Note N, On Page 417.
THE FIRST BOOK TO HIS WIFE
[It is clear that Tertullian wrote the two books “to his wife” before his fall; since in both he admits of a second marriage, (i. 7, 8. ii. throughout,) which excluded from the Montanist communion, (de Pud. c. 1 fin.) He allows also of flight in persecution, as the least of two evils, (i. 3.) The two Treatises were written nearly at the same time, (ii. init.) and if, as S. Jerome says, he fell into his schism in middle life, early in life. The very commencement of this book “jam hinc providere” implies that he was providing for what, humanly speaking, seemed at a distance. No date is furnished by the fact that Christians were then liable to punishment, if informed against, (ii. 5–7.) since this was equally the case, whether in times of public persecution or its intermission.]
I HAVE judged it meet, best-beloved fellow-servant in the Lord, to provide, even at this time, for the course which thou must follow after my departure from the world, if I should be called away before thee; and that thou mayest observe that which I have provided, to commit it to thy trust. For in worldly matters we are sufficiently active, and will that the good of each of us be cared for. If for such things we give directions, why should we not be bound to provide the more for our future in things divine and heavenly, and in a manner to antedate our legacy, our admonition namely and representation of such things as are accounted to pertain to immortal goods and an heavenly inheritance. God only grant that thou mayest be able to receive in full this gift of my admonition and my confidence committed to thee; to Him be honour, glory, brightness, dignity, and power, both now and for evermore. Amen. I charge thee therefore, with what continency thou mayest, after my departure renounce marriage; not that thou wilt confer, on that head, any good upon me, save in what thou shalt profit thyself. Besides to Christians after their departure from the world no restoration of marriage is promised in the day of Resurrection, being, as they are, translated to the quality and holiness of angels. Wherefore there is no care which is of the jealousy of the flesh. Even she, who, they would have it, had married seven brethren in succession, shall not, according to the Lord’s declaration, offend one of so many husbands on the Day of Resurrection, nor doth any man wait for her to put her to shame. The question of the Sadducees hath given place to the judgment of the Lord. Think not that it is to preserve thy body untouched for myself, that I am even now instilling the advice to remain a widow, suspicious because of the pain of being slighted. No debasing pleasure shall then be resumed between us. For God promiseth not to His people things so vain, so impure. But whether what we advise shall be profitable for thee, or for any other woman belonging to God, this we may thoroughly discuss.
II. We deny not, indeed, that the union of man and woman is blessed by God as the means of propagating the human kind, and devised for replenishing the globe, and furnishing the world, and thence permitted; yet, but once. For both Adam was the one husband of Eve, and Eve was his one wife, one woman, one rib. In truth, among our ancestors, and even the Patriarchs themselves, it was lawful not only to marry, but even to have many marriages at once. Concubines too there were. But although the Church came in, figuratively, in the Synagogue, yet (to interpret simply) it was necessary to establish certain customs which might hereafter deserve to be cut off or modified. For the law was about to come afterwards. It was meet that occasions for perfecting the law should have gone before. So too the Word of God was presently to succeed the Law, bringing in the spiritual circumcision. Wherefore by means of the then unlimited licence the materials for future amendments were provided, which the Lord by His Gospel, and next the Apostle, in the ends of the world, either cut off as superfluous, or set in order as being undigested.
III. But I would not premise this, touching the licence of the olden, and the correction of the latter, times, to pre-establish that Christ came to dissolve marriages, to abolish unions, as though I would rule that from this time there was to be an end of marrying. Let them look to it who, among other their perversities, teach to put asunder the one flesh in two persons, denying Him Who, having borrowed the woman from the man, joined together again, by the combination of marriage, the two bodies taken from the same compound of matter. Finally, we read in no one place that marriage is forbidden, doubtless as being a good. But what is better than that good we learn from the Apostle, who permitteth indeed to marry, but preferreth abstinence, the one because of the snare of temptations, the other because of the distress of the times: which reasons for each declaration being considered, it is easily discerned that the power to marry hath been granted to us through necessity: but what necessity giveth, it of itself lowereth in esteem. Lastly, whereas it is written, It is better to marry than to burn, what sort of good is this, pry’thee, which is commended through comparison with an evil? so that it is better to marry, only because it is worse to burn! But how much better is it then neither to marry nor to burn! Even in persecutions it is better to flee as is permitted, from city to city, than being seized and tortured to deny the faith. But what sort of blessedness is this, to lose the confession of a blessed testimony, lest one deny? I may say, ‘what is permitted is not good.’ ‘And why?’ I must needs die. If I bewail this, then it is good; but if I fear, that which is permitted rendereth the cause of its permission suspicious. But that which is better none hath ‘permitted,’ as being undoubted, and by its own integrity manifest. Certain things are not to be therefore sought after, because they are not forbidden; though they are in a manner forbidden, when other things are preferred to them; for the preference of the higher is a dissuasion of the lower. A thing is not therefore good, because it is not bad; nor is it therefore not bad, because it hurteth not. Moreover a thing completely good surpasseth in this, that it not only hurteth not, but profiteth besides: for thou oughtest to prefer that which profiteth to that which merely hurteth not. For every race is a struggle for the first place: the second hath a solace, but hath not a victory. But if we listen to the Apostle, forgetting those things which are behind, let us reach forward unto those things which are before, and be followers after better rewards. Thus, though he doth not cast a snare upon us, he sheweth what benefit there is, when he saith, The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy in body and spirit; but she that is married careth how she may please her husband. But no where doth he in such sort permit marriage, as not rather to prefer that we should endeavour after his own example. Happy he, who sheweth himself like unto Paul!
IV. But the flesh, we read, is weak; and with this we sooth ourselves the more largely. Yet we read also that the spirit is strong; for both are placed in the same sentence. The flesh is an earthy, but the spirit an heavenly, material. Why therefore do we, too prone to excuse ourselves, put forth in our defence the things which are weak in us, and guard not those which are strong? Why may not the earthy yield to the heavenly? If the spirit be stronger than the flesh, because it is also of higher birth, it is through our own fault that we follow the weaker. For to those, who are separated from marriage, two kinds of human weakness make marriage necessary. The first indeed most powerful, which cometh of the lust of the flesh; the next, of the lust of the world. But each must be renounced by us, the servants of God, who renounce both luxury and ambition. The lust of the flesh advocateth the functions of mature age, demandeth to reap the fruits of beauty, glorieth in its shame, saith that a husband is necessary for the sex of the woman, as a source of authority and of comfort, or that she may be safe from evil report. And do thou, against these its counsels, take the examples of our sisters, whose names are with the Lord, who, when their husbands are gone before them, put no opportunity of beauty or of age before holiness. For they had rather be espoused to God. Their beauty is for God, their youth for God: with Him they live, with Him they converse, Him they handle day and night: to the Lord they assign their prayers as dowries: from Him too, as oft as they desire, they obtain honour as a marriage-gift. Thus have they secured to themselves an eternal possession, the gift of the Lord; and already, by not marrying in the world, are numbered among the family of angels. By the examples of such women as these, training thyself to emulate their continency, thou wilt bury, through spiritual affection, that carnal lust, in annulling, by the compensation of immortal goods, the temporal and fleeting desires of beauty or of youth. But the other lust, of the world, hath for its causes, vain-glory, covetousness, ambition, insufficiency; by means of which it trumpeth up this necessity for marriage, promising heavenly things truly! to lord it in another’s household, to rest upon another’s wealth, to extort finery from another’s store, to lay out moneys which thou dost not feel! These be far from the faithful, who take no thought for sustaining life, except we distrust the promise of God, and His care and providence, Who clotheth the lilies of the field with so much beauty, Who feedeth the fowls of the air without toil of theirs, Who forbiddeth us to take thought for the meat and raiment of the morrow; assuring us that He knoweth what each one of His servants hath need of: not indeed the burdensome necklace, not the tedious garment, not a multitude of Gallic or German porters, which things light up the pomp of marriage, but that sufficiency which befitteth modesty and chastity. Presume, I beseech thee, that thou needest nothing, if thou attendest upon the Lord; yea, that thou hast all things, if thou hast the Lord, Whose are all things. Think upon heavenly, and thou wilt despise earthly things.
V. For a widowhood ratified before the Lord nothing more is needed than to persevere. Men indeed make for themselves new excuses for marriage in their anxiety for descendants, and the pleasure, so bitter, of children. With us this is idle. For why should we long to bear children, whom, when we have them, we desire to send before us, in consideration, that is, of the impending distress, ourselves also longing to be removed from this most wicked world, and to be taken to the Lord? which was the desire even of an Apostle. An offspring is necessary forsooth to the servant of God! for we are secure enough about our own salvation, so that we have leisure for children! We must seek for burdens, which are avoided by most even of the Heathen, which have laws even to encourage them, which are annihilated by unnatural murders, to us, finally, especially grievous, as being dangerous to faith. For why did the Lord prophesy, Woe to them that are with child, and to them that give suck, unless because He testifieth that the encumbrance of children would be an hindrance in that Day of disencumbrance? surely because he would lay marriage to their charge. But this will not pertain to widows: they will start forth unencumbered at the first trump of the angel: they will freely bear any pressure and persecution, no burden of marriage swelling in their womb, none in their bosom. Therefore whether marriage be for the sake of the flesh, or of the world, or of having descendants, not one of those necessities belongeth to the servants of God, so as that I should not be content to have once yielded to some one of them, and by one marriage to have compounded for every desire of this sort. Let us marry daily, and, marrying, be overtaken, like Sodom and Gomorrah, by that Day of fear. For there they were not surely engaged in marriage and traffic only, but when He saith, they married and they bought, He denoteth the very vices which are most notable, of the flesh and the world, which call men off the most from divine exercises, the one through the pleasure of wantonness, the other through the desire of gain. And yet that blindness in those days subsisted long before the ends of the world. What then will the case be, if He now forbid us those things which were of old hateful in the eyes of God? The time, saith He, is short: it remaineth that they that have wives live as though they had none.
VI. But if when they have, they are bound to do away with what they have, how much more, when they have not, are they forbidden to seek again that which they have not! so that she whose husband is departed from the world, may forthwith enjoin rest to her sex by abstinence from marriage, which very many of the heathen women devote as an offering to the memory of their most dear husbands. When any thing seemeth difficult, let us remember others who are undergoing things more difficult. For how many are there, who directly after the laver put a seal upon their flesh! how many also, who, by a like consent between themselves, cancel the debt of marriage, eunuchs of their own accord, through desire of the kingdom of heaven! But if, while marriage remaineth, abstinence be endured, how much rather when it is taken away! For I suppose it more difficult that that which remaineth should be abandoned, than that that which is lost should not be longed after. An hard matter truly, and sufficiently arduous, is the continency of an holy woman, after the departure of her husband, for the sake of God, when the Heathen endure it for their own Satan, in the priesthood both of virgins and of widows! At Rome indeed they who deal with the image of that unquenchable fire, tending the tokens of their own punishment shared with the dragon himself, are of the class of virgins. At the town of Ægium a virgin is allotted to Achæan Juno: and they who are phrenzied at Delphi know not marriage. Besides we know that widows attend upon the African Ceres, allured from their marriage by a most hard forgetfulness. For not only do they quit their husbands yet remaining alive, but even introduce others to them in their own place, (they no doubt smiling on it,) refusing themselves all contact, even to the kiss of their sons: and yet, during possession, do they persevere in this rule of widowhood, which shutteth out the comforts even of an holy affection. These things the Devil teacheth his own, and is obeyed. He challengeth doubtless, as though on equal terms, the servants of God by the continency of his own. Even the priests of Hell are continent. For he hath found how to destroy men even in good pursuits; and it maketh no matter to him that some perish through indulgence, others through continency.
VII. To us continency hath been set forth by the Lord of salvation as a preparation for eternity; as a testimony of Faith; as a commendation of that flesh, which must be furnished by the putting on hereafter of incorruption; last of all, as a waiting upon the will of God: for besides these things I warn thee to reflect that no one is taken out of the world save by the will of God, if not even a leaf falleth from a tree without the will of God. The Same That bringeth us in, must needs also take us out of the world. Wherefore, the husband being dead by the will of God, the marriage also is dead by the will of God. Why shouldest thou restore that to which God hath put an end? Why, by renewing the bondage of marriage, disclaimest thou the liberty offered to thee? Art thou bound, saith he, by marriage? seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from marriage? seek not to be bound. For though thou sinnest not in marrying again, yet he saith that trouble in the flesh followeth. Wherefore let us love, as much as we can, the opportunity of continency: as soon as it offereth itself, let us drink it in, that we may follow, in widowhood, that which we could not in marriage. The occasion must be embraced, which taketh away that which necessity demanded. How much second marriages detract from the Faith, how much they hinder holiness, the discipline of the Church and the rule of the Apostle declareth, when he suffereth not the twice-married to preside; when he suffereth not a widow, unless the wife of one man, to be taken into the number; for the altar of God must be set forth clean. All this beauty of the Church is made up of holiness. Among the heathen there is the priesthood of widows, and celibacy. According to the rivalry of the Devil, it is unlawful for their chief priest, a king of this world, to marry a second time. How pleasing to God is holiness, when even His enemy affecteth it! not surely as being akin to any thing good, but as insultingly affecting the things which are pleasing to the Lord God.
VIII. For as touching the honour which widowhood hath with God, it is briefly comprehended in one word of His, spoken by the Prophet, Do justly to the widow and the fatherless, and come, let us reason together, saith the Lord. These two titles, laid open to Divine compassion in proportion as they are destitute of human aid, the Father of all taketh on Him to defend. See how he, who doeth good to the widow, is held in equal esteem with the widow herself, whose advocate shall reason with the Lord! The gift, methinks, is not for virgins only. Although the perfect purity in them, and their entire holiness, shall the most closely behold the face of God, yet the widow hath a somewhat harder task, because it is easy not to desire that which thou knowest not, and to turn away from that which thou never hadst to regret. More glorious the continence, which hath a sense of its own right, which knoweth that whereof it taketh heed. The virgin may be deemed the happier, but the widow is the more striving: the one, because she hath ever had the good, the other because she hath gained the good for herself. In the one, grace, in the other, virtue, is crowned. For some things are of God’s bounty, some of our own working out. Such as are freely given by God are ruled by the grace proper to them; such as are aimed at by man are achieved by study. Study, then, for obtaining the virtue of continency, modesty, which ministereth to shame; industry, which dealeth not with trifles; thriftiness, which despiseth the world. Follow after company and conversations worthy of God, remembering that verse, sanctified by the Apostle,
“Ill company good manners doth corrupt,” (Menander.)
Tattlers, idlers, wine-bibbers, busy-bodies, gossips, especially hinder the purpose of widowhood. Through tattling creep in words adverse to modesty: through idleness they draw them off from strictness: through wine-bibbing they instil every evil: through busy-prying they convey a rivalry in lust. Not one of this sort of women knoweth how to speak of the good of marrying but once: for their God, as saith the Apostle, is their belly, and so too is the purtenance of the belly. These things I now commend unto thee, dearest fellow-servant, which it hath been superfluous indeed to treat of after the Apostle; yet which shall be to thee a comfort too, because in them thou wilt, if so it shall happen, oft renew the memory of me.
NOTE N, ON PAGE 417.
There seems to have been some difference of view between the Churches of Asia and the rest, on the interpretation, or at least the application, of the Apostolic direction, 1 Tim. 3:1; the Asiatic Churches, apparently understanding the Apostle to forbid those to be ordained, who had had more than one wife at once, whether in consequence of the divorces, which our Lord forbids, and by forbidding implies to have existed, or (among heathens) of actual polygamy, however rare; the rest taking the words “husband of one wife” in their strict sense, one who had not in any way had more than one. Of the Asiatic interpretation there is little direct proof; for S. Chrysostom, who gives it when explaining 1 Tim. (Hom. 10. init.) mentioning also the other, inculcates the other exclusively, on Tit. 1. (Hom. 2.) S. Jerome mentions the interpretation, as held by some, (ad Tit. 1.) perhaps referring to S. Chrysostom himself; Theodoret mentions it only. But it was probably the basis of the Asiatic practice, which Theodoret attests, when (Ep. 110. ad Domn.) he justifies his consecration of Irenæus, by the existing custom. “As to the matter of digamy, we have followed those before us.” “We have followed the custom, and men, distinguished and far-famed for their knowledge and life.” As instances, he names Alexander of blessed and holy memory, who ruled this Apostolic see, [Antioch,] the most blessed Acacius Bishop of Berœa, and the blessed Praylius,” [Bishop of Jerusalem.] He mentions also that it was done at the recommendation of the Bishops of Phœnicia, and approved and praised by Proclus, Bishop of Constantinople, the chief bishop of Pontus, and all those of Palestine, and that no doubt had been raised about it. On the other hand, Tertullian, (de Monog. c. 11.) Origen, (Hom. 17. in Luc. fin.) S. Ambrose, (de Off. i. ult. §. 257. and Ep. 63. ad Vercell. §. 63.) S. Jerome, (adv. Jovin. i. 14. 34. 35. “he who has had, not who has one wife,” Ep. 123. ad Ageruch. c. 6. ad Tit. i. 6.) S. Augustine, (de bono Conj. c. 18.) S. Epiphanius, (Hær. 59. §. 4.) Innocent I., (Ep. 3. ol. 22. ad Syn. Tolet. fin.) not only give the stricter interpretation, but severally attest it to have been the practice of the Church not to ordain such as had been married twice. Some extend this to those whose first or even both marriages had been before Baptism, on the ground that the Apostle’s rule was peremptory, and such marriage, not being a sin, was not effaced by Baptism; so S. Ambrose, l. c. followed by Innocent I. l. c. S. Aug. refers to the exposition of S. Ambrose as acute, but still only as a private opinion, “they who have thought (censuerunt) that not even he, who as a catechumen or a heathen had a second wife, is to be ordained.” The milder side is taken by S. Jerome, Ep. 69. ad Ocean. §. 2, 3. where he reports, “of such ordinations the whole world is full; I do not say of Presbyters, nor of the inferior grade; I come to Bishops, whom if I would name severally, the number would exceed that of the Synod of Ariminum;” (300, for which, however, he was censured by Chrysogonus, a follower of Ruffinus, Apol. l. c. Ruf. fin.) Again, on Tit. 1:6. he treats this extension of the prohibition “rather as superstitious than true.” Tertullian, even as a Montanist, admits the same principle, de Monog. c. 11. “a second husband will not be imputed, because after embracing the faith, he is the first.” The rule appears to have been gradually enforced in the Western Church, for Tertullian though he mentions that some twice-married Bishops had been deposed, (de Exhort. Cast. c. 7.) taunts the Church with being full of such; “How many twice-married preside among you, forsooth insulting the Apostle;” (de Monog. c. 12.) “and S. Leo, (Ep. 4. ad Episc. per Camp. &c. c. 2.) mentions that some such (quibus fuerint numerosa conjugia) had been admitted indiscriminately to holy Orders.” Aquinas, (Quodl. iv. art. 13.) Durand, (in Sent. iv. d. 27. g. 4.) Vazquez, (in 3 P. T. 3. disp. 24. c. 25.) quoted by Bp. Taylor, (Rule of Conscience, iii. 4. rule 20. §. 30.) also declare it “only to be a constitution of the Church,” which the Pope may dispense with; and, as has been observed, the permission of such marriages is no greater departure from the letter of Scripture on the one side than the dispensing with a married Clergy on the other.