Chapter VIII.—Arguments Drawn Even from Heathenish Laws to Discountenance Marriage with Unbelievers.  The Happiness of Union Between Partners in the Faith Enlarged on in Conclusion.

Let us further inquire, as if we were in very deed inquisitors of divine sentences, whether they be lawfully (thus condemned).  Even among the nations, do not all the strictest lords and most tenacious of discipline interdict their own slaves from marrying out of their own house?—in order, of course, that they may not run into lascivious excess, desert their duties, purvey their lords’ goods to strangers.  Yet, further, have not (the nations) decided that such women as have, after their lords’152    Oehler refers us to Tac., Ann., xii. 53, and the notes on that passage.  (Consult especially Orelli’s edition.) formal warning, persisted in intercourse with other men’s slaves, may be claimed as slaves?  Shall earthly disciplines be held more strict than heavenly prescripts; so that Gentile women, if united to strangers, lose their liberty; ours conjoin to themselves the devil’s slaves, and continue in their (former) position?  Forsooth, they will deny that any formal warning has been given them by the Lord through His own apostle!153    The translator inclines to think that Tertullian, desiring to keep up the parallelism of the last-mentioned case, in which (see note 1) the slave’s master had to give the “warning,” means by “domino” here, not “the Lord,” who on his hypothesis is the woman’s Master, not the slave’s, but the “lord” of the “unbeliever,” i.e., the devil:  so that the meaning would be (with a bitter irony, especially if we compare the end of the last chapter, where “the Evil One” is said to “procure” these marriages, so far is he from “condemning” them):  “Forsooth, they” (i.e., the Christian women) “will deny that a formal warning has been given them by the lord:”  (of the unbelievers, i.e., the Evil One) “through an apostle of his!”  If the other interpretation be correct, the reference will be to c. ii. above.

What am I to fasten on as the cause of this madness, except the weakness of faith, ever prone to the concupiscences of worldly154    Sæcularium. joys?—which, indeed, is chiefly found among the wealthier; for the more any is rich, and inflated with the name of “matron,” the more capacious house does she require for her burdens, as it were a field wherein ambition may run its course.  To such the churches look paltry.  A rich man is a difficult thing (to find) in the house of God;155    Matt. xix. 23, 24; Mark x. 23, 24; Luke xviii. 24, 25; 1 Cor. i. 26, 27. and if such an one is (found there), difficult (is it to find such) unmarried.  What, then, are they to do?  Whence but from the devil are they to seek a husband apt for maintaining their sedan, and their mules, and their hair-curlers of outlandish stature?  A Christian, even although rich, would perhaps not afford (all) these.  Set before yourself, I beg of you, the examples of Gentiles.  Most Gentile women, noble in extraction and wealthy in property, unite themselves indiscriminately with the ignoble and the mean, sought out for themselves for luxurious, or mutilated for licentious, purposes.  Some take up with their own freedmen and slaves, despising public opinion, provided they may but have (husbands) from whom to fear no impediment to their own liberty.  To a Christian believer it is irksome to wed a believer inferior to herself in estate, destined as she will be to have her wealth augmented in the person of a poor husband!  For if it is “the poor,” not the rich, “whose are the kingdoms of the heavens,”156    Matt. v. 3; but Tertullian has omitted “spiritu,” which he inserts in de Pa., c. xi., where he refers to the same passage.  In Luke vi. 20 there is no τῷ πνεύματι. the rich will find more in the poor (than she brings him, or than she would in the rich).  She will be dowered with an ampler dowry from the goods of him who is rich in God.  Let her be on an equality with him on earth, who in the heavens will perhaps not be so.

CAPUT VIII.

Ad hoc quaeramus, an jure, quasi revera dispectores divinarum sententiarum. Nonne etiam penes 1300B nationes severissimi quique domini et disciplinae tenacissimi servis suis foras nubere interdicunt? scilicet ne in lasciviam excedant , officia deserant, dominica extraneis promant. Nonne insuper censuerunt servituti vindicandos , qui cum alienis servis 1301A post dominorum denuntiationem in consuetudine perseverarunt? Severiores habebuntur terraenae disciplinae coelestibus praescriptis? ut gentiles quidem extraneis junctae libertatem suam amittant, nostrae vero diaboli servos sibi conjungant et in statu suo perseverent? Scilicet negabunt sibi a Domino per apostolum ejusdem denuntiatum. Quam hujus amentiae caussam detineam, nisi fidei imbecillitatem pronam semper in concupiscentiam saecularium gaudiorum? Quod quidem plurimum in lautioribus deprehensum est; nam quanto dives aliqua est matronae nomine inflata, tanto capaciorem domum oneribus suis requirit, ut campum in quo ambitio decurrat. Sordent talibus Ecclesiae. Difficile in domo Dei dives, ac si quis est, difficile caelebs. Quid ergo faciant? 1301B Unde nisi a diabolo maritum petant idoneum exhibendae sellae et mulabus et cinerariis peregrinae proceritatis? Christianus ista etiam dives fortasse non praestet. Quaeso te, gentilium exempla proponas tibi. Pleraeque et genere nobiles et re beatae passim ignobilibus et mediocribus ibi conjunguntur ad luxuriam inventis aut ad licentiam sectis . 1302A Nonnullae se libertis et servis suis conferunt, omnium hominum existimatione despecta, dummodo habeant a quibus nullum impedimentum libertatis suae timeant . Christianam fidelem fideli re minori nubere piget, locupletiorem futuram in viro paupere? Nam si pauperum sunt regna coelorum (Matth., V, 3), quia divitum non sunt, plus dives in paupere inveniet majore dote . Sit illa ex aequo in terris, quae in coelis forsitan non erit.