Miscellanies 3.12.81

I think it is Tatian the Syrian who dares to teach such things. He writes, at any rate, word for word in his work On Perfection according to the Savior: “Agreement fits prayer, but fellowship in corruption breaks off intercession. By the permission, at any rate, he forbids very shamingly; for in permitting them to come together again because of Satan and lack of self-control, he declared that the one who would comply was going to serve two masters: God through agreement, and through disagreement lack of self-control, sexual immorality, and the devil.” He says this in explaining the apostle; but he sophistically twists the truth, constructing a lie by means of a truth. For we too confess that lack of self-control and sexual immorality are devilish passions; but agreement mediates self-restrained marriage, leading with self-control to prayer and, with reverence, joining in marriage for the begetting of children. Indeed Scripture has called the time for begetting children “knowledge,” when it says: “And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore a son, and called his name Seth: ‘For God has raised up for me another seed in place of Abel.’” Do you see whom those blaspheme who loathe the self-restrained sowing of seed and attribute birth to the devil? For the one who used the article before it did not say “a god” simply, but showed that he meant the Almighty.