Marriage and Virginity (continued)
avoided, rather than doing one unlawful action in preference to another unlawful action. If he is going to do what is forbidden, let him commit adultery, not murder; let him marry again while his wife is still alive, and not shed human blood. On the other hand, since both are criminal actions, he ought not to perpetrate one rather than the other, but refrain from both.
Pollentius Claims That Christian Strictness Encourages Violence
16, 16. I see now what can be said by those who are unable to be celibate, namely: "If someone who divorces an adulteress and allows her to live marries someone else, he remains in a permanent state of adultery as long as that first wife lives, and nothing is gained from doing repentance unless he withdraws from the state of sin. If he is a catechumen, he is not received into the Church, because there is no change in the condition he is in that constitutes the impediment. A penitent cannot be given reconciliation while he perseveres in the same sin. On the other hand, if he takes the life of the adulteress by prosecuting her, the sin is completed and does not continue on in him. If it was committed by a catechumen, it is washed away by baptism; if it was committed by a baptized person, it is healed by repentance and reconciliation." Are we going to say because of this that adultery, which is undoubtedly committed if another wife is taken while an adulterous wife is still living, is not adultery? Leaving aside this kind of adultery, you do not doubt that it is adultery to marry another man's wife while he is still living, when she has been legally divorced by her husband without any adultery on her part. What then? Suppose he is a catechumen and he sees that he will not be received into the Church, or, if he did it after being baptized, he sees he will gain nothing from doing penance, unless he rectifies and abandons what he has done. Suppose also that he decides, and is able to do it, to kill the man whose wife he took, so that this crime may be either washed away by baptism or removed by repentance. He sees that in this way there will no longer be any adultery, because after the death of her husband the woman is free from the law in relation to her husband, and for the act that is over and done with it will be enough to do penance, or for it to be wiped out by rebirth. Must we then accuse Christ's law of causing murder to be committed, because it says that it is adultery to marry someone who has been divorced when not guilty of adultery?
17. On this point, if you take scant notice of what we are saying, much more important issues can be raised than those you yourself mentioned. As you do not want it to be adultery when someone marries again after divorcing a wife who committed adultery, you have come up with this: "Because if we call this adultery, husbands are forced to take the lives of adulteresses, because their living prevents them marrying someone else." Taking it to an extreme, you said, "To me, dearest father, this does not seem to be what God intends, when it leaves no room for kindness and religious duty." It follows from this that anyone who did not believe it was adultery to marry a woman divorced by her husband without being guilty of adultery could use this as an argument against you. By the same reasoning they could say that people would be led to commit murder, and either by whatever trickery is possible, or by telling lies, or in some cases by bringing well-founded charges, to set out to prosecute and procure the death of the husbands of the women they had married after being divorced like that; in this way what had been adultery while they were alive would now be marriage because they were dead. Taking it to its extreme will they not say to you: "To me, dearest father, this does not seem to be what God intends, when it not only leaves no room for kindness and religious duty, but also incites to enormous malice and impiety"?
The fact is, it is much less serious and less objectionable for the husbands to kill the adulterous wives than for the adulterers to kill the husbands. Is it your view that because of this baseless aversion to it we should abandon our defense of the Lord's teaching, or that we should make further accusations against that teaching and say that even if a woman divorced for reasons other than adultery marries another man, this should not be condemned as adultery, for fear that in her desire to change the adultery into marriage by the death of the first husband she will be driven to kill the husband who divorced her? I know this is not your view, that because of this baseless aversion to it Christ's law should be called harsh and inhuman, when in fact it is true and sound. Similarly, therefore, it ought not to be your opinion that, when a man marries again while his wife who committed adultery is still living, this should not be called adultery. You should not argue that this could force the husband to take the life of the one who committed adultery, because he wants to be free to marry someone else after her demise, given that he is not free to do so while she is still alive. What then? Even the opponents of the Christian faith will say the same. They will say that when men cannot endure wives who are burdensome, whether because they suffer from a long illness and are not strong enough to have marital relations, or because they are poor, or sterile, or ugly, they are therefore forced to kill their wives by criminal stealth, in the hope of marrying other women, who are healthy, rich, fertile and very beautiful. They will say that because, apart from the case of adultery, they are not allowed to divorce them and marry someone else, they are forced to this in order to avoid being locked into adultery, and so unable either to be baptized or be healed by repentance. To prevent those crimes of murder being committed, therefore, shall we say that it is not adultery to enter a union with another woman after divorcing a wife for reasons other than adultery?
Further Consequences of Pollentius' View
17, 18. As a consequence of your view that it is not adultery if a man discards his wife on the grounds of adultery and then marries someone else, do you not think we should be worried that husbands will find ways to provoke their wives to commit adultery, when for countless other reasons they find them unbearable? As a result, in your view, they will be freed from the bond of that marriage and able to marry someone else; and from the sin they committed in provoking their wives to commit adultery they will either be cleansed by baptism or healed by penance. On the other hand, if they marry again after divorcing their first wives for reasons other than adultery, they will be denied both grace and healing, as long as they continue to live in adultery. Someone might say, perhaps, that no one can make his wife commit adultery, if she is chaste. Yet the Lord said, Anyone who puts his wife aside except in the case of adultery causes her to commit adultery (Mt 5:32). Clearly the reason for this is that, although she was chaste while living with her husband, when she is divorced her inability to be celibate drives her to marry someone else even though the first husband is still alive, and to do this is to commit adultery.
If she does not in fact do this, it is still true that he forced her to do it as far as he was able; and, even though she remains chaste, God will hold this against him as a sin. Is there anyone, however, who is not aware how extremely rare are the women who live with their husbands with such chastity that, even if they are divorced by them, they do not look for anyone else?
Far more numerous, beyond comparison, are the women who are chaste and loyal to their husbands, and yet are quick to remarry if their husbands divorce them. People believe the Lord when he says, Anyone who puts his wife aside except for the reason of adultery causes her to commit adultery (Mt 5:32). If they believe you too when you say a man is allowed to take another wife if his wife commits adultery, then if someone wants to be rid of his present wife because of anything else that irks him, he should first make her commit adultery by divorcing her without her committing adultery. After she commits adultery by marrying again, he can then marry someone else. In this way, after being delivered either by baptism or penance from the earlier sin of making her commit adultery, it would seem that he has the second woman without any adultery on his part. He marries her after the first one's adultery, and the view is that this broke the marriage bond. In fact, if he does contrive to bring this about, and causes his wife to commit adultery, even though he marries again only after his wife's adultery, he too will also be an adulterer. He will gain nothing from having trusted you rather than the one who said, without making any exception, Everyone who leaves his wife and marries someone else commits adultery (Lk 16:18).
Continence Can Take Many Forms
18, 19. When all this has been discussed and considered, it has to be concluded that those who listen to these things with faith should say to us what the Lord said: If that is how it is for someone who has a wife, it is better not to marry. And what answer shall we give them, except the answer he himself gave? What you say is not accepted by everyone, but only by those to whom it is granted. There are some who are born eunuchs; and there are others who are made eunuchs by man; and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone who is able to accept this accept it (Mt 19:10-12). So let anyone who is able to do so accept what is not accepted by everyone. It is able to be accepted by those to whom God in his mercy, mysterious but not unjust, grants the gift. Among all these who make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven, however, there are some, of both sexes, who have not known sexual union, and others who have experienced it and then turned away from it, in some cases indeed because it was an illicit experience, but also in others when it was licit. Moreover, among those whose experience was licit, there are some who only had experience that was licit, and others who had experience both licit and illicit. There are some whose experience has only been with their wives, but others who have had experience of other women and all kinds of perversions. Those, however, who make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven after the intimacy of marriage, do so either because they lose their partners through death, or because they practice celibacy together by agreement, or because it is made necessary by divorce. In this last case they make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven to avoid committing adultery by entering into a union with someone else while their husbands or wives are still alive. It is not to have greater glory in that kingdom, but because they cannot be there any other way. Those who are celibate not because of that necessity, but because they aspire to greater perfection, could be there also by maintaining marital chastity; even though it would be with less glory, they would still be there. Those, however, who stay celibate because they are afraid to marry again while their first husband or wife is still alive, ought to be more careful about their salvation than those who have chosen celibacy to obtain a greater reward. They will attain it if they are not guilty of adultery; but they will be guilty of adultery if they do not remain celibate, since any union with other persons while their first husband or wife is alive is not marriage but adultery. And if they are not in the kingdom of heaven, where will they be except in the place where they are not saved?
With God's Help Celibacy Will Be Possible
19, 20. I exhort these men to do what they would have to do if they had wives who were languishing in a long illness, or who were absent in some place they were unable to go to, or who were zealously, but unlawfully, practicing celibacy. They must do the same, if they have wives defiled by the stain of adultery and on that account breaking up the marriage; they must not think of marrying again, because that will not be marriage but adultery. Since there is the same rule for both in this bond between husband and wife, and the wife will be called an adulteress, if she goes with another man while her husband is still alive (Rom 7:3), it follows that the husband too will be called an adulterer if he goes with another woman while his wife is still alive. Even though it is worse if it is not because of adultery, nevertheless everyone who divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery (Lk 16:18). They must not be frightened by the burden of celibacy. 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. They must not be discouraged because their celibacy is seen to be a matter of necessity, not choice, because even those who chose it voluntarily have turned it into a matter of necessity, since they can no longer turn aside from it without incurring damnation. Moreover, those who are constrained by that necessity make it a matter of choice, if they put their trust, not in themselves, but in him from whom every good thing is derived. In one case they ascend to it for the sake of greater glory, to obtain something better; in the other they flee to its protection out of concern for their final salvation, so as not to perish. In both cases they must stay there; in both cases they must walk to the end on the path they have reached, burning with zeal, devoted in prayer. In one case they must think of their salvation, fearing to fall from the path they have taken by choice; in the other they must not give up hope of obtaining glory, provided they choose to persevere on the path where they have been placed by necessity. It can happen that with God warning them and encouraging them, transforming them and giving them new strength, the human attitude is changed for the better, and they make a vow to live permanently in the unmarried state, and avoid all sexual union and impure acts. As a result even if the dissolution of their marriage by their wife's death opens the way for marrying someone else, what is open to them by law becomes closed to them by their vow. Thus what began out of necessity is made perfect by love. These ones will certainly be given the same reward as those who made this vow by mutual agreement with their partners, or those who had no marriage ties but chose celibacy as the greater good.
On the other hand, their commitment to celibacy may be such that they contemplate marrying again in the event of the death of those whose living prevents them from remarrying. In this case, even if they depart from this world in that state of celibacy before this happens, they will be given credit only for marital chastity, which is the reason why they do not do what they would do if it were allowed. A life of celibacy with this attitude is not enough to obtain the rewards of celibacy freely chosen, but it is sufficient for avoiding adultery.
The Example of Celibate Women and Clergy
20, 21. Bear in mind that I am saying these things as applying to both sexes, but especially for the sake of men, who consider themselves to be superior to women in not having to maintain the same standards of chastity. They should in fact have higher standards, so that women may follow their lead. When, however, the law forbids adultery, if the weakness of the flesh is accepted as an excuse for unchastity, under the name of a false impunity the way is opened for many to perish. It is not that women too do not have bodies, although the men want these things to be wrong for them, as if they are all right for men because they are men. But banish the thought that the stronger sex is honored by detracting from chastity, as true honor is due to virtue, not vice. In contrast, they demand such great chastity from the women, who certainly have bodies no less, that when they are away from their wives traveling for long periods, they want them to avoid the contamination of adulterous relationships and subdue their youthful passion. Most do subdue it with great modesty, especially the women of Syria, whose husbands, busy making profit, abandon them while they are still young and the women still teenagers, and scarcely ever return even as old men coming back to little old ladies. From this very fact they have