Page:Ante-Nicene Christian Library Vol 3.djvu/58



N his treatise, Concerning Perfection according to the Saviour, he writes, "Consent indeed fits for prayer, but fellowship in corruption weakens supplication. At any rate, by the permission he certainly, though delicately, forbids; for while he permits them to return to the same on account of Satan and incontinence, he exhibits a man who will attempt to serve two masters—God by the 'consent' (1 Cor. vii. 5), but by want of consent, incontinence, fornication, and the devil." (Clem. Alex. Strom. iii. c. 12.)

A certain person inveighs against generation, calling it corruptible and destructive; and some one does violence [to Scripture], applying to procreation the Saviour's words, "Lay not up treasure on earth, where moth and rust corrupt;" and he is not ashamed to add to these the words of the prophet: "You all shall grow old as a garment, and the moth shall devour you."

And, in like manner, they adduce the saying concerning the resurrection of the dead, "The sons of that world neither marry nor are given in marriage." (Clem. Alex. iii. c. 12, § 86.)

Tatian, who maintaining the imaginary flesh of Christ, pronounces all sexual connection impure, who was also the