書信與論戰集（CSEL） 第 28 章 第 1/3 段

VII. On the Good of Widowhood. Augustine, bishop, servant of Christ and of the servants of Christ, to the religious handmaid of God, Juliana, greeting in the Lord of lords. That I might no longer be in debt to your petition and to my promise given in the love that is in Christ, I have, amid my other most pressing occupations, set myself somehow to write something to you concerning the profession of holy widowhood; for both, being present, you burdened me by asking, and, when I could not deny you this, you often demanded my promise by letters. In this work of ours, when you read some things that pertain in no way to your person or to that of your household, who live together in Christ, nor are properly necessary to the admonition of your life, you ought not on that account to judge them superfluous.

For these letters, though written to you, were nevertheless not to be written to you alone, but that through you they might profit others also. This surely was not to be neglected by us. Whatever, then, you find here that has either never been necessary to you, or is now no longer so, and yet you perceive to be of use to others, let it neither irk you to keep it, nor to give it to be read, so that your charity may be the benefit of others. Since, then, in every question that pertains to life and morals, not only doctrine but also exhortation is necessary — that by doctrine we may know what is to be done, and by exhortation be roused, lest it irk us to do what we already know must be done — what more should I teach you than that which we read in the Apostle?

For holy Scripture fixes the rule of our doctrine, that we should not dare to be wise beyond what it behoves to be wise, but be wise, as he himself says, unto temperance, as God has apportioned to each one the measure of faith. Let it, then, be for me nothing else to teach you than to expound to you the words of your teacher, and to discuss, as the Lord shall grant, concerning them. And so the Apostle, the teacher of the nations, the vessel of election, says: 'But I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them if they so remain, even as I.' These words are so to be understood that we do not think widows ought not to be called unmarried, because they seem to have experienced marriage; for by the name of the unmarried he signifies those who are not bound by marriage, whether they have been so or have not been. Which he opens up in another place, where he says:

'There is a difference between the unmarried woman and the virgin.' Since indeed he also adds the virgin, what does he wish the unmarried woman to be understood as, save the widow? Whence also afterward, under the one name of the unmarried, he embraces both professions, saying: 'She who is unmarried is anxious about the things of the Lord, how she may please the Lord; but she who is married is anxious about the things of the world, how she may please her husband.' By the unmarried he certainly did not wish only her to be understood who has never married, but also her who, freed by widowhood from the bond of marriage, has ceased to be married; for he does not call married any but her who has a husband — not also her who has had one and has him no longer. Wherefore every widow is unmarried;

But because not every unmarried woman is a widow — for there are also virgins — therefore he here set down both, where he says: 'But I say to the unmarried and to widows'; as if he said: 'What I say to the unmarried, I say not to those alone who are virgins, but also to those who are widows: that it is good for them if they so remain, even as I.' Behold, this good of yours is compared with that good which the Apostle calls his own, if faith be present — nay rather, because faith is present. This teaching is brief, and not therefore to be despised because it is brief; but rather the more easily and dearly to be held, because in its brevity it is not worthless. For the Apostle would not have commended here any ordinary good, which he set, without any ambiguity, above the fidelity of the married.

But how great a good the fidelity of the married possesses — that is, of Christian and religious married women — can be understood from this: that, when he was giving precept concerning the fleeing of fornication, where indeed he was also addressing married persons, he said, 'Know you not that your bodies are the members of Christ?' So great, then, is the good of faithful wedlock, that even those very members are the members of Christ. But since, above this good, the good of widowed continence is better, it is not brought about by this profession that a catholic widow should be something more than a member of Christ, but that she should hold a better place than a married woman among the members of Christ. For the same Apostle says:

'For as in one body we have many members, yet all the members have not the same functions, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and each one members one of another, having gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us.' Therefore, also, when he was admonishing married persons not to defraud one another of the debt of carnal intercourse, and thereby lest either of them, the conjugal debt being denied him, should through his own intemperance, being tempted by Satan, slip into fornication, 'But this I say,' he says, 'by way of concession, not by way of command. For I would that all men were even as myself; but each one has his proper gift from God, one after this manner, another after that.'

You see also that conjugal chastity and the matrimonial fidelity of the Christian marriage-bed are a gift, and that from God — like that other gift — so that what somewhat exceeds, beyond the necessity of procreating children, the measure of intercourse through carnal concupiscence, is not the evil of marriage, but is pardonable on account of the good of marriage. For it is not concerning the marriage which is joined for the sake of procreating children, and with the fidelity of conjugal chastity, and with the indissoluble sacrament of matrimony (as long as both live) — all of which are goods — but concerning that immoderate use of the flesh which is recognized in the weakness of spouses, and is forgiven through the intervention of the nuptial good, that the Apostle says: 'By way of concession I speak, not by way of command.' Likewise when he says:

'The wife is bound as long as her husband lives; but if her husband die, she is freed: let her marry whom she will, only in the Lord. But she will be more blessed if she so remain, according to my counsel.' He shows well enough that a faithful woman marrying again in the Lord even after her husband's death is blessed, but that a widow in that same Lord is more blessed: that is (to speak not only with the words but also with the examples of the Scriptures), that Ruth is blessed, but Anna more blessed. Wherefore it behoves you first to know this: that by the good which you have chosen, second marriages are not condemned, but honoured less. For just as the good of holy virginity, which your daughter has chosen, does not condemn your one marriage, so neither does your widowhood condemn anyone's second.

For hence chiefly did the heresies of the Cataphrygians and Novatians swell up, which Tertullian too, with sounding but not wise cheeks, inflated, when with slandering tooth he cut down second marriages as if they were unlawful — marriages which the Apostle, with a sober mind, altogether allows as lawful. From this soundness of doctrine let you not be moved by the disputation of any unlearned or any learned man; nor so extol your own good that you should charge as evil another's good which is not evil, but rejoice in your own good so much the more, the more you see that by it not only are evils avoided, but even certain goods are surpassed. For adultery and fornication are evils.

But from these unlawful things she is very far removed who by the liberty of a vow has bound herself, and has made even lawful things not lawful for her, not by the command of law, but by the counsel of charity. And conjugal chastity is a good, but widowed continence is a better good. This better good, then, is honoured by the subordination of that good, not is that good condemned by the praise of this better one. But as to what the Apostle said, when he was commending the fruit of the celibate and the unmarried, because 'they think on the things of the Lord, how they may please God,' he added and said: 'But this I say for your own profit, not that I may cast a snare upon you' — that is, not that I may compel you, but unto that which is honourable. Because he called the good of the unmarried honourable, we ought not therefore to think the conjugal bond base;

Otherwise we shall also condemn first marriages, which neither the Cataphrygians nor the Novatians nor their most eloquent supporter Tertullian dared to call base. But just as, when he says, 'But I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them if they so remain,' he certainly set down 'good' for 'better' — since everything which, compared with a good, is called better, is without doubt itself also good (for what else is that which is thus called 'better,' but that which is more good?) — nor do we accordingly suppose that he meant it to be evil if they should marry, since he said 'it is good for them if they so remain': so also when he says:

'But unto that which is honourable,' he did not show matrimony to be base, but commended, under the general name of what is honourable, that which was more honourable than what is honourable — for what is 'more honourable' but that which is more honourable? And what is more honourable is assuredly honourable. For he plainly declared this to be better than that good, where he says: 'He that gives in marriage does well; and he that gives not in marriage does better'; and this to be more blessed than that blessed thing, where he says: 'But she will be more blessed if she so remain.' As, therefore, 'better' is to 'good,' and 'more blessed' to 'blessed,' so 'more honourable' is to 'honourable' — which he chose to call honourable. For far be it that it should be base, whereof the Apostle Peter, speaking, says:

'You husbands, give honour to your wives as to the weaker and subject vessel, as to fellow-heirs of grace;' and, addressing the wives themselves, he exhorts them to be subject to their own husbands after the example of Sarah; for 'so,' he says, 'certain holy women, who hoped in God, adorned themselves, being obedient to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose daughters you have become, doing well and fearing no disturbance.'

(Textual apparatus and manuscript variant readings.) He exhorts them to be subject to their own husbands after the example of Sarah. Whence also that saying which Paul the Apostle spoke concerning the unmarried woman, 'that she may be holy both in body and in spirit,' is not so to be taken as if a faithful and chaste married woman, subject to her husband according to the Scriptures, were not holy in body, but only in spirit.

For it cannot be that, the spirit being sanctified, the body also should not be holy, which the sanctified spirit uses. But lest we should seem rather to argue than to prove this by the divine oracle — since Peter, about to make mention of Sarah, said only 'holy women,' and did not add 'in body also' — let us consider that saying of the same Paul, where, forbidding fornications, he says: 'Know you not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of a harlot? God forbid.' Let anyone, then, dare to say that the members of Christ are not holy; or truly let him dare to separate from the members of Christ the bodies of faithful married women. Whence also a little after he says:

'Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought with a great price.' He said that the body of the faithful is both the members of Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit. Wherein assuredly the faithful of both sexes are understood. There, then, are the married; there also the unmarried; but distinguished by merits, and, as members preferred to members, of which nevertheless neither are separated from the body. Therefore what, speaking of the unmarried, he says, 'that she may be holy both in body and in spirit,' he wished to be understood as an ampler sanctification of the unmarried, both in body and in spirit; he did not deprive the body of the married of all sanctification. Learn, then, your good. Nay rather, remember what you have learned.

Your good is the more praised because there is another good by which it is better, than if this good could not be a good otherwise unless that other were an evil, or did not exist at all. The eyes have great honour in the body; but they would have less, if they alone existed and there were no other members of lesser honour. In heaven itself the sun surpasses the moon by its light, yet does not disparage it; and star differs from star in glory, yet does not fall out with it in pride. Therefore God made all things, and behold, they were very good: not only good, but even very — for no other reason than that they were all. For also of the several works it was said, 'God saw that it was good.' But where all were named, 'very' was added, and it was said, 'God saw all the things that he had made, and behold, they were very good.'

For certain individual things are better than certain other individual things; but all things together are better than any individual things whatever. Therefore let the sound doctrine of Christ, in his body, make you sound through his grace, so that the very Spirit which rules the body may neither insolently exalt, nor ignorantly discern, that which you have better than others in body and spirit. Nor, because I have said Ruth blessed and Anna more blessed — since the former married twice, while the latter, wife of one husband, quickly widowed, lived long — should you at once think yourself also better than Ruth.

In the days of the prophets the ordering of holy women was indeed different: obedience, not lust, compelled them to marry, so that the people of God might be propagated, among whom the prophets of Christ would be sent ahead; for that very people itself, through the things which happened among them in figure — whether in those who understood them or in those who did not know them — was nothing else than a prophet of Christ, from whom the very flesh of Christ was also to be born. Therefore, that this people might be propagated, whoever did not raise up seed in Israel was held accursed by the sentence of the Law.

Hence the holy women too were kindled, not by a desire of lying with a man, but by a devotion to bearing children, so that most rightly they are believed not to have sought intercourse if offspring could have come about in any other way; and to the men the use of several living wives was permitted. That the cause of this was not the concupiscence of the flesh but the provision for offspring, this shows: that whereas holy men were allowed to have several living wives, it was not likewise allowed to holy women to be joined to several living husbands, since they would be the more shameful the more they craved that whereby they would not become the more fruitful. Accordingly holy Ruth, when she had no seed in Israel — such as was necessary in that time — her husband being dead, sought another by whom she might have it.

And so, although this woman had been twice married, yet Anna, wife of one husband and a widow, was the more blessed, because she also merited to be a prophetess of Christ. Of her we must believe — even if she had no children (which indeed Scripture, by keeping silence, left uncertain) — that by that Spirit she foresaw that Christ was soon to come from a virgin, by which she was able to recognize him even as a little child. Whence, deservedly, even without children (if indeed she had none), she refused a second marriage, because she already knew that the time had come when Christ would be better served not by the office of childbearing, but by the zeal of continence — not by wombs made fruitful in wedlock, but by widowed conduct made chaste.

But if Ruth also knew that through her flesh would be propagated the seed from which Christ was to take flesh, and by marrying rendered service to this knowledge, then I do not now dare to say that Anna's widowhood was more blessed than Ruth's fruitfulness. But you, who both have children and live at that end of the age when it is now the time not for casting stones but for gathering them, not for embracing but for refraining from embrace — since the Apostle cries out: 'But this I say, brethren: the time is short; it remains that they also who have wives be as though they had none' — surely, if you had sought a second marriage, it would have been no service of prophecy or of the Law, no fleshly desire even for offspring, but only a sign of incontinence.

For you would have done what the Apostle says, when he had said: 'It is good for them if they so remain, even as I'; for immediately he added: 'But if they cannot contain themselves, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn.' This he said, so that the evil of unbridled lust might not be plunged into the baseness of scandalous deeds, since it would be received into the honorable estate of marriage. But thanks be to the Lord, since you have borne what you did not wish to be, and the virginity of your offspring has compensated for the loss of your own virginity; for Christian teaching, diligently questioned, answers that even a first marriage is now, in this age, to be scorned — unless incontinence be a hindrance. For he who said, 'If they cannot contain themselves, let them marry,' could have said:

'If they have no children, let them marry' — if, after the resurrection and preaching of Christ, when now from all nations so great an abundance of children to be spiritually begotten is at hand, it were such an office to propagate children from the flesh as it was in the earliest times. And as for what he says elsewhere — 'I will therefore that the younger widows marry, bear children' — he commends, with apostolic soberness and authority, the good of marriage and of being mothers of families; he does not impose the office of procreation, as though it were a compliance with the Law, even upon those who take hold of the good of continence. Finally, why he said this he discloses when he adds and says: 'to give no occasion to the adversary for the sake of reviling';

for already certain women had turned back after Satan, so that by these words of his we understand that those whom he wished to marry could better have contained themselves than marry, but could better marry than turn back after Satan — that is, than fall and perish by looking backward from that excellent purpose of virginal or widowed chastity to the things behind. Accordingly, let those who do not contain themselves marry, before they profess continence, before they vow to God — which vow, if they do not render it, they are justly condemned. For in another place he says of such women: 'For when they have lived wantonly in Christ, they will marry, having condemnation, because they have made void their first faith' — that is, they have turned their will toward marriage away from the purpose of continence.

For they made void the faith by which they had earlier vowed what by perseverance they were unwilling to fulfill. The good of marriage, therefore, is indeed always a good; but among the people of God it was once a compliance with the Law, now it is a remedy for weakness, and in certain persons a solace of human nature. For to give attention to the procreation of children — not in dog-like fashion by the promiscuous use of women, but in the honorable marital order — is an affection not to be condemned in man; yet even this the Christian mind, thinking on heavenly things, more laudably transcends and surpasses. But since, as the Lord says, 'not all receive this word,' let her therefore who can receive it, receive it; and let her who does not contain herself marry; let her who has not begun, deliberate; let her who has undertaken it, persevere.

let no occasion be given to the adversary, let no offering be withdrawn from Christ. For in the marriage bond, if chastity is preserved, condemnation is not to be feared; but in widowed and virginal continence there is sought the excellence of a fuller gift: which gift, once sought and chosen and offered by the debt of a vow, it is then damnable not only to take up marriage, but even, though one does not marry, to wish to marry. For that the Apostle might show this, he does not say, 'When they have lived wantonly in Christ, they marry,' but 'they wish to marry, having,' he says, 'condemnation, because they have made void their first faith' — even by not marrying, merely by wishing.

Not that the marriage itself, even of such women, is declared to be condemned; but there is condemned the fraud against the purpose, there is condemned the broken faith of the vow, there is condemned not the taking up of a lower good, but the ruin from a higher good; finally, such women are condemned, not because they afterward entered into the marital faith, but because they made void their first faith of continence. And that he might briefly convey this, the Apostle was unwilling to say that those women have condemnation who marry after a purpose of higher sanctity — not because they are not condemned, but lest in them the marriage itself be thought to be condemned — but when he had said, 'they wish to marry,' he immediately added, 'having condemnation,' and said why:

'because they have made void their former faith,' so that it may appear that the will which has fallen away from its purpose is what is condemned, whether marriages ensue or are lacking. Accordingly, those who say that the marriages of such women are not marriages but rather adulteries do not seem to me to consider keenly and carefully enough what they say; for the semblance of truth deceives them. For because those women who, out of Christian sanctity, do not marry are said to choose the espousals of Christ, from this certain persons argue, saying: If a woman who, while her husband lives, marries another is an adulteress — as the Lord himself defined in the Gospel — then, while Christ lives, over whom death has no further dominion, the woman who had chosen his espousals, if she marries a man, is an adulteress.

Those who say these things are indeed keenly moved, but they pay too little attention to how great an absurdity of consequences follows this argument. For since, in a praiseworthy manner, even while her husband lives, a woman may — with his consent — vow continence to Christ, then, according to the reasoning of these men, no woman ought to do this, lest she make Christ himself (which it is impious to think) an adulterer, to whom she marries while her husband lives. Then, since a first marriage is of better merit than a second, far be it that this be the sense of holy widows, that Christ should seem to them as it were a second husband; for they had him even before, when they were faithfully subject to their own husbands, serving a husband not carnally but spiritually:

the husband to whom the Church herself, of whom they are members, is spouse — the Church which, in the integrity of faith, hope, and love, is wholly a virgin, not only in holy virgins, but also in widows and married women who are faithful. For to the universal Church, of which all those are members, the Apostle says: 'I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you a chaste virgin to Christ.' Now he knows how to make the virgin spouse fruitful without corruption, who in that very flesh could be brought forth by a mother without corruption. But by this ill-considered opinion — by which they think that there are no marriages of women fallen from a holy purpose if they marry — no small evil arises: that wives are separated from their husbands as though they were adulteresses, not wives;

and when they wish to restore these women, thus separated, to continence, they make the husbands of these women true adulterers, when, their own wives still living, they take others. Wherefore, I cannot indeed say that women fallen from a better purpose, if they marry, are adulteries and not marriages; but I would plainly not hesitate to say that lapses and downfalls from that holier chastity which is vowed to the Lord are worse than adulteries. For if — as is in no way to be doubted — it pertains to the offense of Christ when a member of his does not keep faith with her husband, how much more grievously is he offended when faith is not kept to him in that which he demands when offered, though he had not demanded that it be offered!

For when anyone does not render what he has vowed — not compelled by command, but admonished by counsel — he increases the iniquity of the defrauded vow the more, the less necessity he had of vowing. I discuss these matters for this reason, lest you suppose either that a second marriage is a crime, or that any marriages whatever, since they are marriages, are an evil. Therefore do not wish that those women be condemned by you, but scorned. The good of widowed continence, then, more brilliantly befits, since for the sake of vowing and professing it women are able to scorn what both pleases and is permitted; but after the profession of the vow, that which pleases must be perseveringly bridled and conquered, because it is now not permitted. Concerning third and fourth and yet more numerous marriages men are wont to raise a question.

Whence, that I may briefly answer, I neither dare to condemn any marriages, nor to take away from them the modesty owed to their number. But lest the brevity of this my answer perhaps displease anyone, I am prepared to hear my critic dispute more copiously. For perhaps he may bring some reason why a second marriage should not be condemned, yet a third be condemned. For I, as I warned at the beginning of this discourse, do not dare to be wiser than it behooves to be wise. For who am I, that I should think I must define what I do not see the Apostle to have defined? For he says: 'A woman is bound as long as her husband lives.' He did not say 'first' or 'second' or 'third' or 'fourth'; but 'a woman,' he says, 'is bound as long as her husband lives.'

'But if her husband be dead, she is free. Let her marry whom she will, only in the Lord; but she will be more blessed if she so remain.' What could be added to or taken from this sentence, as far as this matter is concerned, I do not know. Then I hear also the Master and Lord of the apostles and of us answering the Sadducees, when they had set forth a woman not of one husband nor of two, but — if it may be said — of seven husbands, whose wife she would be in the resurrection. For, rebuking them, he says: 'You err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they shall neither marry nor take wives; for they shall not begin to die, but shall be equal to the angels of God.'

He therefore made mention of the resurrection of those who rise to life, not of those who rise to punishment. He could therefore have said: 'You err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God; for in that resurrection these many-times-married women cannot exist,' and then added: 'because no woman marries there.' But not even he himself, as we see, condemned by any indication of his judgment the woman of so many husbands. Wherefore neither, against the sense of human modesty, do I dare to say that a woman may marry husbands, as often as she wishes, when they die; nor out of my own heart, apart from the authority of Holy Scripture, do I dare to condemn any number of marriages whatever. But what I say to the widow of one husband, this I say to every widow: 'You will be more blessed if you so remain.'