriage after divorce (on the grounds of adultery) ought to be allowed, Augustine responded that a person who divorced a spouse because of adultery was in no different situation than one whose spouse was seriously ill or in captivity (II, 10, 9).
Arguing characteristically for the priority of grace in the Christian life, Augustine suggested that even if the commitment to celibacy was not freely chosen, it need not be terrifying: "If the burden is Christ's, it will be light; and it will be Christ's, if there is faith, as this procures from the one who commands it the accomplishment of what he commands" (II, 19, 20).
Adulterous Marriages is among the latest of Augustine's treatises on marriage. Nonetheless, in his Revisions Augustine indicated that he had not adequately solved all of the questions involved in the interpretation of the New Testament evidence:†4 "I wrote two books on adulterous marriages with the desire of solving, according to the scriptures, to the best of my ability, a very difficult question. I do not know whether I have done this very clearly. On the contrary, I think that I did not reach a perfect solution of this question, although I have clarified many of its obscurities, as anyone who reads intelligently will be able to judge."
Augustine's hesitation about the cogency of his arguments is revealing. It suggests that he was aware of certain weaknesses in his biblical exegesis, especially his interpretation of the exception for adultery clause in Matthew 19:9 (And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery). The interpretation of Pollentius, that Matthew 19:9 implies that someone who divorces his wife because of unchastity and marries another is not guilty of adultery, is unacceptable to Augustine because it appears to contradict Mark 10:11-12 and Luke 16:18. Because he was unable to admit that the New
Testament writers might contradict each other, Augustine was unable to interpret Matthew
19:9 other than by maintaining that it could not mean what it appeared to mean.†5
Notes
See Henri Crouzel, L'église primitive face au divorce. Du premier au cinqième siècle (Théologie Historique 13; Paris: Beauchesne, 1970) 337.
†2 Revisions II, 57 (83): CCL 57,136.
†3 See Augustine, The Lord's Sermon on the Mount I, 14, 39–16, 50.
Revisions II, 57 (83). Augustine says virtually the same thing in Adulterous Marriages I, 25, 32.
See the excellent analysis of Augustine's argument in Philip Lyndon Reynolds, Marriage in the Western Church. The Christianization of Marriage during the Patristic and Early Medieval
Periods (Leiden: Brill, 1994) 207-212.
Book One
Introduction of Pollentius' Views
1, 1. Dearest brother, Pollentius, the first question you presented for me to comment on, when you wrote to me, was about the words of the apostle: To those, however, who are married, I give this command—not I, but the Lord—that 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). Are these words to be understood as forbidding the marriage of a woman who leaves her husband for some reason other than his adultery, which is the view you take; or do they command women to remain unmarried if they leave their husbands for the only reason allowed, namely the husband's adultery, which is the view I took in those books I wrote many years ago on the sermon the Savior preached on the mountain, as Matthew relates it in the gospel?†1 In your opinion, the woman who leaves her husband should not remarry, if she was not forced to leave because of her husband's adultery.
You do not notice that, if her husband was not guilty of adultery, she was obliged not to leave him at all, rather than simply to remain unmarried if she left him. The woman who is being commanded to stay unmarried if she leaves her husband is not being denied the right to leave, but is being denied the right to remarry. If this is so, it follows that women who wish to be celibate are being given permission to do so without waiting for their husbands to consent, so that the words a wife should not leave her husband (1 Cor 7:10) would appear to be a command addressed to those who might want a divorce with the right to remarry, not to those who might want to be celibate. Consequently those who wish to do without any sexual union, and not be burdened by marriage at all, will be allowed to leave their husbands, even when there is no adultery to justify it, and remain unmarried as the apostle says. Similarly, because the rules are the same for both, if husbands want to lead a life of celibacy, even without their wives' consent they will abandon them and stay unmarried. In your view, if the reason for the divorce was their partner's adultery, they would then be allowed to proceed to another marriage; but when there is not that justification, there is still the choice for the husband or wife either not to leave, or, if he or she does leave, either to remain unmarried or to go back to