Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/120

 102 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, the polite, the observation of these singular laws was ^^' left, as it would be at present, to the few who were ambitious of superior sanctity. But it is always easy, ■ as well as agreeable, for the inferior ranks of mankind to claim a merit from the contempt of that pomp and pleasure which fortune has placed beyond their reach. The virtue of the primitive christians, like that of the first Romans, was very frequently guarded by poverty and ignorance. Their seiiti- The chaste severity of the fathers, in whatever re- ceming"" lated to the commerce of the two sexes, flowed from marriage the same principle; their abhorrence of every enjoy- tity. ment which might gratify the sensual, and degrade the spiritual nature of man. It was their favourite opi- nion, that if Adam had preserved his obedience to the Creator, he would have lived for ever in a state of vir- gin purity, and that some harmless mode of vegetation might have peopled Paradise with a race of innocent and immortal beings y. The use of marriage was per- mitted only to his fallen posterity, as a necessary expedient to continue the human species, and as a re- straint, however imperfect, on the natural licentious- ness of desire. The hesitation of the orthodox casuists on this interesting subject, betrays the perplexity of men, unwilling to approve an institution which they were compelled to tolerate''. The enumeration of the very whimsical laws which they most circumstantially imposed on the marriage bed, would force a smile from the young, and a blush from the fair. It was their unanimous sentiment, that a first marriage was ade- quate to all the purposes of nature and of society. The sensual connection was refined into a resemblance of the mystic union of Christ with his church, and was pronounced to be indissoluble either by divorce or by death. The practice of second nuptials was branded with the name of a legal adultery ; and the persons y Beausobre, Hist. Critique du Manicheisme, 1. vii. c. 3. Justin, Gre- gory of Nyssa, Augustin, etc. strongly inclined to this opinion. ' Some of the Gnostic heretics were more consistent; they rejected the > use of marriage.