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De Exhortatione Castitatis

VI.

[1] 'Sed et benedicti', inquis, patriarchae non modo pluribus uxoribus, uerum etiam concubinis coniugia miscuerunt'. Ergo propterea nobis quoque licebit innumerum nubere? Sane licebit, si qui adhuc typi alicuius futuri sacramenti supersunt, quod nuptiae tuae figurent, uel si etiam nunc locus est uocis illius: Crescite et multiplicamini, id est, si nondum alia uox superuenit, tempus iam in collecto esse, restare, ut et qui uxores habeant tamquam non habentes agant. [2] Vtique enim continentiam indicens et compescens concubitum, seminarium generis, abolefecit 'crescite' illud 'et multiplicamini'. Vt opinor autem, unius et eiusdem dei utraque pronuntiatio et dispositio est, qui tum quidem in primordio sementem generis emisit indultis coniugiorum habenis, donec mundus repleretur, donec nouae disciplinae materia proficeret. Nunc uero sub extremitatibus temporum compressit quod emiserat et reuocauit quod indulserat, non sine ratione prorogationis in primordio et repastinationis in ultimo. Semper initia laxantur, fines contrahuntur. [3] Propterea siluam quis instituit et crescere sinit, ut tempore suo caedat. Silua erat uetus dispositio, quae ab euangelio nouo deputatur, in quo et securis ad radicem arboris posita. Sic et oculum pro oculo et dentem pro dente iam senuit ex quo iuuenuit 'malum pro malo nemo reddat'. Puto autem etiam humanas constitutiones atque decreta posteriora pristinis praeualere.

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On Exhortation to Chastity

Chapter VI.--The Objection from the Polygamy of the Patriarchs Answered.

"But withal the blessed patriarchs," you say, "made mingled alliances not only with more wives (than one), but with concubines likewise." Shall that, then, make it lawful for us also to marry without limit? I grant that it will, if there still remain types--sacraments of something future--for your nuptials to figure; or if even now there is room for that command, "Grow and multiply;" ¹ that is, if no other command has yet supervened: "The time is already wound up; it remains that both they who have wives act as if they had not:" for, of course, by enjoining continence, and restraining concubitance, the seminary of our race, (this latter command) has abolished that "Grow and multiply." As I think, moreover, each pronouncement and arrangement is (the act) of one and the same God; who did then indeed, in the beginning, send forth a sowing of the race by an indulgent laxity granted to the reins of connubial alliances, until the world should be replenished, until the material of the new discipline should attain to forwardness: now, however, at the extreme boundaries of the times, has checked (the command) which He had sent out, and recalled the indulgence which He had granted; not without a reasonable ground for the extension (of that indulgence) in the beginning, and the limitation ² of it in the end. Laxity is always allowed to the beginning (of things). The reason why any one plants a wood and lets it grow, is that at his own time he may cut it. The wood was the old order, which is being pruned down by the new Gospel, in which withal "the axe has been laid at the roots." ³ So, too, "Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth," ⁴ has now grown old, ever since "Let none render evil for evil" ⁵ grew young. I think, moreover, that even with a view to human institutions and decrees, things later prevail over things primitive.