1 Corinthians 7:14

Adversus autem alterurn genus hæreticorum, qui speciose per continentiam impie se gerunt, tum in creaturam, tum in sanctum Opificem, qui est solus Deus omnipotens; et dicunt non esse admittendum matrimonium et liberorum procreationem, nec in mundum esse inducendos alios infelices futuros, nec suppeditandum morti nutrimenturn, hæc sunt opponenda: primum quidem illud Joannis: “Et nunc antichristi multifacti sunt, unde scimus quod novissima hora est. Ex nobis exierunt, sed non erant ex nobis. Nam si fuissent ex nobis, permansissent utique nobiscum.” Deinde sunt etiam evertendi, et dissolvenda, quæ ab eis afferuntur, hoc modo: “Salomæ interroganti, quousque vigebit mors,” non quasi vita esset mala, et mala creatura, “Dominus, Quoadusque, inquit, vos mulieres paritis,” sed quasi naturalem docens consequentiam: ortum enim omnino sequitur interitus. …

Quod autem “ex consensu ad tempus orationi vacat” conjugium, doctrina est continentiæ. Adjecit enim illud quidem, “ex consensu,” ne quis dissolveret matrimonium; “ad tempus autem,” ne, dum ex necessitate exercet continentiam is, qui uxorem duxerit, labatur in peccatum, et dum suo conjugio parcit, alienum concupiscat. Qua ratione eum, qui se indecore getere existimat, quod virginem alat, recte cam dicit esse nuptum damrum. Verum unusquisque, tam is qui castitatem, delegit, quam is qui propter liberorum procreationem seipsum conjunxit matrimonio, in suo proposito firmiter debet perseverare, nec in deterius deflectere. Si enim vitæ suæ instimtum augere ac intendere porefit, majorem sibi apud Deum acquirit dignitatem, propter puram et ex ratione profectam continentiam. Si autem eam, quam elegit, regulam superaverit, in majorem deinde ad spem gloriam recidet. …

Justitiam ergo et salutis harmoniam, quæ est veneranda firmaque, alii quidem, ut ostendimus, nimium intenderunt, blaspheme ac maledice cure quavis impietate suscipientes continentiam; cure pie liceret castitatem, qu secundum sanam regulam instituitur, eligere; gratias quidem agendo propter datam ipsis gratiam, non habendo antem odio creatumm, neque eos aspernando, qui juncti sunt matrimonio; est enim creatus mundus, cream est etiam castitas; ambo autem agant gratias in iis, in quibus sunt collocati, si modo ea quoque norunt, in quibus sunt collocati. …

All these endowments of the soul which are bestowed on it at birth are still obscured and depraved by the malignant being who, in the beginning, regarded them with envious eye, so that they are never seen in their spontaneous action, nor are they administered as they ought to be. For to what individual of the human race will not the evil spirit cleave, ready to entrap their souls from the very portal of their birth, at which he is invited to be present in all those superstitious processes which accompany childbearing? Thus it comes to pass that all men are brought to the birth with idolatry for the midwife, whilst the very wombs that bear them, still bound with the fillets that have been wreathed before the idols, declare their offspring to be consecrated to demons: for in parturition they invoke the aid of Lucina and Diana; for a whole week a table is spread in honour of Juno; on the la …

“And the hidden things of darkness He will Himself bring to light,” even by Christ; for He has promised Christ to be a Light, and Himself He has declared to be a lamp, “searching the hearts and reins.” From Him also shall “praise be had by every man,” from whom proceeds, as from a judge, the opposite also of praise. But here, at least, you say he interprets the world to be the God thereof, when he says: “We are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men.” For if by world he had meant the people thereof, he would not have afterwards specially mentioned “ men .” To prevent, however, your using such an argument as this, the Holy Ghost has providentially explained the meaning of the passage thus: “We are made a spectacle to the world,” i.e. “both to angels ,” who minister therein, “and to men ,” who are the objects of their ministration. …

Chapter II. Of the Apostle’s Meaning in 1 Cor. VII. 12-14 .

Therefore, when in these days a certain woman removed her marriage from the pale of the Church, and united herself to a Gentile, and when I remembered that this had in days gone by been done by others: wondering at either their own waywardness or else the double-dealing of their advisers, in that there is no scripture which holds forth a licence of this deed, “I wonder,” said I, “whether they flatter themselves on the ground of that passage of the first (Epistle) to the Corinthians, where it is written: If any of the brethren has an unbelieving wife, and she consents to the matrimony, let him not dismiss her; similarly, let not a believing woman, married to an unbeliever, if she finds her husband agreeable (to their continued union), dismiss him: for the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife, and the unbelieving wife by the believing husband; else were your children unc …

4. For if the Apostle Paul did not speak the truth when, finding fault with the Apostle Peter, he said: “If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?”, if, indeed, Peter seemed to him to be doing what was right, and if, notwithstanding, he, in order to soothe troublesome opponents, both said and wrote that Peter did what was wrong; if we say thus, what then shall be our answer when perverse men such as he himself prophetically described arise, forbidding marriage, if they defend themselves by saying that, in all which the same apostle wrote in confirmation of the lawfulness of marriage, he was, on account of men who, through love for their wives, might become troublesome opponents, declaring what was false, saying these things, forsooth, not because he believed them, but because their oppositio …

13. What therefore he says, “She, that is unmarried, thinketh of the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and spirit;” we are not to take in such sense, as to think that a chaste Christian wife is not holy in body. Forsooth unto all the faithful it was said, “Know ye not that your bodies are a temple of the Holy Ghost within you, Whom ye have from God?” Therefore the bodies also of the married are holy, so long as they keep faith to one another and to God. …

79. Has the apostle, think you, both shown sufficiently to the strong what is highest, and permitted to the weaker what is next best? Not to touch a woman he shows is highest when he says, "I would that all men were even as I myself." But next to this highest is conjugal chastity, that man may not be the prey of fornication. Did he say that these people were not yet believers because they were married? Indeed, by this conjugal chastity he says that those who are united are sanctified by one another, if one of them is an unbeliever, and that their children also are sanctified. "The unbelieving husband," he says, "is sanctified by the believing wife, and the unbelieving woman by the believing husband: otherwise your children would be unclean; but now are they holy." Why do you persist in opposition to such plain truth? Why do you try to darken the light of Scripture by vain shadows?

The apostle indeed says, “ Else were your children unclean , but now are they holy ;” and “therefore” they infer “there was no necessity for the children of believers to be baptized.” I am surprised at the use of such language by persons who deny that original sin has been transmitted from Adam. For, if they take this passage of the apostle to mean that the children of believers are born in a state of holiness, how is it that even they have no doubt about the necessity of their being baptized? Why, in fine, do they refuse to admit that any original sin is derived from a sinful parent, if some holiness is received from a holy parent? Now it certainly does not contravene our assertion, even if from the faithful “holy” children are propagated, when we hold that unless they are baptized those go into damnation, to whom our opponents themselves shut the kingdom of heaven, although they insist …

Our opinions on this point are strictly in unison with the apostle’s himself, who said, “From one all to condemnation,” and “from one all to justification of life.” Now how consistent these statements are with what he elsewhere says, when treating of another point, “Else were your children unclean, but now are they holy,” consider a while. [XXVI.] Sanctification is not of merely one measure; for even catechumens, I take it, are sanctified in their own measure by the sign of Christ, and the prayer of imposition of hands; and what they receive is holy, although it is not the body of Christ, holier than any food which constitutes our ordinary nourishment, because it is a sacrament. …