'Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats; but God shall destroy both it and them.' Again elsewhere concerning this same thing: 'All things are lawful, but not all things are expedient; all things are lawful, but not all things edify. Let no one seek his own, but that which is another's.' And to show whence he was speaking, he says: 'Whatever is sold in the shambles, eat, asking no question for conscience' sake.' And yet elsewhere he says: 'I will not eat flesh forever, lest I scandalize my brother'; and likewise elsewhere: 'All things indeed are clean, but it is evil for the man who eats with offense.' For what is 'all things are lawful' is the same as 'all things indeed are clean';
and what is 'but not all things are expedient' is the same as 'but it is evil for the man who eats with offense.' Thus he shows that those things which are lawful — that is, forbidden by no precept of the Lord — are, according as it is expedient, to be handled rather not by the prescription of law but by the counsel of charity. These are the things which are dispensed more abundantly to the wounded man who, brought by that Samaritan's compassion, was to be cared for at the inn. And therefore they are said not to be commanded by the Lord, although it is by the Lord that they are admonished to be offered, so that they may be understood to be the more pleasing the more they are shown to be undue. But those things which among these are such that, though they be lawful, they are not expedient, of them it cannot be said, 'This is good, but that is better,' as it was said: 'He who gives in marriage does well;
and he who does not give in marriage does better.' For there both are lawful, and this is expedient at one time, that at another. For to those who do not contain themselves, it is assuredly expedient to marry, and what is lawful is expedient; but to those who have vowed continence, it is neither lawful nor expedient. Furthermore, to depart from an unbelieving spouse is lawful, but not expedient; but to remain with him, if he consents to cohabit, is both lawful and expedient, because, if it were not lawful, it could not be expedient. Something therefore can be lawful and not expedient; but that which is not lawful cannot be expedient. And by this, not all things that are lawful are expedient, but all things unlawful are not expedient.
For just as everyone who is redeemed by the blood of Christ is a man, yet not everyone who is a man is also redeemed by the blood of Christ, so everything that is not lawful is not expedient, yet not everything that is not expedient is also not lawful. For there are indeed lawful things which are not expedient, as we have learned on the Apostle's testimony. But between that which is unlawful and therefore not expedient, and that which is lawful and yet not expedient, what the difference is, it is difficult to define by any universal rule. For one might too readily say: everything that it is not expedient to do is sin; but every sin is unlawful; therefore everything that is not expedient is unlawful.
And then where will be those things which the Apostle said are lawful but not expedient, if everything that is not expedient is not lawful? Wherefore, since we cannot doubt that the Apostle spoke truly, and dare not say that some sins are lawful, it remains for us to say that something is done which is not expedient, and yet, if it is lawful, is not sin — although, since it is not expedient, it is assuredly not to be done. But if it seems absurd that something be done which is not expedient and that he who did it be said to have sinned, it must be understood that this is absurd from the custom of speech: which extends so widely that we say even beasts of burden, though they be devoid of reason, ought nevertheless commonly to be beaten when they 'sin';
but to sin, properly speaking, belongs to none but him who uses the rational choice of the will, which among all mortal living creatures is divinely bestowed upon man alone. But it is one thing when we speak properly, and another when we borrow words by transferring or misapplying them from other things. Let us therefore, if we can, strive to distinguish by some fixed limit between that which is lawful and not expedient, and that which is not lawful and therefore not expedient either. Those things seem to me to be lawful and not expedient which are indeed permitted by the justice that is before God, but on account of the offense of men, lest by this they be hindered from salvation, are to be avoided;
but those to be not lawful and therefore not expedient which are so forbidden by justice itself that they are not to be done, even if they should be praised by those to whose notice they were brought. But if this is so, therefore only unlawful things are forbidden by the Lord, so that those which are lawful and not expedient may be guarded against not by the bond of law, but by the free beneficence of love. Wherefore, if it were not lawful to dismiss an unbelieving spouse, the Lord would forbid this to be done, nor would the Apostle in forbidding it say, 'I speak, not the Lord.' For if on account of the fornication of the flesh a person is permitted to be separated from a spouse, how much more is fornication of the mind — that is, of unbelief — to be detested in a spouse, concerning which it is written: 'For behold, they that put themselves far from you shall perish;
you have destroyed everyone who goes a-whoring from you!' But because it is lawful in such a way that it is not expedient — lest, on account of the separations of spouses, men be offended and shrink from the very doctrine of salvation by which unlawful things are forbidden, and thus remain worse and doomed to perish in the same unbelief — the Apostle intervenes and by admonishing forbids that to be done which is so lawful that it is not expedient. For thus faithful men or women are neither forbidden by the Lord to withdraw from unbelieving wives or husbands, nor are they commanded to. For if they were commanded to dismiss such spouses, there would be no room for the counsel of the admonishing Apostle that this should not be done. For in no way would a good servant forbid to be done what the Lord commands.
For once the Lord commanded this through the prophet Ezra, and it was done: the Israelites dismissed their foreign wives, all who at that time were able to have them, through whom it came about that they themselves were seduced to strange gods, rather than that those women were gained for the true God through their husbands. For not yet had so great a grace of the Savior shone forth, and that multitude of the people still gaped after the temporal promises of the Old Testament. And therefore, since they saw those earthly goods which they sought from the Lord as a great thing abounding even to those who worshiped many false gods, by the blandishments of their wives they first shrank from offending them, and were then led on even to worship them. Whence the Lord had commanded through holy Moses that no one should marry a foreign wife.
Rightly therefore, when the Lord forbade, did they dismiss, when the Lord commanded, the wives whom they had married. But when the Gospel had begun to be preached to the Gentiles, it found Gentiles already joined to Gentiles as spouses: from among whom, if both did not believe, but one, man or woman, and the unbeliever consented to dwell with the believer, the believer ought neither to be forbidden by the Lord to dismiss the unbeliever, nor to be commanded to — not forbidden, namely, because justice permits departure from a fornicator, and the fornication of an unbelieving person is greater in the heart, nor can there be said to be true chastity of that person with a spouse, because 'everything that is not of faith is sin'; although the believer has true chastity even with an unbelieving spouse who does not have it.
And therefore the faithful ought not to be commanded to be separated from the unbelievers, because the Gentiles were not both joined together against the Lord's command. Since therefore the Lord neither forbids nor commands a believer to depart from an unbeliever, therefore it is the Apostle, not the Lord, who says that one should not depart — the Apostle assuredly having the Holy Spirit, in whom he could give useful and faithful counsel. Hence, when he had said concerning a woman whose husband had died, 'But she shall be more blessed if she so remain, according to my counsel,' lest anyone should think this counsel, as though human and not divine, ought to be despised, he added: 'and I think that I too have the Spirit of God.'
Accordingly, it must be understood that even those very things which are not commanded by the Lord, but are usefully persuaded by his holy servant, are persuaded by the inspiration of the same Lord. Far be it that any catholic should say that, when the Holy Spirit persuades, the Lord does not persuade, since the Spirit too is Lord and the works of the Trinity are inseparable. Yet he says: 'But concerning virgins I have no precept of the Lord, but I give counsel' — not that we should think this counsel foreign to the Lord, since he immediately follows and says: 'as one that has obtained mercy so as to be faithful.' Therefore according to God he gives faithful counsel in that Spirit of whom he says: 'and I think that I too have the Spirit of God.'
But nevertheless, one thing is the command of the Lord commanding, and another is the faithful counsel of a fellow-servant according to the mercy of charity, which is inspired and granted to him by the Lord. There it is not lawful to do otherwise; here, however, it is lawful, yet in such a way that the very lawful thing is partly indeed expedient, partly not expedient. It is expedient then, when it is not only permitted by the justice that is before the Lord, but also no hindrance to salvation is thereby brought upon men: as when the Apostle gives counsel to virgins not to marry, whereof he testifies that he has no precept of the Lord — it being lawful to do otherwise, that is, to marry and to hold the good of marriage, though a lesser good than that of continence.
And this very lawful thing is even expedient, since it received the frailty of the flesh — which would otherwise rush into things forbidden and unlawful — with the honorableness of marriage, so as to hinder no one from salvation, although it would be more expedient and more honorable if the virgin should seize upon the counsel to which the precept does not compel her. But then the lawful thing is not expedient, when it is indeed permitted, but the use of that very power brings to others a hindrance to salvation. Such is — the thing of which we have now long been speaking — the departure of a faithful spouse from an unbelieving one, which the Lord does not forbid by a precept of law, because before him it is not unjust, but which the Apostle forbids by the counsel of charity, because it brings to unbelievers a hindrance to salvation:
not only because those who are offended are most perniciously scandalized, but also because, when they fall into other marriages while those live from whom they are dismissed, being bound by adulterous ties they are with the greatest difficulty loosed. Therefore here, where that which is lawful is not expedient, it cannot be said, 'If he dismisses the unbeliever, he does well; if he does not dismiss, he does better,' as it was said, 'He who gives in marriage does well; and he who does not give in marriage does better,' since there both are not only equally lawful — whence no one is compelled to any of these by a precept of the Lord — but also both are expedient, one less, the other more, whence to that which is more expedient whoever can grasp it is invited by the counsel of the Apostle.
But in this matter, where it is asked about dismissing or not dismissing an unbelieving spouse, both are indeed equally lawful by the justice that is before the Lord, and therefore the Lord forbids neither of these; but not both are expedient on account of the infirmities of men, and therefore the Apostle forbids that which is not expedient, the Lord giving him free room to forbid, since neither does the Lord forbid what the Apostle admonishes, nor does the Lord command what the Apostle forbids. And unless it were so, the Apostle would neither admonish anything against the Lord's prohibition, nor forbid anything against his command.
Accordingly, in these two cases — one concerning marrying or not marrying, the other concerning dismissing or not dismissing an unbelieving spouse — something is alike in the words of the Apostle, something unlike. Alike indeed is that which both there he says, 'I have no precept of the Lord, but I give counsel,' and here he says, 'I speak, not the Lord.' For what 'I have no precept of the Lord' is, such is 'the Lord does not say'; and what 'I give counsel' is, such is 'I speak.' But that is unlike, because concerning marrying and not marrying it can be said that this is done well, that better, since both are expedient, one less, the other more;
but concerning dismissing or not dismissing an unbelieving spouse, since one of these is not expedient, the other expedient, it ought not to be said, 'He who dismisses does well, and he who does not dismiss does better,' but it ought to be said, 'Let him not dismiss, because although it is lawful, it is not expedient.' Thus therefore we can say that it is better not to dismiss an unbelieving spouse, although it be also lawful to dismiss, just as we rightly say that that is better which is both lawful and expedient than that which is lawful but not expedient.
For these reasons it came about that, in expounding the Lord's discourse—that lengthy one which He delivered on the mountain—when I came to the question of dismissing or not dismissing spouses, having brought in the apostolic testimonies as well, I said that it was the advice of the Apostle and not a command of the Lord where he says: 'To the rest speak I, not the Lord,' admonishing those who had unbelieving spouses not to dismiss them if they consented to dwell with them. This surely had to be a matter of admonition, not of command, because men are not to be forbidden to do what is lawful, even though it be not expedient, with the same weight with which they are forbidden things unlawful. But if somewhere the Apostle even those things which are to be commanded...
...he deigned to admonish, he did this out of consideration for weakness, not out of any prejudice against the binding force of a command. Hence if he said, 'I write not these things to confound you, but as my dearest sons I admonish you,' what difficulty is there where he says, 'I speak, not the Lord'? Likewise where he says, 'Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing'—did he here too say, 'I speak, not the Lord'? These cases, therefore, are not alike, because even in those matters which the Lord commands it is neither unworthy nor contrary if the Apostle admonishes to the same effect. For we admonish those whom we hold dear to do the precepts or commands of the Lord. But when he says, 'I speak, not the Lord,' he sufficiently shows that the Lord does not forbid what he himself was forbidding;
but the Lord would have forbidden it, if it had been unlawful. Therefore, according to what we have long discussed and thoroughly examined above, it was lawful by way of justice, yet it was also lawful to be left undone out of free goodwill. But you, who hold that what the Lord does not forbid but the Apostle does is in this way not permitted, just as what the Lord forbids is not permitted—when you wished to explain what he meant by saying 'I speak, not the Lord,' since he was addressing the faithful who had unbelieving spouses, you said: 'Because the Lord commanded that marriages of differing religion should not be joined together to one another,' and you adduced this very testimony of the Lord who says:
'You shall not take a wife for your son from the daughters of foreigners, lest she draw him away after their gods and his soul perish.' You added also the words of the Apostle, where he said: 'The woman is bound as long as her husband lives; but if her husband be dead, she is set free; let her marry whom she will, only in the Lord.' This you expounded so as to add, 'that is, a Christian.' Then you went on and said: 'This, then, is the precept of the Lord both in the Old and in the New Testament, that only marriages of one religion and faith should remain joined to one another.'
If, then, this is the Lord's precept in the Old Testament as well as in the New, and the Lord commands this, and the Apostle teaches this—that only marriages of one religion and faith should remain joined—why, contrary to this command of the Lord, contrary to his own teaching, contrary to the precept of the Old and New Testament, does the Apostle command that marriages of differing faith should remain joined? 'Because,' you say, 'Paul, the preacher and apostle of the Gentiles, not only admonishes but also commands those already established in marriage, that if one of the spouses had come to believe, he should not dismiss the other, who does not believe but nevertheless consents to dwell with him.' By these words of yours you show plainly enough that the one thing is different from the other.
For the former concerns those marriages that are first being joined to one another, that a woman should not marry a man not of her religion, nor a man take such a woman to wife. This, as you say, God commands, the Apostle teaches, and both Testaments enjoin. But who would deny that this second matter is different, where the question is not of those to be joined but of those already joined? For both were of one and the same unbelief when they were joined; but when the Gospel came, the one without the other, or the other without the one, believed. If, then, this second case is a different thing—as appears without any scruple of doubt—why does not the Lord, like the Apostle, command that the believer remain in marriage with the unbeliever? Unless perchance in this place there is no force in what He Himself says so confidently:
'Do you wish to receive a proof of Him who speaks in me, Christ?' And Christ is surely the Lord. Do you understand what I am saying? Or shall I dwell somewhat more diligently upon explaining this? Attend, that we may set forth the matter itself in plainer speech, as something to be considered as though set before our eyes. Behold, two spouses of one unbelief; so they were when they were joined. There is no question about these that pertains to that command of the Lord, and to the apostolic teaching, and to the precept of the Old and New Testament, whereby the believer is forbidden to join marriage with the unbeliever. Now they are spouses and both are still unbelievers; they are still such as they were before they were joined, and such as they were when joined.
The preacher of the Gospel comes; one of them, either the man or the woman, believes, yet in such a way that the unbeliever consents to dwell with the believer. Does the Lord command the believer not to dismiss the unbeliever, or does He not command it? If you say 'He commands it,' the Apostle protests: 'I speak, not the Lord.' If you say 'He does not command it,' I ask the reason. And you will not give me that reason which you put in your letter: 'Because the Lord forbids the faithful to be joined to unbelievers.' For here that reason has no place at all; we are speaking of those already joined, not of those to be joined.
If, then, you have not found a reason why the Lord should not forbid what the Apostle forbids—for you now see, as I suppose, that it is not the same reason as the one you had supposed it to be—see whether perhaps it be that reason which has seemed good to me, both to be put forward then and to be defended now: namely, that we should understand the Lord to be saying what involves before Him a justice by no means to be transgressed, that is, He either commands or forbids in such a way that it is not at all lawful to do otherwise; but what He so leaves to the power of the willing person that it is neither done nor omitted unlawfully, He gives room to the counsel of His own servants, that they should rather persuade what they have seen to be expedient. Let this, then, be held first and above all, that unlawful things be not committed.
But where something is lawful in such a way that to do otherwise is not unlawful, let what is expedient be done (or what is more expedient). Those things, therefore, which the Lord says as Lord—that is, not by the counsel of one admonishing, but by the authority of one ruling—it is not lawful not to do, and therefore neither is it expedient. The Lord accordingly commanded that a wife should not depart from her husband; but if she departs (for that cause, of course, for which it is lawful to depart), she should remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. For a woman, while her husband lives, is bound by law to her married husband; and while her husband lives she shall be called an adulteress if she be with another man, since the woman is bound as long as her husband lives. Hence if a wife dismisses her husband and marries another, she commits adultery, and he who marries a woman dismissed by her husband commits adultery.
And therefore, by the same precept of the Lord, let the husband also not dismiss his wife, since he who dismisses his wife save for the cause of fornication makes her commit adultery. But if he has dismissed her for this cause, let him too remain thus; for everyone who dismisses his wife and marries another commits adultery. These ordinances of the Lord are to be kept without any retraction. For they have this justice which is before Him, whether men approve or disapprove. And therefore it ought not to be said, on account of men's offense, or lest men be hindered from that salvation which is in Christ, that they are not to be kept. For what Christian would dare to say: 'Lest I offend men, or that I may gain men for Christ, I will make my wife commit adultery, so that I myself may become an adulterer'?
For it can happen that, when a Christian has dismissed an adulterous wife, he is so tempted that some woman who has not yet believed, desiring to enter into marriage with him, promises that she will become a Christian—not deceitfully, but truly intending to do so if she marries him. To him, then, now refusing this marriage, that tempter may suggest: 'The Lord said, Whoever dismisses his wife save for the cause of fornication and marries another commits adultery; but you, who dismissed your wife for the cause of fornication, if you marry another, will not commit adultery.'
To one making such suggestions, let him with an instructed heart reply that, while indeed he who has dismissed his wife save for the cause of fornication and married another commits adultery more grievously, yet he too who, having dismissed a fornicating wife, has joined another to himself, does not therefore not commit adultery, merely because he leaves an adulteress: just as he who marries a woman dismissed save for the cause of fornication commits adultery; nor does he who marries a woman whom he finds to have been dismissed save for the cause of fornication therefore not commit adultery. And on this account, what was set down somewhat obscurely in Matthew—since the whole was signified by a part—has been expounded in the other Evangelists, who expressed the whole generally, as it is read in Mark:
'Whoever dismisses his wife and marries another commits adultery'; and in Luke: 'Everyone who dismisses his wife and marries another commits adultery.' For they did not say that some who dismiss their wives and marry others commit adultery, and others do not; but 'Whoever dismisses'—they said that absolutely everyone who dismisses his wife and marries another commits adultery, without any exception. But if that Christian should thus answer the tempter, understanding that it was indeed lawful for him to dismiss the adulteress, but not lawful to marry another, what then? What if that tempter says: 'Commit this sin, that you may gain a soul for Christ—the soul of a woman set in the death of unbelief, who is ready, if she marries you, to become a Christian'?
What else ought a Christian to answer to these things and to say, but that he cannot—if he did this—escape the judgment which the Apostle mentioned, where he says: 'And as some affirm that we say, Let us do evil, that good may come; whose condemnation is just'? And how could she be soundly made a Christian, who with the man by whom she is married would be an adulteress?
But not only must one not commit adultery—which not merely someone, but everyone who dismisses his wife and marries another does, even if he married for the sake of making her a Christian—but also whoever, not being bound to a wife, has vowed continence to God, ought in no way to sin by this compensation, so as to believe that a wife is to be married by him because she who seeks marriage with him has promised that she will become a Christian. For what was lawful for anyone before he had vowed, when he has vowed that he will never do it, will not be lawful;
provided, however, that he has vowed what ought to be vowed, such as perpetual virginity, or continence after marriage has been experienced, by those loosed from the marriage bond, or by faithful and chaste spouses who vow by mutual consent and release to one another the debts of the flesh—which it is not lawful for one to vow without the other. These things, then, and any others that are most rightly vowed, when men have vowed them, are on no condition to be broken, since they vowed them on no condition; for this too is to be understood as the Lord's precept, where it is read: 'Vow and pay to the Lord your God.'
Hence the Apostle, concerning certain women who vow continence and afterward wish to marry—which was surely lawful for them before they had vowed—says: 'having damnation, because they have made void their first faith.' Nothing, then, that is unlawful is expedient, and nothing that the Lord forbids is lawful. But in those matters which, with no precept of the Lord constraining, are left to one's own power, let the Apostle be heard admonishing and counseling in the Holy Spirit, that either the better things be embraced, or those things that are not expedient be avoided. There let him be heard saying: 'I have no commandment of the Lord, but I give counsel,' and: 'I speak, not the Lord.' There, if he who hears chooses the better things:
'Are you loosed from a wife? Seek not a wife'—since even if he takes a wife, he does not sin; there, let a virgin not marry; for he who gives not in marriage does better, and he who gives in marriage does well; there, let a woman be more blessed by so remaining, who, her husband being dead, has it in her power to marry whom she will, only in the Lord. This can be taken in two ways: either remaining a Christian, or marrying a Christian.
For I do not recall its having been declared without ambiguity, in the time of the revealed New Testament, either in the Gospel or in any apostolic writings, whether the Lord forbade the faithful to be joined to unbelievers—although the most blessed Cyprian does not doubt on this point, nor does he reckon among light sins the joining of the bond of matrimony with unbelievers, and says that this is to prostitute the members of Christ to the Gentiles. But since concerning those who are already joined there is a different question, let the Apostle here too be heard saying: 'If any brother has an unbelieving wife, and she consents to dwell with him, let him not dismiss her;'
and the woman who has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to dwell with her, let her not dismiss her husband. And let this be so heard that, although it be lawful to do it—since the Lord does not say this—yet let it not be done, because it is not expedient. For that not all things which are lawful are expedient, the Apostle most plainly teaches, as we have already shown above. Yet on account of any kind of fornication whatsoever, whether of flesh or of spirit—where unbelief too is understood—both the husband being dismissed it is not lawful for the wife to marry another, and the wife being dismissed it is not lawful to marry another, since the Lord says, with no exception made: 'If a wife dismisses her husband and marries another, she commits adultery,' and: 'Everyone who dismisses his wife and marries another commits adultery.'
Having treated and discussed these matters according to my small measure, I am nevertheless not unaware that the question concerning marriages is most obscure and most intricate. Nor do I dare to profess that I have as yet unraveled all its recesses, whether in this work or in another, or that I am even now able, if pressed, to unravel them. But as for that matter on which you think I should be consulted in another paper, I too would take care to disentangle it separately, if it seemed otherwise to me than it did to you; but since our opinion is the same, there is no need to dispute further on this point.