Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Tertullian: Part Fourth/On Monogamy/Chapter 1

VI.

On Monogamy.

[Translated by the Rev. S. Thelwall.]

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Chapter I.&#8212;Different Views in Regard to Marriage Held by Heretics, Psychic, and Spiritualists.

do away with marriages; Psychics accumulate them.&#160; The former marry not even once; the latter not only once.&#160; What dost thou, Law of the Creator?&#160; Between alien eunuchs and thine own grooms, thou complainest as much of the over-obedience of thine own household as of the contempt of strangers.&#160; They who abuse thee, do thee equal hurt with them who use thee not.&#160; In fact, neither is such continence laudable because it is heretical, nor such licence defensible because it is psychical.&#160; The former is blasphemous, the latter wanton; the former destroys the God of marriages, the latter puts Him to the blush.&#160; Among us, however, whom the recognition of spiritual gifts entitles to be deservedly called Spiritual, continence is as religious as licence is modest; since both the one and the other are in harmony with the Creator.&#160; Continence honours the law of marriage, licence tempers it; the former is not forced, the latter is regulated; the former recognises the power of free choice, the latter recognises a limit.&#160; We admit one marriage, just as we do one God.&#160; The law of marriage reaps an accession of honour where it is associated with shamefastness.&#160; But to the Psychics, since they receive not the Spirit, the things which are the Spirit&#8217;s are not pleasing.&#160; Thus, so long as the things which are the Spirit&#8217;s please them not, the things which are of the flesh will please, as being the contraries of the Spirit.&#160; &#8220;The flesh,&#8221; saith (the apostle), &#8220;lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.&#8221; &#160; But what will the flesh &#8220;lust&#8221; after, except what is more of the flesh?&#160; For which reason withal, in the beginning, it became estranged from the Spirit.&#160; &#8220;My Spirit,&#8221; saith (God), &#8220;shall not permanently abide in these men eternally, for that they are flesh.&#8221;