On Monogamy

Contents

Reading pages: 1–9 · 10–16

1. 1Tertullian sets the New Prophecy's rule of one marriage between heretics who forbid marriage and the “psychics” who allow remarriage.
2. 2Tertullian defends the New Prophecy's discipline: Jesus promised that the Spirit would later teach new and hard things, and a true revelation of the Paraclete can be recognized by its agreement with the rule of faith.
3. 3One marriage is not a new rule: Christ and Paul already preferred continence and allowed marriage only as a concession, so the Paraclete, far from innovating, spares our weakness by not demanding complete continence.
4. 4From creation onward Scripture shows monogamy: one woman from one rib, “two into one flesh,” only the accursed Lamech with two wives, and Noah's family and even the animals in the ark by pairs.
5. 5Christ calls all things back to the beginning, including one indissoluble marriage; Christ himself was unmarried in the flesh and has one bride, the church, so Christians owe him at least monogamy.
6. 6Those who appeal to Abraham's two wives must remember that Christians are Abraham's children through the faith he had while uncircumcised and married once; the better examples of Joseph, Moses, Aaron, and Joshua point to monogamy.
7. 7The law of levirate marriage served reasons that have now ceased; the law's rules for priests, which forbade them to remarry, apply to Christians, whom Christ has made priests.
8. 8The Gospel opens with examples of monogamy and continence (Zechariah, John the Baptist, Mary, Simeon, Anna, Peter), and Christ's own teaching and example point the same way.
9. 9As man may not separate by divorce those whom God joined, so he may not join by marriage those whom God has separated by death; any union with another after the first is adultery.
10. 10A widow is even more bound to her dead husband than a divorced wife to hers: she prays and offers for him, will rise with him, and to take another man would divide her heart between two husbands.
11. 11Tertullian argues that Paul's permission for a widow to marry “in the Lord” (1 Cor 7:39) applies only to someone widowed before coming to faith, not to Christians who lose a spouse.
12. 12Against the claim that monogamy binds only the clergy: the clergy are chosen from the laity, and if monogamy were for bishops alone, so would be all the other virtues Paul lists with it.
13. 13Paul's advice that young widows remarry concerns those who could not keep a vow of widowhood; and Romans 7 frees a widow to remarry only under the law, from which Christians have died.
14. 14Paul's leave to remarry was a temporary concession like Moses' leave to divorce; as Christ removed divorce, the Paraclete now removes second marriage, and those who will not accept it must answer for their own choice.
15. 15Refusing second marriage is not heresy, since marriage itself is not forbidden; and those who excommunicate Christians who denied the faith under torture should not excuse remarriage as mere weakness of the flesh.
16. 16Remarriage is not weakness but appetite; Christians who remarry for support, company, or heirs will be judged at the end by the continence of saints and even of pagans, and should at least follow the first Adam, who married once.