By Water & Blood

On marriage

Concerning marriage.

And I think it is also useful to go through the laws concerning marriage, and to refute the boldness of those who accuse it. And even the difference of the race is enough to show the cause of the creation. For for this reason the Maker of all fashioned woman, for which reason he also named her a helper. For he said: “Let us make for Adam a helper according to him.” And he not only fashioned her, but also yoked her to the man, and according to the law that now prevails he led her to the man, and he himself became bride-leader and bridegroom; he himself offered this blessing as a kind of gift to the marriage, saying: “Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and rule over it.” This blessing the race of human beings first received from the God of all.

And many times later, when he brought the utter destruction of the flood, he charged that not men alone but also women equal in number to the men enter the ark; and after the pause of the punishment he renewed the former blessing. For to these also he said: “Increase and multiply, and fill the earth.” And leading Abraham the patriarch out from his ancestral land, he commanded him to look at the stars of heaven, and promised to make human beings equal in number to these: “For I will make,” he said, “your seed as the stars of heaven in multitude, and as the sand beside the lip of the sea.” But if marriage were wicked, the Master God would not have legislated it from the beginning, nor would he have called childbearing a blessing. For for this reason also he did not prevent the ancients from having more wives, so that the race of human beings might be increased. For this cause godly men also were joined to two and three and more wives, desiring to become fathers of more children.

For that it was not as slaves to pleasure that they endured association with more wives, Abraham the patriarch bears witness, who after Sarah’s many entreaties associated with Hagar, then after the birth no longer approached her. And the all-wise Jacob also bears witness, who against his will received Leah, yet because of the jealousy of the wives endured association with the maidservants. And those women too, not as slaves to pleasure but desiring to become mothers of more children, had the rivalry with one another.

The Old Scripture, then, also teaches those reared in the faith the aim of marriage. But let those who do not accept the ancient laws learn the same things from the New. For certainly here too marriage is among the things praised. For the first of the apostles was called from the company of those who had married. And the evangelists are witnesses, teaching expressly that the Master healed his mother-in-law when she was feverish. And the Lord himself not only did not forbid marriage, but was also entertained at a wedding, and offered the wine that was not produced by cultivation as a gift to the wedding. And he so strengthened the law of marriage that he also prevents by another law the one who wishes to dissolve the marriage apart from fornication. For “everyone,” he says, “who dismisses his wife except for a matter of fornication makes her commit adultery.” Then when the Pharisees said that the ancient law had commanded to give a bill of divorce, he interpreted for them the aim of the law: “Toward your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment; but from the beginning of creation God made them male and female. For this reason a human being will leave his father and mother and will be joined to his wife, and the two will be one flesh.” Thus first reading the law which he himself had given, he added: “So that they are no longer two. What therefore God has yoked together, let a human being not separate.” And all these things show the lawfulness of marriage.

And the great Peter did not separate Ananias and Sapphira who were joined, but when they had stolen he refuted them very warmly. For the one was lawful, but the other exceedingly lawless. And the divine apostle Paul wrote a complete letter to Philemon and Apphia, who were yoked by the law of marriage. And to the Corinthians who wished to learn whether those who have believed in the Lord ought to prefer purity to marriage, he made these things clear: “Now concerning the things about which you wrote to me: it is good for a human being not to touch a woman; but because of the fornications let each have his own wife, and each her own husband.” Having thus legislated these things, he charges that they keep goodwill toward one another firm: “Let the husband render to the wife the goodwill that is due, and likewise also the wife to the husband.”

And since it was likely that either the husband or the wife would prefer continence of union, and when this did not take place by agreement it happened that the one unable to endure fell into fornication, he forbids continence without agreement, and says: “The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband; and the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife.” “You fall,” he says, “under one another’s authority. You cannot do what you wish apart from the one who draws the yoke with you.” And strengthening the law he added: “Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a time, so that you may have leisure for fasting and prayer, and come together again to the same.” And he called “deprivation” the pause of association that takes place against the other’s will. For when one practices continence, the other part thinks itself deprived of the communion. And he also teaches for what reason he ordered them to come together again after the prayer and the fasting; for he added: “So that Satan may not tempt you.” And showing that from us that one takes the starting points of the war, he necessarily added: “Because of your lack of self-control.” “For when you are contesting,” he says, “that one will by no means prevail.”

Then urging toward the better things: “But this I say by way of concession, not by way of command. For I wish all human beings to be as I also myself am, in continence; but each has his own gift from God, one thus, another thus.” But if the thrice-blessed Paul named marriage with sobriety a gift of God, the lawless laws of the ill-named heretics are clear. And what follows also holds the same sense: “But to those who have married,” he says, “I charge—not I, but the Lord—that a wife not be separated from a husband; but if she also is separated, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to the husband; and that a husband not send away a wife.” So far is he from forbidding marriage that he even holds together by the Master’s laws the one who is being torn apart. For “I,” he says, “do not write this law, but the Master God, who in the Gospels has also added to the divine things, and has also declared that the woman who has been separated remain unmarried, thereby compelling her to go back up to the husband.”

And indeed he also charges those who have unbelieving husbands, and those joined to unbelieving wives, not to dissolve the marriage. For “if any brother,” he says, “has an unbelieving wife, and she consents to dwell with him, let him not send her away; and a wife, if any has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to dwell with her, let her not send him away.” But if he did not dissolve a marriage that does not have the agreement of the faith, it is clear that he knows marriage as lawful, not as lawless.