To His Wife

We do not indeed deny that the union of man and woman was blessed by the Lord, knowing as we do that it was devised for the human race, for filling the earth and furnishing the age, and was thenceforth permitted—yet one union only. For Adam also was the one husband of Eve, and Eve his one wife, one woman, one rib. Certainly among our ancestors and the patriarchs themselves it was lawful not only to marry but also to make use of marriages in manifold ways, and there were concubines as well: but although this may have passed over as a figure into the synagogue and the Church, yet, to interpret it simply, it was necessary to establish what would afterward deserve either to be cut away or to be moderated. For the law was about to come, and it was fitting that the occasions for fulfilling the law should have run ahead. The same Word of God, which was soon to come to the aid of the law, was introducing spiritual circumcision.

Therefore through the permissiveness then prevailing, the materials for subsequent corrections were being furnished in advance—corrections which the Lord by his Gospel, and thereafter the Apostle at the end of the age, either cut away as superfluous or set in order as disordered.

But I would not have prefaced this about the freedom of antiquity and the chastening of later times in order to lay the groundwork that Christ came to separate marriages and destroy unions, as though I were prescribing from this point the end of marrying. Let those see to it who, among the rest of their perversities, teach the separation of the one flesh made from two, denying him who, having borrowed woman from man, and having taken two bodies from the fellowship of the same matter, joined them back together in the compact of marriage. In short, we nowhere read that marriages are forbidden, since marriage is a good thing: but what is better than this good thing, we learn from the Apostle, who indeed permits marriage, but prefers abstinence—the one on account of the snares of temptations, the other on account of the straits of the times.

By examining the reason for each of these pronouncements, it is easily discerned that the power of marrying has been conceded to us out of necessity: but what necessity grants, necessity itself depreciates. Finally, what is written, It is better to marry than to burn—what kind of good is this, I ask you, which is commended by comparison with an evil? So that it is better to marry for this reason, that it is worse to burn. But how much better is it neither to marry nor to burn! But even in persecutions it is better, by permission, to flee from city to city, than to be seized and racked and deny. And therefore those are more blessed who are able to depart by the blessed confession of testimony. I can say: what is permitted is not a good. For what then? I must needs die.

If I weep, it is a good thing; but if I fear what is permitted, it renders the cause of its own permission suspect: but what is better, no one has permitted, as being beyond doubt and manifest by its own sincerity. Certain things are not to be sought after merely because they are not forbidden, even if they are in some manner forbidden, when other things are preferred to them: for the preference of superior things is the dissuasion of inferior ones. A thing is not good merely because it is not evil: nor is it not evil merely because it does no harm. But plainly that good will take precedence which not only does no harm but moreover does good. And so you ought to prefer what profits over what merely does not harm. For every contest strives for first place: second place has consolation, it does not have victory.

But if we hearken to the Apostle, forgetting the things that are behind, let us stretch toward the things that are before, and be followers of the better gifts. If he imposes no snare upon us, he shows what is profitable, saying: The unmarried woman thinks of the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But the married woman is anxious how she may please her husband. For the rest, he nowhere permits marriages in such a way that he does not rather prefer us to strive after his own example. Happy is that man who has shown himself like Paul.

But we read that the flesh is weak, and from this we flatter ourselves the more abundantly: yet we read also that the spirit is strong. For both are set forth in one and the same passage. The flesh is an earthly substance, but the spirit is heavenly. Why then, being more inclined to excuse, do we put forward what is weak in us, while we do not guard what is stronger? Why should earthly things not yield to heavenly things? If the spirit is stronger than the flesh, because also more noble, it is by our own fault that we follow the weaker. For when marriage is set aside, two kinds of human weakness make marriages necessary. The first, and most powerful, comes from the lust of the flesh: the second from the lust of the world. But both are to be repudiated by the servants of God, who renounce both luxury and ambition.

The lust of the flesh pleads the duties of age, demands the harvest of beauty, rejoices in its own dishonor: it says that a husband is necessary to the female sex, as a source of authority and comfort, or that she may be safe from evil rumors. And you, against these counsels of the flesh, bring forward the examples of our sisters, whose names are with the Lord, who, after the death of their husbands, set no occasion of beauty or age before holiness: for they prefer to be married to God, to be beautiful for God, to be maidens for God: with him they live, with him they converse: him they handle by day and by night: their prayers they assign to the Lord as dowries: from him they obtain, as often as they desire, his regard as a kind of bridal gift. Thus they have secured for themselves the eternal good of the Lord, and already on earth, by not marrying, they are reckoned among the angelic family.

Exercising yourself in continence by the example of such women, in emulation of them, you will bury that carnal lust by spiritual affection, blotting out the fleeting and transitory desires of beauty or age by the compensation of opposing goods. For the rest, this worldly lust has its causes in glory, greed, ambition, insufficiency, by means of which it contrives the necessity of marrying—promising, forsooth, heavenly things: to rule in another's household, to lean upon another's wealth, to extort adornment from another's expense, which you do not feel as passing over to yourself.

These things are far from the faithful, for whom there is no anxiety about enduring life, unless we distrust the promises of God, and his care and providence: who clothes the lilies of the field, who feeds the birds of the air without any labor of their own, who forbids anxiety about tomorrow and about food and clothing; promising that he knows what each of his servants needs: not indeed the weight of necklaces, nor the burden of garments, nor many Gallic shoes, nor German porters, which kindle the glory of marriages; but sufficiency, which is suited to modesty and chastity. Presume, I pray you, that you need nothing, if you appear before the Lord; nay rather, that you have all things, if you have the Lord: whose all things are heavenly—reckon these up, and you will despise earthly things. Nothing is necessary for widowhood pledged to God, except to persevere.

Men do indeed add to themselves causes for marriage from anxiety about posterity and the most bitter pleasure of children. But this too is odious in our eyes. For why should we be eager to have children, whom, when we have them, we wish to send on before us, in view of course of the impending tribulations, we ourselves also desiring to be taken away from this most iniquitous age and received to the Lord—which was also the Apostle's wish. Offspring is surely necessary for the servant of God. For we are sufficiently secure about our own salvation to have leisure for children: we must seek out burdens, which are avoided even by the profane among the Gentiles, which are cherished by the laws, which are assailed by parricides. For us they are most inopportune, as dangerous to faith.

For why did the Lord cry woe to those who are with child and those who give suck, unless he testifies that the impediments of children will be an inconvenience on that day of departure?—to be charged, of course, against marriages. But this will not concern widows: at the first trumpet of the angel they will spring forth unencumbered. Whatever pressure and persecution they will endure freely, with no burden of marriage burning in the womb or at the breast. Therefore whether one marries for the sake of the flesh, or of the world, or of posterity, none of these necessities concern the servants of God: so that I do not consider it enough to have once yielded to any one of them, and to have expiated all lust of this kind by one marriage. Let us marry every day, and be found marrying on that day, like Sodom and Gomorrah.

For there they were not merely conducting marriages and commerce: but when he says they were marrying and buying, he marks out those very more conspicuous vices of the flesh and of the world, which most of all call us away from divine disciplines: the one through the pleasure of wantonness; the other through the desire of acquiring. For indeed that blindness was then reckoned far from the ends of the age. What then will happen, if those things which have long been detestable before the Lord now keep us from them? The time, he says, is gathered up; it remains that those who have wives should be as though they had none.

But if they have them, they ought to obliterate what they have: how much more are those who do not have them forbidden to seek again what they do not have; so that she whose husband has departed from the world should from that point impose upon her sex the repose of abstinence from marriage: which many women of the nations offer as a tribute to the memory of their most dear husbands. When anything seems difficult, let us review others who undertake things more difficult. For how many are there who, immediately after the washing, seal up their flesh! How many likewise who, by mutual consent between themselves, put away the marriage debt, voluntary eunuchs for the sake of the desire of the kingdom of heaven. But if continence is endured while marriage is intact, how much more when it has been taken away! For I believe it is more difficult to leave intact what one has than not to desire what has been lost.

Is the continence of a holy woman after her husband's death truly so hard and arduous a thing for God's sake, when the Gentiles endure it for their Satan in the priesthood of both virginity and widowhood? At Rome indeed, those who tend the image of that inextinguishable fire, keeping watch over the omens of their own punishment together with the dragon himself, are judged by their virginity. In Achaea, a virgin is chosen by lot for Juno at the town of Aegium: and those who rave at Delphi know not marriage. Moreover we know that widows attend upon the African Ceres, drawn away from marriage by a most harsh forgetfulness. For while their husbands remain alive forever, they not only withdraw from the marriage bed, but also introduce others in their place—those husbands laughing, no doubt—with all contact removed even to the kiss of their children, and yet they persevere in such a discipline of widowhood while the use of life continues, a discipline which excludes even the consolations of holy piety.

These things the devil commands, and is obeyed: he provokes, of course, the servants of God by the continence of his own, as though even the priests of Gehenna practice continence on equal terms. For he has found how to destroy men even by the pursuit of good things; and it matters nothing to him whether he kills some by luxury and others by continence.

For us, continence has been shown by the Lord of salvation as an instrument of eternity, as a testimony of faith, as a commendation of this flesh which is to be presented for the supervenient garment of incorruptibility, and finally for the sustaining of the will of God. For above these things I urge you to reflect that no one is taken from the world except by the will of God, if not even a leaf falls from a tree without the will of God. The same one who brings us into the world must needs also lead us out. Therefore when a husband has died by the will of God, the marriage also dies by the will of God: why do you restore what God has put an end to? Why do you disdain the freedom offered to you by the renewed servitude of marriage? You are bound, he says, to a marriage; do not seek release: You are loosed from marriage; seek not the bond.

For even if you do not sin by marrying again, he says that the pressure of the flesh will follow. Why should we not love, as much as we can, the faculty of continence? Let us imbibe it as soon as it comes our way, so that what we could not achieve in marriage, we may pursue in widowhood. The occasion must be embraced which takes away what necessity was commanding. How much second marriages detract from faith, how much they obstruct holiness, the discipline of the Church and the precept of the Apostle declare, when he does not permit the twice-married to preside, when he does not allow a widow to be enrolled in the order unless she be a woman of one husband: for the altar of God must be set forth clean. That whole Church is described as bright with holiness. The priesthood of widowhood has also been celebrated among the nations, for the devil's imitation, of course.

For the king of the age, the pontifex maximus, to marry again is unlawful: how greatly holiness pleases God, since even the enemy covets it—not at all as one akin to any good, but as one who covets the things pleasing to God the Lord with contempt!

For concerning the honours of widowhood before the Lord, the matter is settled by one saying of His through the Prophet: Do justice to the widow and the orphan, and come let us reason together, saith the Lord. These two names, to the extent that they are exposed to human contempt, to that same extent the Father of all has taken them under His divine mercy to protect. See how equally regarded is one who has done good to a widow, and how great is the widow herself, whose champion has reasoned with the Lord! I do not think so much is granted to virgins alone, although in them integrity is whole and entire, and all their holiness will see the face of God from close at hand. Yet the widow has something more laborious: for it is easy not to desire what you do not know, and to turn away from what you have never longed for. More glorious is the continence which feels its own right; which knows what it has seen.

A virgin may be held more blessed, but a widow more laborious: the former, because she has always had the good; the latter, because she has found the good for herself. In the one grace, in the other virtue is crowned. For some things belong to divine generosity, some to our own effort. What is granted by the Lord is governed by His own grace; what is sought by man is accomplished by zeal. Strive therefore toward the virtue of continence of modesty, which provides for chastity; toward diligence, which makes no trifles; toward frugality, which despises the world. Pursue companionship and dealings worthy of God, mindful of that verse, sanctified through the Apostle: Evil communications corrupt good manners.

Talkative, idle, wine-loving, and prying companions are especially harmful to the purpose of widowhood. Through talkativeness words hostile to modesty creep in; through idleness they draw one away from seriousness; through love of wine they insinuate every kind of evil; through prying they bring in the rivalry of lust. No woman of this sort knows how to speak of the good of being a wife of one husband: for their God (as the Apostle says) is their belly, and so too are those things close to the belly. These things I now commend to you from this point, dearest companion—treated at length beyond what the Apostle says, yet destined to be a comfort to you as well, in that you will keep my memory alive in them, if it so comes to pass.

Recently to you, most beloved companion in the Lord, what a holy woman, when marriage has been taken away by whatever lot, ought to pursue, I have set forth as best I could. Now let us turn to second counsels, with regard to human weakness, warned by the examples of certain women who, upon divorce or the death of a husband, when the occasion of continence was offered, not only cast away the opportunity of so great a good, but did not even wish, in marrying again, to be mindful of discipline, so as to marry especially in the Lord. And so my mind is troubled, lest I, who recently urged you toward perseverance in being a wife of one husband and in widowhood, should now, by mentioning marriage, make it easier for you to slip from higher things. But if you are of sound mind, you certainly know that what is more useful must be kept by you. Yet what is difficult, and not without necessities, is also this supreme purpose of life, the highest safeguard.

Nor would I have had reason to report to you on this matter either, had I not grasped my own greater anxiety. For as great as is the continence of the flesh which ministers widowhood, so, if it cannot be sustained, it may seem pardonable; for easy is the pardon of difficult things. But as much as marrying in the Lord is something within our power to accomplish, so much the more blameworthy is it not to observe what you are able to observe. To this is added the fact that the Apostle, concerning widows and the unmarried, advises them to remain so, when he says: I wish that all men would persevere after my example. But concerning marrying in the Lord, when he says: only in the Lord, he no longer advises, but openly commands.

Therefore in this matter especially, unless we comply, we are in danger, because one may neglect with impunity what is advised rather than what is commanded, since the former comes from counsel and is set before the will, while the latter descends from authority and binds necessity; there, freedom, here, contumacy seems to be the offence.

Therefore, when a certain woman in these days was removing her marriage from the Church—that is, was joining herself to a pagan—and I recalled that this had been done by others before, I marvelled either at their own wantonness or at the perversion of their advisers, since no scripture offers licence for such an act. Do they flatter themselves, I ask, from that chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, where it is written: If any brother has an unbelieving wife, and she consents to the marriage, let him not put her away; likewise a believing woman, married to an unbeliever, if she finds her husband agreeable, let her not put him away; for the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife, and the unbelieving wife by the believing husband; otherwise your children would be unclean. This admonition, perhaps by understanding it simply as concerning those joined in faith, they think that it is also lawful to marry unbelievers. Let him who so interprets it be far from knowingly deceiving himself.

But it is clear that this scripture designates those believers who were found in a pagan marriage when they received the grace of God, according to the very words: If any one, he says, has a believing wife who is an unbeliever. He does not say: takes an unbeliever as wife. He shows that one already living in marriage with an unbelieving woman, having soon been converted by the grace of God, ought to persevere with his wife—namely, for this reason, lest anyone who had attained the faith should think he must depart from a woman who was now in some sense alien and foreign to him. So too he adds the reason, that we are called by the Lord to peace, and that the unbeliever can be won over by the believer through the use of marriage. The very closing clause also confirms that this is to be understood in this way, that each one, he says, as he is called by the Lord, so let him persevere.

But it is pagans, I think, who are called, not believers. Now if he had pronounced absolutely concerning a believer before marriage, he would have permitted the saints to marry pagans indiscriminately; but if he had permitted it, he would never have appended a pronouncement so different and contrary to his own permission, saying: A woman when her husband is dead is free: let her marry whom she will, only in the Lord. There certainly nothing is to be reconsidered; for concerning what could have been reconsidered, the Apostle has spoken: lest we make ill use of what he says, let her marry whom she will, he added, only in the Lord—that is, in the name of the Lord, which is without doubt a Christian. That holy apostle, therefore, who prefers widows and the unmarried to persevere in integrity, who exhorts us to the example of himself, prescribes no other form for the recovery of marriage except in the Lord, and grants the detriments of continence to this one condition alone: Only, he says, in the Lord.

He added the weight of his law by the word only. In whatever tone and manner you pronounce that saying, it is weighty; it both commands and advises, and enjoins and exhorts, and entreats and threatens; it is a strict, unambiguous sentence, eloquent by its very brevity. Thus is the divine voice wont to speak, so that you understand at once, observe at once. For who could fail to understand that the Apostle foresaw many dangers and wounds to the faith in such marriages as he forbids, and first of all took precaution against the defilement of holy flesh in pagan flesh? At this point someone will say: What difference is it then between one who is enrolled by the Lord while in a pagan marriage, and one who was a believer long before—that is, before marriage—so that they need not equally guard their flesh, when the one is kept away from marriage with an unbeliever, while the other is commanded to persevere in it?

Why, if we are defiled by a pagan, is the latter not separated, just as the former is not bound? I will answer: If the Spirit shall grant it, first of all alleging that the Lord holds it more ratified that marriage not be contracted at all, than that it be wholly dissolved: for indeed He forbids divorce, except on account of fornication, but commends continence. The former therefore has the necessity of persevering, the latter moreover also has the power of not marrying. Then, if according to Scripture those who are found in a pagan marriage when they come to faith are not thereby defiled, because together with them others also are sanctified: without doubt those who were sanctified before marriage, if they mingle with alien flesh, cannot sanctify it, in which they were not found. But the grace of God sanctifies what it finds. Thus what could not be sanctified is unclean; what is unclean has no part with what is holy, except to defile and destroy it from its own substance.

These things being so, it is established that believers who enter into marriages with pagans are guilty of fornication and are to be excluded from all communion of the brotherhood, from the letters of the Apostle who says that one must not even eat with such a person. Or shall we indeed produce the marriage tablets before the tribunal of the Lord from that place, and plead that the marriage was duly contracted? Is what He Himself forbade not adultery? Is what is prohibited not fornication? Does the admission of a foreign man defile the temple of God less, does it mingle the members of Christ less with the members of an adulteress? As far as I know, we are not our own, but bought with a price; and what a price! The blood of God. Therefore those who injure this flesh injure Him.

What did that man mean recently who said that it is indeed a fault to marry a foreigner, but a very small one—when otherwise, setting aside the injury to the flesh belonging to the Lord, every wilful offence against the Lord is great? For the more the power of avoiding it existed, the more it is burdened with the charge of contumacy. Let us now review the other dangers and wounds, as I said, to the faith foreseen by the Apostle, most troublesome not only to the flesh but to the spirit itself. For who doubts that faith is obliterated daily by commerce with an unbeliever? Evil communications corrupt good manners; how much more constant cohabitation and inseparable intercourse? Every believing woman must needs observe the Lord. And how can she serve two masters, the Lord and a husband—add, a pagan one?

For in observing a pagan she will exhibit pagan things: outward appearance, adornment, worldly elegances, more shameful flatteries, even the very stained secrets of marriage; not as among the saints, where the duties of sex are discharged modestly and moderately, with honour for the very necessity itself, as though under the eyes of God.

But let her see how she discharges her duties to her husband. To the Lord certainly she cannot give satisfaction according to discipline, having at her side a servant of the devil, a steward of his master for hindering the studies and duties of the faithful: so that if a station is to be kept, the husband appoints a bath for that very day; if fasts are to be observed, the husband holds a banquet on that same day; if she must go out, never is the household more occupied. For who would allow his wife, for the sake of visiting the brethren, to go about street by street to other men's—and indeed even poorer—hovels? Who will willingly endure being deprived of her from his side at nocturnal assemblies, if such there must be? Who, finally, will without anxiety bear with her spending the night away at the Paschal solemnity? Who will send her to that banquet of the Lord which they defame, without his own suspicion?

Who will suffer her to creep into prison to kiss the bonds of a martyr?

Who will suffer her to meet some brother for the kiss of peace? To offer water to the feet of the saints? To snatch at, to long for, to keep in mind food and drink from their table? And if a brother should arrive from abroad, what hospitality in another's house? If anything must be given from the storehouse, the pantry is shut.

But some tolerate our ways and do not obstruct them. This then is the fault: that pagans know our ways, that we are under the knowledge of these men, that it is their favour if we do anything. He who tolerates cannot say he does not know; or if it is concealed from him, because he does not tolerate, he is feared. But since Scripture commands both—that we act for the Lord without the knowledge of another and without pressure upon ourselves—it makes no difference in which part you sin, either in the conscience of your husband, if he knows and endures it patiently, or in conflict with yourself, while you avoid his impatience. Cast not, he says, your pearls before swine, lest they trample them, and turning they overthrow you also. Your pearls are the marks of your daily conduct. The more carefully you shall have tried to conceal them, the more suspicious you will have made them and the more to be guarded against by gentile curiosity.

Will you be able to hide it, when you sign your bed, when you sign your little body, when you blow away something unclean with your breath, when you rise even in the night to pray, and will you not seem to be performing some kind of magic? Will your husband not know what you taste secretly before all food; and if he knows it is bread, does he believe it to be that which it is called? And any man ignorant of these things—will he bear the reason of it simply, without a groan, without suspicion whether it be bread or poison? Some endure it: but so as to press upon and mock such women, keeping their secrets in the peril which they believe them to hold, in case they themselves should be harmed; some endure those whose dowries, by the threat of the name, make the price of their silence—that is, intending to go to law before a judge who watches.

Which most women not foreseeing, have departed either with their affairs tormented or their faith lost.

The handmaid of God dwells among alien household gods, and amid all the honours of demons, amid all the solemnities of kings, at the beginning of the year, at the beginning of the month, she will be assailed by the smoke of incense. And she will go forth from a door wreathed with laurel and lit with lamps, as from some new shrine of public lusts; she will recline with her husband at banquets, often in taverns; and she will sometimes wait upon the wicked, she who was once accustomed to wait upon the saints; and will she not from this recognise the prejudgment of her own damnation, by observing those whom she was destined to judge? Whose hand will she desire? From whose cup will she partake? What will her husband sing to her, or she to her husband? Let her hear indeed, let her hear something from the stage, from the tavern, from the cookshop; what mention of God? What invocation of Christ? Where are the supports of faith from the reading of the Scriptures?

Where the refreshment of the spirit? Where the divine blessing? All things are strange, all things hostile, all things condemned, sent by the evil one to wear away salvation.

If these things can befall even those who, having received the faith while already in marriage with a gentile, remain in it, yet they are excused, as having been found by God in that very situation, and are bidden to persevere and are sanctified and receive the hope of winning their spouse. If therefore such a marriage is ratified before God, why should it not proceed favourably, so that it is not so harassed by pressures and straits and hindrances and defilements, already having in part the patronage of divine grace? For even she who has been called from among the gentiles to some heavenly virtue by the tokens of some condescension is a terror to the gentile, so that he is less likely to oppose her, less likely to know, less likely to spy. He has felt the great works, he has seen the proofs, he knows she has become better; and so he himself is a candidate for God through fear. Thus those are more easily won over upon whom the grace of God has established its custom.

But it is another thing to descend of one's own accord and willingly into what is forbidden. What things please not the Lord, assuredly offend the Lord, assuredly are brought in by the evil one. This will be the sign thereof, that the Christian name pleases only the worse sort. Therefore there are found those who do not shrink from such women, in order to destroy them, to snatch them away, to shut them out from the faith. You have the reason why you should not doubt that no marriage of this kind runs a prosperous course; since it is brought together by the evil one and condemned by the Lord.

To this end let us inquire, as though we were indeed true interpreters of the divine sentences. Do not even among the nations the most severe masters and those most tenacious of discipline forbid their slaves to marry outside?—namely, lest they stray into wantonness, desert their duties, and disclose their master's affairs to strangers. Do they not moreover decree that those are to be reduced to slavery who have persisted in intercourse with the slaves of others after their masters' warning? Shall earthly disciplines be held more severe than heavenly precepts? So that gentile women joined to strangers lose their freedom, while ours join to themselves servants of the devil and remain in their own condition? They will of course deny that the same warning has been given to them by the Lord through the apostle. What cause of this madness shall I hold, unless it be weakness of faith, ever prone to the desire of worldly pleasures?

Which indeed has been found most frequently among those of higher station; for the more any woman is puffed up with the name of matron and with wealth, the more spacious a house does she require for her burdens, as a field in which ambition may run its course. Such women find the Churches mean. It is hard for a rich person to be in the house of God, and if there be any such, it is hard for him to be unmarried. What then shall they do? Whence shall they seek a husband fit to display the litter and the mules and the foreign tall-statured hair-dressers, unless from the devil? A Christian, even if rich, perhaps cannot furnish these things. I pray you, set before yourself the examples of the gentiles. Very many women, noble by birth and blessed in wealth, are joined everywhere to men of low birth and middling station, found out for luxury or chosen for licence.

Some bestow themselves upon their freedmen and their own slaves, with contempt for the opinion of all men, provided only they have those from whom they need fear no hindrance to their freedom. Does it shame a faithful Christian woman to marry a faithful man of lesser means, she who will be richer in a poor husband? For if the kingdom of heaven belongs to the poor, because it does not belong to the rich, the rich woman will find more in the poor man with a greater dowry. Let her be on equal terms on earth, who perhaps will not be so in heaven.

It must be doubted and inquired and deliberated again and again, whether he to whom God has entrusted his own wealth is fit for the dowry brought in. How shall we suffice to set forth the happiness of that marriage which the Church arranges, and the oblation confirms, and the blessing seals, the angels report, and the Father holds as ratified? For not even on earth do children rightly and lawfully marry without the consent of their fathers. What a yoke is that of two faithful persons of one hope, one discipline, the same service! Both are brothers, both are fellow-servants, no division of spirit or of flesh. Indeed they are truly two in one flesh; where there is one flesh, there is also one spirit. They pray together, they prostrate themselves together and together they pass their fasts, teaching one another, exhorting one another, sustaining one another.

Together they are in the Church of God, together at the banquet of God, together in straits, in persecutions, in refreshments; neither hides anything from the other, neither avoids the other, neither is a burden to the other; the sick is freely visited, the needy is sustained; almsgiving without torment, the sacrifice without scruple, daily diligence without hindrance; no furtive signing, no trembling thanksgiving, no silent blessing; psalms and hymns sound between the two, and they challenge one another as to which shall sing better to their God. Such things Christ seeing and hearing rejoices, and sends his peace to them; where two are, there also is he himself; where he himself also is, there the evil one is not. These are the things which that word of the Apostle has left us to understand under its brevity; suggest these to yourself, if there be need; from these examples turn yourself back from the example of certain women. It is not lawful for the faithful to marry otherwise, and if it were lawful, it would not be expedient.