To catechumens, therefore, who are set in the last extremity of this life, if by sickness or by some mishap they are so overcome that, although they still live, they nevertheless cannot ask baptism for themselves or answer the questions put to them, let it profit them that their will, being already known through their Christian faith, is manifest, so that they may be baptized in the same manner as infants are baptized, whose will has as yet appeared not at all. Yet we ought not on that account to condemn those who act more timidly than it seems to us they ought to act, lest we be judged to have wished to pass judgment more rashly than cautiously concerning the money entrusted to a fellow servant. For in such cases that saying of the Apostle is much to be regarded, where he says: 'Each one of us shall give account of himself to God. Let us not therefore judge one another any more.'
For there are those who think that in these matters, or even in others, that must be observed which we read the Lord to have said: 'Do not give what is holy to dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine.' And, revering these words of the Savior, they do not dare to baptize those who could not answer for themselves, lest perchance they act contrary to their will's choice. But this cannot be said of little children, in whom there is as yet no use of reason.
But not only is it incredible that a catechumen should not wish to be baptized even at the end of this life, but also, if his will is uncertain, it is far better to give to one unwilling than to deny to one willing, where whether he wills or is unwilling does not so appear, that yet it is more credible that he, if he could, would rather have said that he wished to receive those sacraments, without which he has already believed that he ought not to depart from the body. But if the Lord, where He says 'Do not give what is holy to dogs,' had wished this to be understood which these men think must be guarded against, He would not Himself have given to His own betrayer that which he, unworthy among the worthy, received to his own ruin, without fault of the giver.
Hence, when the Lord said this, we must believe that He wished to signify that unclean hearts do not bear the light of spiritual understanding. And if a teacher forces upon them things to be borne which they do not rightly receive—because they do not grasp them—they either tear them with the bites of censure or trample them by contempt. For if the blessed Apostle says that he gave milk, not solid food, even to those already reborn in Christ but still little ones—'for you were not yet able,' he says, 'nor indeed are you even now able'—if, finally, the Lord Himself said to His chosen apostles, 'I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now,' how much less can the unclean minds of the impious endure whatever is said about the incorporeal light!
But that our discourse may rather be brought to a close upon that from which it took its beginning: I think that not only other catechumens, but even those very persons who, joined to the marriages of living spouses, retain adulterous unions—though while sound in body we do not admit them to baptism—yet, if they lie in despair of life and cannot answer for themselves, are to be baptized, so that this sin too, along with the rest, may be washed away by the laver of regeneration. For who knows whether perhaps they had resolved to be held back by the enticement of adulterous flesh only until baptism? But if, recovered from that despair, they should be able to live, they will either do what they had resolved, or, being instructed, will obey, or of the contemners will come to pass what ought also to come to pass concerning such as have been baptized.
But the same cause which pertains to baptism pertains also to reconciliation, if perchance the danger of life's ending should forestall a penitent. For Mother Church ought not to wish even these to depart from this life without the pledge of her peace. THE SECOND BOOK. To those things which you had written to me, devout brother Pollentius, I had already written back no small volume concerning those who are joined to others while their own spouses are living. And when this became known to your affection, you added certain things to your little book, desiring that I should reply to these also.
But when I was arranging to do this, adding also myself to my own work, so that even my reply might be one single book, suddenly that was published which I had first completed, at the demand of the brethren who did not know that something was yet to be added. Hence it came about that I was compelled to reply to the things you added in another separate little work. But the things you added were not joined to the end of your little book; rather, they were inserted where it seemed good, into the body of it. The first of these is this—to which indeed I think I ought to reply—that in these words of the Apostle, where he says: 'To the rest speak I, not the Lord,' let the woman not depart from her husband;
'but if she departs, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband'—you do not think it was so said, 'if she departs,' that she should be understood to have departed from a fornicating husband, which is the only cause for which it is lawful to depart; but you rather suppose that it was said of a chaste husband, and that therefore she is commanded to remain unmarried so that she may be reconciled to him, if he should be unwilling to continue in continence, lest she, not being reconciled, should drive her husband to fornicate—that is, to take another while she lives. But if she departs from a fornicating husband, you think she is not commanded to remain unmarried, but that she does this if she wishes to be continent, not so as to be found a violator of the precept if she marries. This form seems to you to be observed also on the husband's part, that he should not dismiss his wife except for the cause of fornication;
but if he dismisses her, let him remain without a spouse, so that he may be reconciled to his chaste wife, unless perchance she should choose continence, lest, refusing reconciliation with his chaste wife, he himself should force her to commit adultery, if, not being continent, she should marry another while he lives. But if he has been separated from a fornicating wife, you think that he is now held by no precept to be continent, nor that he commits adultery at all if, while she lives, he marries another—since, as the same Apostle says: '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'—you think this is to be understood in such a way that, if the husband has fornicated, he should be reckoned as dead, and the wife as dead, and therefore it should be lawful for either of them, as after death so after fornication, to be joined to another. Having considered these your views, I ask of you whether whoever marries a woman who has ceased to be bound to her husband is to be held an adulterer. This, I think, does not seem so to you. For a woman, while her husband lives, shall be called an adulteress if she be with another man, because the woman is bound as long as her husband lives; but if she did not have this bond while her husband lived, she would marry another without any crime of adultery.
Accordingly, if she is bound as long as her husband lives, she can in no way be said to be loosed from this bond except when her husband is dead. Further, if by the death of either of them the bond between husband and wife is loosed, and fornication too is to be reckoned as death, as you say, then without doubt the woman also will be loosed from this bond when she has fornicated. For neither could she be said to be bound to her husband when the husband has been loosed from her. And thereby, after she has by fornicating ceased to be bound to her husband, whoever marries her will not be an adulterer. And see how absurd it is, that he should therefore not be an adulterer because he married an adulteress. Nay rather—what is more monstrous—not even the woman herself will be an adulteress, since she will not be another's wife to the later husband, but his own.
For the prior conjugal bond being loosed through adultery, to whomever she now marries she will be, not an adulteress with an adulterer, but rather a wife with a husband, since he has no other wife. How, then, will it be true: 'The woman is bound as long as her husband lives'? Behold, her husband lives, for he has neither departed from the body nor fornicated—which you wish to reckon as death—and yet the woman is no longer bound to him. Do you not observe how contrary this is to the Apostle who says: 'The woman is bound as long as her husband lives'? Or will you perhaps say: 'He lives indeed, but he is no longer her husband, since he ceased to be so when she loosed the conjugal bond through adultery'? How then, while her husband lives, shall she be called an adulteress if she be with another man?
seeing that he is now no longer her husband, the conjugal bond having already been loosed through the woman's adultery. For while whose husband is living, save her own, shall she be called an adulteress if she be with another man? But if he has now ceased to be her husband, she will certainly not be called an adulteress while her husband lives if she be with another man, but, having no husband, she will by marrying be with her own husband. Do you not perceive how he who thinks this thinks contrary to the Apostle? This indeed you do not yourself think, but it follows from those things which you do think. Change, therefore, the antecedents, if you wish to guard against the consequents, and do not say that in this place the dead husband, or the dead wife, ought to be understood also of the fornicating one.
Wherefore, according to sound doctrine, the woman is bound as long as her husband lives, that is, has not yet departed from the body; for a woman is bound by law to her living married husband, that is, to one established in the body. But if he is dead, that is, has gone forth from the body, she is released from the law of her husband. Therefore, while her husband lives, she shall be called an adulteress if she be with another man; but if her husband be dead, she is freed from the law, so that she is not an adulteress if she be with another man. These words of the Apostle, so often repeated, so often inculcated, are true, are living, are sound, are plain. A woman does not begin to be the wife of any later husband unless she has ceased to be the wife of the former. But she will cease to be the wife of the former if her husband dies, not if he fornicates.
Lawfully, therefore, a spouse is dismissed for the cause of fornication; but the bond of chastity remains, on account of which he becomes guilty of adultery who marries her who has been dismissed even for this cause of fornication. For just as, the sacrament of regeneration remaining in him, one guilty of any crime is excommunicated, nor does he lack that sacrament, even though he be never reconciled to God, so, the bond of the conjugal covenant remaining in her, a wife is dismissed for the cause of fornication, nor will she lack that bond, even though she be never reconciled to her husband; but she will lack it if her husband dies. But the excommunicated guilty man will for this reason never lack the sacrament of regeneration even though not reconciled, because God never dies.
It remains, therefore, that if we wish to be wise according to the Apostle, we should not say that an adulterous husband is to be reckoned as dead, and that therefore it is lawful for his wife to marry another. For although adultery is a death—not of the body, but, what is worse, of the soul—yet the Apostle was not speaking of this death either, when he said:
'but if her husband be dead, let her marry whom she will'—but of that death alone by which one departs from the body. For if the conjugal bond is loosed through the adultery of a spouse, that perversity follows which I have shown must be guarded against: namely, that the woman too is loosed from this bond through unchastity; and if she is loosed, she will be free from the law of her husband, and therefore—which is most foolishly said—she will not be an adulteress if she be with another man, because through adultery she has been set free from her former husband. But if this is so deviant from the truth that no sense—I do not say Christian, but human—admits it, then assuredly the woman is bound as long as her husband lives, which, that I may say it more openly, means as long as her husband is in the body.
By a like form, then, the husband too is bound as long as his wife is in the body. Hence if he wishes to dismiss an adulteress, let him not marry another, lest he himself commit that which he blames in her. Likewise the woman also, if she dismisses an adulterer, let her not join another to herself; for she is bound as long as her husband lives, nor is she freed from the law of her husband save when he is dead, so that she is not an adulteress if she be with another man. But as for what seems hard to you—that after adultery a spouse should be reconciled to a spouse—if faith be present, it will not be hard. For why do we still reckon as adulterers those whom we believe to have been either washed by baptism or healed by penitence? These crimes were cleansed by no sacrifices under the old law of God, which are without doubt cleansed by the blood of the New Testament;
And therefore, in that former time it was in every way forbidden to take back a wife once defiled by another man — although David, as a foreshadower of the New Testament, without hesitation took back Saul's daughter, whom her own father had separated from him and given to another. But now, after Christ said to the adulteress, 'Neither will I condemn thee; go, and from now on sin no more,' who does not understand that a husband ought to forgive what he sees the Lord of them both to have forgiven, and that he ought no longer to call her an adulteress whose sin, when she repents, he believes to have been blotted out by the divine mercy?
But at this the mind of unbelievers of course shudders, so that some of little faith — or rather enemies of the true faith — fearing, I suppose, that impunity for sinning would be granted to their wives, removed from their own codices that which the Lord did concerning the pardon of the adulteress, as though He who said, 'Now from henceforth sin no more,' had granted permission to sin; or as though the woman ought not to have been healed of that sin by God the physician through its remission, lest the mad take offense. For those to whom that deed of the Lord displeases are not themselves chaste, nor does chastity make them severe; rather they belong to that number of men to whom the Lord says, 'Whoever of you is without sin, let him first cast a stone at her.'
Except that those men, stricken in conscience, withdrew, and ceased to tempt Christ and to persecute the adulteress; whereas these men both reproach the physician though they are sick, and rage as adulterers against adulteresses. If it were said to them — not what those others heard, 'He that is without sin' (for who is without sin?), but rather, 'He that is without this sin, let him first cast a stone at her' — then perhaps those who were indignant that they had not killed the adulteress might reflect how great a mercy of God spared them, that they, being adulterers, should live. But when we say these things to them, not only do they refuse to take anything away from their severity, but they are moreover angered at the truth, and speak and answer: 'But we are men.'
'Or shall the dignity of our sex endure this injury, that, when we commit anything with other women besides our own wives, we should be put on a level with women in paying the penalties?' As though they ought not the more manfully to bridle unlawful desires, precisely because they are men; as though they ought not the more to offer themselves to their wives as an example of this virtue, precisely because they are men; as though they ought not the less to be overcome by lust, precisely because they are men;
as though they ought not the less to be slaves to wanton flesh, precisely because they are men — and yet they are indignant if they hear that adulterous husbands pay penalties like those of adulterous women, whereas they ought to be punished so much the more gravely, the more it belongs to them both to conquer by virtue and to govern women by example. I speak indeed to Christians, who faithfully hear, 'The man is the head of the woman,' where they recognize themselves to be leaders and those women to be their companions. And therefore a man must beware of walking in his living by that path along which he fears his wife may follow by imitation.
But as for these men, to whom it is displeasing that an equal standard of chastity be preserved between husband and wife, and who choose rather — especially in this matter — to be subject to the laws of the world than to those of Christ, since the laws of the courts do not seem to bind men by the same bonds of chastity as they bind women: let them read what the emperor Antoninus, no Christian at all, decreed about this matter, where a husband is not permitted to accuse his wife of the crime of adultery when by his own conduct he has offered her no example of chastity — so that both should be condemned, if the trial itself convicted both alike of being unchaste. For these are the words of the aforesaid emperor, which are read in the Gregorian Code: 'Assuredly,' he says, 'my letter shall in no part prejudge the case.'
'For if the fault was on your side, that the marriage was dissolved and that, according to the Julian law, Eupasia your wife should remarry, she shall not on that account be condemned of adultery by my rescript, unless it be established that it was committed. But they shall have before their eyes to inquire this: whether, when you were living chastely, you were also to her an author of cultivating good morals. For it seems to me most unjust that a man should exact chastity from his wife which he himself does not display.' This ruling can even condemn the man — not, by way of compensating a mutual crime, to compose the matter between them both or to remove the ground of the deed. If these things are to be observed for the honor of the earthly city, how much more chaste are those whom the heavenly homeland and the fellowship of the angels seek!
Since these things are so, is the unchastity of men on that account any less — and not rather greater and worse — than there is in them a proud and licentious boasting? Let men not shudder, then, that Christ pardoned the adulteress; but rather let them recognize their own peril too, and, laboring under a like disease, let them flee for refuge with suppliant piety to the same Savior; and let them confess that what they read was done in her case is necessary for themselves as well; let them receive the medicine for their adulteries, let them cease at last to commit adultery, let them praise God's patience toward them, let them do penance, let them take pardon, let them change their sentence concerning the punishment of women and concerning their own impunity.
When these things have been considered and treated, if the common condition, the common evil, the common peril, the common wound, the common salvation be faithfully and humbly pondered, the reconciliation of spouses will be neither shameful nor difficult, even after adulteries have been committed and purged, where through the keys of the kingdom of heaven the remission of sins is not doubted to take place — not that after the husband's divorce an adulteress be recalled, but that after fellowship with Christ she be no longer called an adulteress. But behold, suppose it is not done; no one compels it, because perhaps some law of this age forbids it after the manner of the earthly city, where no abolition of crimes through the holy Blood has been conceived. Let continence then be undertaken, which no law forbids; let there be no going off into other adulteries.
And what is it to us, if the adulteress, even cleansed by the divine mercy, be not reconciled to her husband — provided only that, the adulterers not being reconciled, there be not formed as it were other marriages, which are proved to be adulteries? For the woman is bound as long as her husband lives. Consequently, then, the man too is bound as long as his wife lives. This binding brings it about that they cannot be joined to others without an adulterous union. Hence it is necessary that of two spouses four adulterers be made, if both she marries another and he takes an adulteress.
For although he sins the more wickedly who, having dismissed his wife not for the cause of fornication, takes another — which kind of adultery Matthew recorded — yet not only does he himself commit adultery, but, as it is in Mark, 'Whoever shall dismiss his wife and marry another commits adultery against her; and if a wife shall dismiss her husband and marry another, she commits adultery'; and, as it is in Luke, 'Everyone who dismisses his wife and marries another commits adultery; and he who marries her that is dismissed by her husband commits adultery.' Concerning which testimonies I have discoursed sufficiently in the earlier book. But you answer me: 'To live continently belongs to few.'
'And therefore those who have dismissed fornicating spouses, since they cannot be reconciled, see themselves in such peril that they pronounce the law of Christ not human but deadly.' O brother, as far as the incontinent are concerned, they can have many complaints, by which, as you say, they pronounce the law of Christ deadly, not human. And yet we ought not on their account to pervert or change the Gospel of Christ. Only the complaint of those would move you who dismiss spouses with the intervening cause of fornication, if they are not allowed to marry others, since to be continent belongs to few, and to that end they ought to be exhorted with praise, not compelled by law.
And so, if the dismissed adulteress is not to be followed by taking another wife, the incontinence of men will have, as you think, a just complaint. But observe how many are the cases in which, if we were willing to admit the complaints of the incontinent, it would be necessary for us to permit adulteries to be committed. What then? For suppose a spouse be held by some long-lasting and incurable disease of the body, whereby intercourse is prevented? What then? If captivity or some force separate them, so that the husband knows his wife to be living, whose company is denied him — do you think the murmurings of the incontinent are to be admitted, and adulteries to be permitted?
What of this very matter, about which the Lord was questioned and answered that it ought not to be done, but that on account of the hardness of their heart Moses permitted a bill of divorce to be given and a spouse to be dismissed for any cause whatever? Does not the law of Christ displease the incontinent, who wish, by interposing a divorce, to cast away quarrelsome, injurious, imperious, disdainful wives, and those most difficult in rendering the conjugal debt, and to take others? Now then, because the incontinence of these men has shuddered at the law of Christ, is the law of Christ to be altered at their pleasure?
Now indeed, if a wife should leave her husband, or a husband his wife, not for the cause of fornication but rather for the sake of continence, and the one for whom the divorce is given on this account is incontinent, I ask whether he or she will not be an adulterer or adulteress, if joined to another. If it be said 'he will not be,' the Lord is contradicted, whose words these are: 'It was said, Whoever shall dismiss his wife, let him give her a bill of divorce. But I say to you that everyone who shall dismiss his wife, excepting the cause of fornication, makes her to commit adultery; and he who marries her that is dismissed commits adultery.' Behold, she was dismissed, she did not dismiss; and because to be continent belongs to few, she gave way to incontinence and married; and yet the adulterer took an adulteress.
Both are guilty, both are to be condemned — both she who married while her husband lives, and he who married her whose husband lives. Do we here call the law of Christ inhuman, by which a woman is made guilty of so great a crime and is punished — a woman whom her husband dismissed with no fornication of hers preceding, and, because to be continent belongs to few, by dismissing her compelled her to marry? Why do we not here say that he is to be held as dead, who by wrongly dismissing her first broke the conjugal bond? For by what reasoning are you going to say that the man broke the conjugal bond who, though he be an adulterer, did not dismiss his wife, and that the man did not break it who dismissed even a chaste wife?
But I say that in both cases this bond remains, since the woman is bound as long as her husband lives, whether he be continent or an adulterer; and therefore she who, being dismissed, marries commits adultery, and he who marries a dismissed woman commits adultery, whether she was dismissed by an adulterer or by a continent man, since the woman is bound as long as her husband lives. But now we are disputing about the complaints of the incontinent. For what seems more just than the complaint of this woman who says: 'I was dismissed, I did not dismiss; and because to be continent belongs to few, I did not contain myself; lest I fornicate, I married; and am I called an adulteress because I married?' Shall we, on account of her seemingly just complaint, decide that the divine law must be changed, so as not to judge her an adulteress? God forbid.
But you will answer that she ought not to have been dismissed, because no cause of fornication had preceded. You speak truly; for the Lord expressed the sin of her husband, where He says, 'He who dismisses his wife, excepting the cause of fornication, makes her to commit adultery.' But did she therefore afterward not sin by marrying, because he first sinned by dismissing? What then does it profit her, that as an incontinent woman she complains of the law of Christ, save that, murmuring, she is punished? Now let us also consider those points which, inserting them in another place, you added and wished me to answer.
There you are moved and pity the man who is compelled to lie with an adulteress — if not by incontinence, at least by the necessity of procreating children — if he is not permitted to dismiss her in such a way as to take another while she lives. Whence you would be rightly moved, if it were not adultery to take another wife while an adulterous wife lives. But if it is adultery, as the things that have been argued have taught, what is put forward on account of the procreation of children? For licentiousness in scandalous deeds is not therefore to be permitted. Or is it as much to be avoided to die without posterity as it is to be chosen to live in the age to come? — which adulterers shall not be allowed, who must, after the first death, be condemned to the eternity of the second death.
For this pretext of procreating children compels even non-adulterous but most chaste women, if perchance they be barren, to be dismissed and others to be taken — which I think does not please you. Wherefore, if adulteries are not to be excused for the cause of incontinence, how much less are they excused for the cause of procreating children! For it was to that infirmity, that is, to incontinence, that the Apostle wished to give aid by the honorableness of marriage. For he does not say, 'If he has no children, let him marry,' but, 'If he cannot contain himself, let him marry.' By the propagation of children indeed is compensated that which by marrying is conceded to incontinence. For incontinence is assuredly a vice, but marriage is not a vice; and therefore through this it becomes a good, so that that is a venial evil.
Since, therefore, marriage was instituted for the cause of begetting, for that cause it was practiced by the patriarchs, who joined with women only for the office of begetting, yet not unlawfully. For there was then a certain necessity of propagation, which now there is not, since there is 'a time to embrace,' as it is written — which then indeed there was — and 'a time to refrain from embracing,' which is now. Speaking of which time the Apostle says: 'For the rest, brethren, the time is short; it remains that they also who have wives be as though they had none.' Whence now it is most certainly said, 'Let him who can receive it, receive it; but let her who does not contain herself, marry.' Then, therefore, even continence descended into marriage for the sake of the propagation of children, as an office;
but now the marriage bond gives aid to the vice of incontinence, so that from those who do not contain themselves the propagation of children may come about, not through the baseness of debauchery, but through the honorableness of wedlock. Why then did the Apostle not say, 'If he has no children, let him marry'? Because, forsooth, in this time of refraining from embrace it is not necessary to propagate children. And why did he say, 'If he cannot contain himself, let him marry'? Assuredly for this reason, lest through incontinence he be driven to commit adultery. If, then, he contains himself, let him neither marry nor beget; but if he does not contain himself, let him lawfully marry, lest he beget basely, or, by more basely lying together, not beget. Although this last which I have said, some do even while lawfully married.