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Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

47.

Iam vero filio eius Iacob quod pro ingenti crimine quattuor obiciuntur uxores, generali praelocutione purgatur: p. 639,6 Quando enim mos erat, crimen non erat; et nunc propterea crimen est, quia mos non est. Alia enim sunt peccata contra naturam, alia contra mores, alia contra praecepta. Quae cum ita sint, quid tandem criminis est, quod de pluribus simul habitis uxoribus obicitur sancto viro Iacob? Si naturam consulas, non lasciviendi, sed gignendi causa illis mulieribus utebatur; si morem, illo tempore atque in illis terris hoc factitabatur; si praeceptum, nulla lege prohibebatur. Nunc vero cur crimen est, si quis hoc faciat, nisi quia et moribus et legibus hoc non licet? Quae duo quisquis contempserit, etiamsi tantummodo causa generandi uti possit feminis pluribus, peccat tamen et ipsam violat humanam societatem, cui necessaria est propagatio filiorum. p. 639,18 Sed quia homines aliter se habentibus iam moribus et legibus non possunt delectari uxorum multitudine nisi libidinis magnitudine, ideo errant et putant haberi omnino non potuisse uxores multas nisi flagrantia concupiscentiae carnalis et sordidae voluptatis. Comparantes enim non alios, quorum animi virtutem prorsus nosse non possunt, sed, sicut ait apostolus, semet ipsos sibimet ipsis non intellegunt. Et quia ipsi, etiamsi unam habuerint, ad eandem non solum generandi officio ducti viriliter accedunt, sed saepe coeundi stimulo victi enerviter pertrahuntur, quasi veraciter sibi videntur conicere, quam maiore huiuscemodi morbo per multas alii captiventur, quando se vident in unam temperantiam non posse servare. p. 640,8

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Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

47.

Again, Jacob the son of Isaac is charged with having committed a great crime because he had four wives. But here there is no ground for a criminal accusation: for a plurality of wives was no crime when it was the custom; and it is a crime now, because it is no longer the custom. There are sins against nature, and sins against custom, and sins against the laws. In which, then, of these senses did Jacob sin in having a plurality of wives? As regards nature, he used the women not for sensual gratification, but for the procreation of children. For custom, this was the common practice at that time in those countries. And for the laws, no prohibition existed. The only reason of its being a crime now to do this, is because custom and the laws forbid it. Whoever despises these restraints, even though he uses his wives only to get children, still commits sin, and does an injury to human society itself, for the sake of which it is that the procreation of children is required. In the present altered state of customs and laws, men can have no pleasure in a plurality of wives, except from an excess of lust; and so the mistake arises of supposing that no one could ever have had many wives but from sensuality and the vehemence of sinful desires. Unable to form an idea of men whose force of mind is beyond their conception, they compare themselves with themselves, as the apostle says, ¹ and so make mistakes. Conscious that, in their intercourse though with one wife only, they are often influenced by mere animal passion instead of an intelligent motive, they think it an obvious inference that, if the limits of moderation are not observed where there is only one wife, the infirmity must be aggravated where there are more than one.