Teaching Christianity
20. They should rather believe that our apostles were neither puffed up when they were looked up to by people, nor cast down when they were looked down upon. Those men were indeed spared neither test, because on the one hand their praises were sung far and wide by believers, and on the other they were defamed by the curses of their persecutors. So just as these men made use of all this as the times and occasions demanded, and were not corrupted, in the same way those men of old used the custom of polygamy in a way suitable to their times, and did not endure the domination of that lust of which these people, who do not believe such things, are the slaves.
30. And that is why these people would in no way restrain themselves from giving way to an unforgivable hatred for their own sons, on learning that they had violated or seduced their fathers' wives or concubines, should such a thing ever happen to them.
21, But when King David suffered such an injury from his impious and monstrous son, he not only tolerated him in his ferocious hostility, but even bewailed him on hearing of his untimely death.[44] He was not caught fast, you see, in the nets of carnal jealousy, and so it was not at all the wrong done to himself, but the sins of his son that troubled him. That is why he gave orders forbidding him to be killed if he was defeated, so that duly chastened he might have the chance to repent; and because this turned out to be impossible, it was not his own bereavement that he grieved over in the young man's death, but he knew what pains awaited such an impiously adulterous and parricidal soul.[45]
Because previously for another son, who was innocent, he had afflicted himself while the child was sick, but rejoiced when he died.[46]
31. And this following instance shows better than anything else with what moderation and self-restraint those men made use of the custom of polygamy. This same king,