Page:The World as Will and Idea - Schopenhauer, tr. Haldane and Kemp - Volume 3.djvu/456

440 One sees at once that he identifies salvation with the end of the world. The other passages in the works of Augustine which bear on this point will be found collected in the "Confessio Augustiniana e D. Augustini operibus compilata a Hieronymo Torrense," 1610, under the headings De matrimonio, De cælibatu, &c., and any one may convince himself from these that in ancient, genuine Christianity marriage was only a concession, which besides this was supposed to have only the begetting of children as its end, that, on the other hand, perfect continence was the true virtue far to be preferred to this. To those, however, who do not wish to go back to the authorities themselves I recommend two works for the purpose of removing any kind of doubt as to the tendency of Christianity we are speaking about: Carové, "Ueber das Cölibatgesetz," 1832, and Lind, De cœlibatu Christianorum per tria priora secula," Havniæ, 1839. It is, however, by no means the views of these writers themselves to which I refer, for these are opposed to mine, but solely to their carefully collected accounts and quotations, which deserve full acceptance as quite trustworthy, just because both these writers are opponents of celibacy, the former a rationalistic Catholic, and the other a Protestant candidate in theology, who speaks exactly like one. In the first-named work we find, vol. i. p. 166, in that reference, the following result expressed: "In accordance with the Church view, as it may be read in canonical Church Fathers, in the Synodal and Papal instructions, and in innumerable writings of orthodox Catholics, perpetual chastity is called a divine, heavenly, angelic virtue, and the obtaining of the assistance of divine grace for this end is made dependent upon earnest prayer. We have already shown that this Augustinian doctrine is by Canisius and in the decrees of the Council of Trent expressed as an unchanging belief of the Church. That, however, it has been retained as a dogma till the present day is sufficiently established by the June number, 1831, of the magazine "Der Katholik."