Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Tertullian: Part Fourth/On Monogamy/Chapter 16

Chapter XVI.&#8212;Weakness of the Pleas Urged in Defence of Second Marriage.

But I smile when (the plea of) &#8220;infirmity of the flesh&#8221; is advanced in opposition (to us:&#160; infirmity) which is (rather) to be called the height of strength.&#160; Iteration of marriage is an affair of strength:&#160; to rise again from the ease of continence to the works of the flesh, is (a thing requiring) substantial reins.&#160; Such &#8220;infirmity&#8221; is equal, to a third, and a fourth, and even (perhaps) a seventh marriage; as (being a thing) which increases its strength as often as its weakness; which will no longer have (the support of) an apostle&#8217;s authority, but of some Hermogenes&#8212;wont to marry more women than he paints.&#160; For in him matter is abundant:&#160; whence he presumes that even the soul is material; and therefore much more (than other men) he has not the Spirit from God, being no longer even a Psychic, because even his psychic element is not derived from God&#8217;s afflatus!&#160; What if a man allege &#8220;indigence,&#8221; so as to profess that his flesh is openly prostituted, and given in marriage for the sake of maintenance; forgetting that there is to be no careful thought about food and clothing? &#160; He has God (to look to), the Foster-father even of ravens, the Rearer even of flowers.&#160; What if he plead the loneliness of his home? as if one woman afforded company to a man ever on the eve of flight!&#160; He has, of course, a widow (at hand), whom it will be lawful for him to take.&#160; Not one such wife, but even a plurality, it is permitted to have.&#160; What if a man thinks on posterity, with thoughts like the eyes of Lot&#8217;s wife; so that a man is to make the fact that from his former marriage he has had no children a reason for repeating marriage?&#160; A Christian, forsooth, will seek heirs, disinherited as he is from the entire world!&#160; He has &#8220;brethren;&#8221; he has the Church as his mother.&#160; The case is different if men believe that, at the bar of Christ as well (as of Rome), action is taken on the principle of the Julian laws; and imagine that the unmarried and childless cannot receive their portion in full, in accordance with the testament of God.&#160; Let such (as thus think), then, marry to the very end; that in this confusion of flesh they, like Sodom and Gomorrah, and the day of the deluge, may be overtaken by the fated final end of the world.&#160; A third saying let them add, &#8220;Let us eat, and drink, and marry, for to-morrow we shall die;&#8221; not reflecting that the &#8220;woe&#8221; (denounced) &#8220;on such as are with child, and are giving suck,&#8221; will fall far more heavily and bitterly in the &#8220;universal shaking&#8221; of the entire world than it did in the devastation of one fraction of Jud&#230;a.&#160; Let them accumulate by their iterated marriages fruits right seasonable for the last times&#8212;breasts heaving, and wombs qualmish, and infants whimpering.&#160; Let them prepare for Antichrist (children) upon whom he may more passionately (than Pharaoh) spend his savagery.&#160; He will lead to them murderous midwives.