But if the remaining in virginity and in
the state of an eunuch brings nearer to God, while the indulgence of
carnal thought and desire leads away from Him, in those cases in which
we shun the thoughts, much more do we reject the deeds. For we bestow our
attention, not on the study of words, but on the exhibition and teaching
of actions,—that a person should either remain as he was born, or
be content with one marriage; for a second marriage is only a specious
adultery.826
826 [There is perhaps a
touch of the rising Phrygian influence in this passage; yet the language
of St. Paul (1 Tim. v. 9) favoured this view, no doubt, in primitive
opinion. See Speaker’s Comm. on 1 Tim. iii. 2. Ed.
Scribners, New York.]
not permitting a man to send her away whose
virginity he has brought to an end, nor to marry again. For he who
deprives himself of his first wife, even though she be dead, is a cloaked
adulterer,828
828 [But Callistus,
hereticalBishop of Rome (a.d.
218.), authorized even third marriages in the clergy. Hippolytus,
vol. vi. p. 343, Ante-Nicene Fathers, Edinburgh Series.]
resisting the hand of God, because in the beginning God made one man
and one woman, and dissolving the strictest union of flesh with flesh,
formed for the intercourse of the race.
