Chapter V.—Of the Love of Offspring as a Plea for Marriage.

Further reasons for marriage which men allege for themselves arise from anxiety for posterity, and the bitter, bitter pleasure of children.  To us this is idle.  For why should we be eager to bear children, whom, when we have them, we desire to send before us (to glory)51    Comp. c. iv. above “præmissis maritis;” “when their husbands have preceded them (to glory).” (in respect, I mean, of the distresses that are now imminent); desirous as we are ourselves, too, to be taken out of this most wicked world,52    Sæculo. and received into the Lord’s presence, which was the desire even of an apostle?53    Phil. i. 23; comp. de Pa., c. ix. ad fin.  To the servant of God, forsooth, offspring is necessary!  For of our own salvation we are secure enough, so that we have leisure for children!  Burdens must be sought by us for ourselves which are avoided even by the majority of the Gentiles, who are compelled by laws,54    i.e., to get children. who are decimated55    Expugnantur. by abortions;56    “Parricidiis.”  So Oehler seems to understand it. burdens which, finally, are to us most of all unsuitable, as being perilous to faith!  For why did the Lord foretell a “woe to them that are with child, and them that give suck,”57    Luke xxi. 23; Matt. xxiv. 19. except because He testifies that in that day of disencumbrance the encumbrances of children will be an inconvenience?  It is to marriage, of course, that those encumbrances appertain; but that (“woe”) will not pertain to widows.  (They) at the first trump of the angel will spring forth disencumbered—will freely bear to the end whatsoever pressure and persecution, with no burdensome fruit of marriage heaving in the womb, none in the bosom.

Therefore, whether it be for the sake of the flesh, or of the world,58    Sæculi. or of posterity, that marriage is undertaken, nothing of all these “necessities” affects the servants of God, so as to prevent my deeming it enough to have once for all yielded to some one of them, and by one marriage appeased59    “Expiasse”—a rare but Ciceronian use of the word. all concupiscence of this kind.  Let us marry daily, and in the midst of our marrying let us be overtaken, like Sodom and Gomorrah, by that day of fear!60    Luke xvii. 28, 29.  For there it was not only, of course, that they were dealing in marriage and merchandise; but when He says, “They were marrying and buying,” He sets a brand61    Denotat. upon the very leading vices of the flesh and of the world,62    Sæculi. which call men off the most from divine disciplines—the one through the pleasure of rioting, the other though the greed of acquiring.  And yet that “blindness” then was felt long before “the ends of the world.”63    Sæculi.  Comp. 1 Cor. x. 11; but the Greek there is, τὰ τέλη τῶν αιώνων.  By the “blindness,” Tertullian may refer to Gen. xix. 11.  What, then, will the case be if God now keep us from the vices which of old were detestable before Him?  “The time,” says (the apostle), “is compressed.64    Or, “short” (Eng. ver.); 1 Cor. vii. 29.  ὁ καιρὸς συνεσταλμενος, “in collecto.”  It remaineth that they who have wives65    “Matrimonia,” neut. pl. again for the fem., the abstract for the concrete.  See c. ii., “to multiply wives,” and the note there.  In the Greek (1 Cor. vii. 29) it is γυναῖκας:  but the ensuing chapter shows that Tertullian refers the passage to women as well. act as if they had them not.”

CAPUT V.

Adjiciunt quidem sibi homines caussas nuptiarum de sollicitudine posteritatis, et liberorum amarissima voluptate. Sed id quoque penes nos odiosum est . Nam quid gestiamus liberos gerere, quos cum habemus, praemittere optamus, respectu scilicet imminentium angustiarum , cupidi et ipsi iniquissimo isto saeculo eximi et recipi ad Dominum, quod etiam Apostolo votum fuit. Nimirum necessaria soboles servo Dei. Satis enim de salute nostra securi sumus ut liberis vacemus: quaerenda nobis onera sunt , quae etiam a gentilium profanis vitantur, quae legibus coluntur, quae parricidiis 1282B expugnantur . Nobis quidem plurimum importuna, quantum fidei periculosa. Cur enim Dominus vae praegnantibus et nutricantibus (Matth., XXIV, 19; Luc, XXI, 23) cecinit, nisi quia filiorum impedimenta testatur, in illa die expeditionis incommodum futura? utique nuptiis imputaturus. Istud autem ad viduas non pertinebit: ad primam angeli tubam expeditae prosilient. Quamcumque pressuram persecutionemque, libere perferent, nulla in utero, nulla in uberibus aestuante sarcina nuptiarum. Igitur sive carnis, sive saeculi, sive posteritatis gratia nubetur , nihil ex istis necessitatibus Dei servis: 1283A ut non satis habeam semel alicui earum succubuisse, et uno matrimonio omnem concupiscentiam hujusmodi expiasse. Nubamus quotidie, et nubentes a die illo deprehendamur, ut Sodoma et Gomorrha. Nam illic non utique nuptias et mercimonia solummodo agebant: sed cum dicit, nubebant et emebant , insigniora ipsa carnis et saeculi vitia denotat, quae a divinis disciplinis plurimum avocent: alterum per lasciviendi voluptatem; alterum per acquirendi voluntatem. Etenim illa tunc caecitas longe a finibus saeculi habebatur . Quid ergo fiet, si quae olim detestabilia sunt penes Dominum, ab his nos nunc arcent? Tempus, inquit, in collecto est; superest, ut qui matrimonia habent, tanquam non habentes agant.