Proverbs 19:14

XIV . On whose account also we, who are now assembled in one place, Peter and Andrew ; James and John , sons of Zebedee; Philip and Bartholomew ; Thomas and Matthew ; James the son of Alphæus, and Lebbæus who is surnamed Thaddæus ; and Simon the Canaanite, and Matthias , who instead of Judas was numbered with us; and James the brother of the Lord and bishop of Jerusalem, and Paul the teacher of the Gentiles, the chosen vessel, having all met together, have written to you this Catholic doctrine for the confirmation of you, to whom the oversight of the universal Church is committed: wherein we declare unto you, that there is only one God Almighty, besides whom there is no other, and that you must worship and adore Him alone, through Jesus Christ our Lord, in the most holy Spirit; that you are to make use of the sacred Scriptures, the law, and the prophets; to honour your parents; to avoid …

XXVIII . But we do not say so of that mixture that is contrary to nature, or of any unlawful practice; for such are enmity to God. For the sin of Sodom is contrary to nature, as is also that with brute beasts. But adultery and fornication are against the law; the one whereof is impiety, the other injustice, and, in a word, no other than a great sin. But neither sort of them is without its punishment in its own proper nature. For the practisers of one sort attempt the dissolution of the world, and endeavour to make the natural course of things to change for one that is unnatural; but those of the second sort, the adulterers, are unjust by corrupting others’ marriages, and dividing into two what God hath made one, rendering the children suspected, and exposing the true husband to the snares of others. …

And He called them, indeed, “an evil generation,” because of the quality arising from evil which had been produced in them, for wickedness is voluntary evil-doing, but “adulterous” because that when the Pharisees and Sadducees left that which is figuratively called man, the word of truth or the law, they were debauched by falsehood and the law of sin. For if there are two laws, the law in our members warring against the law of the mind, and the law of the mind, we must say that the law of the mind, that is, the spiritual, is man, to whom the soul was given by God as wife, that is, to the man who is law, according to what is written, “A wife is married to a man by God;” but the other is a paramour of the soul which is subject to it, which also on account of it is called an adulteress. …

“ Again I say unto you that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them. ” The word symphony is strictly applied to the harmonies of sounds in music. And there are indeed among musical sounds some accordant and others discordant. But the Evangelic Scripture is familiar with the name as applied to musical matters in the passage, “He heard a symphony and dancing.” For it was fitting that when the son who had been lost and found came by penitence into concord with his father a symphony should be heard on the occasion of the joyous mirth of the house. …

“For there is no power,” he says, “but of God.” What say you? it may be said; is every ruler then elected by God? This I do not say, he answers. Nor am I now speaking about individual rulers, but about the thing in itself. For that there should be rulers, and some rule and others be ruled, and that all things should not just be carried on in one confusion, the people swaying like waves in this direction and that; this, I say, is the work of God’s wisdom. Hence he does not say, “for there is no ruler but of God;” but it is the thing he speaks of, and says, “there is no power but of God. And the powers that be, are ordained of God.” Thus when a certain wise man saith, “It is by the Lord that a man is matched with a woman” ( Prov. xix. 14 , LXX.), he means this, God made marriage, and not that it is He that joineth together every man that cometh to be with a woman. …

As then you say that through the disasters of war and through the grievous inroads of the enemy families have in certain cases been so broken up that the husbands have been carried off into captivity and their wives remain forsaken, and these latter thinking their own husbands either dead or never likely to be freed from their masters, have contracted another marriage under stress of loneliness, and as, now that the state of things has im proved through the Lord’s help, some of those who were thought to have perished have returned, you seem, dear brother, naturally to be in doubt what ought to be settled by us about women thus joined to other husbands. …