23. The Apostle has made known to us certain three unions, Christ and the Church, husband and wife, spirit and flesh. Of these the former consult for the good of the latter, the latter wait upon the former. All the things are good, when, in them, certain set over by way of pre-eminence, certain made subject in a becoming manner, observe the beauty of order. Husband and wife receive command and pattern how they ought to be one with another. The command is, “Let wives be subject unto their own husbands, as unto the Lord; because the husband is the head of the wife;”83    Eph. v. 22–28 and, “Husbands, love your wives.” But there is given a pattern, unto wives from the Church, unto husbands from Christ: “As the Church,” saith he, “is subject unto Christ, so also wives unto their own husbands in all things.” In like manner also, having given command to husbands to love their own wives, he added a pattern, “As Christ loved the Church.” But husbands he exhorted to it from a lower matter also, that is, from their own body: not only from a higher, that is, from their Lord. For he not only saith, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church,” which is from an higher: but he said also, “Husbands ought to love their own wives, as their own bodies,” which is from a lower: because both higher and lower are all good. And yet the woman received not pattern from the body, or flesh, to be so subject to the husband as the flesh to the spirit; but either the Apostle would have understood by consequence, what he omitted to state: or haply because the flesh lusteth against the spirit in the mortal and sick estate of this life, therefore he would not set the woman a pattern of subjection from it. But the men he would for this reason, because, although the spirit lusteth against the flesh, even in this it consults for the good of the flesh: not like as the flesh lusting against the spirit, by such opposition consulteth neither for the good of the spirit, nor for its own. Yet the good spirit would not consult for its good, whether by nourishing and cherishing its nature by forethought, or by resisting its faults by continence, were it not that each substance showeth God to be the Creator of each, even by the seemliness of this its order. What is it, therefore, that with true madness ye both boast yourselves to be Christians, and with so great, perverseness contend against the Christian Scriptures, with eyes closed, or rather put out, asserting both that Christ hath appeared unto mortals in false flesh, and that the Church in the soul pertains to Christ, in the body to the devil, and that the male and female sex are works of the devil, not of God, and that the flesh is joined unto the spirit, as an evil substance unto a good substance?

23. Tres quasdam copulas nobis insinuavit Apostolus, Christum et Ecclesiam, virum et uxorem, spiritum et carnem. Horum priora posterioribus consulunt, posteriora prioribus famulantur. Omnia bona sunt, cum in eis quaedam ordinis pulchritudinem excellenter praeposita, quaedam decenter subjecta custodiunt. Vir et uxor, quales secum esse debeant, praeceptum accipiunt et exemplum. Praeceptum est: Mulieres viris suis subditae sint, sicut Domino; quia vir caput mulieris est; et, Viri, diligite uxores vestras. Exemplum autem datur mulieribus de Ecclesia, viris de Christo: Sicut Ecclesia, inquit, subdita est Christo, ita et mulieres viris suis in omnibus. Similiter et viris dato praecepto, ut uxores suas diligant, adjecit exemplum, Sicut Christus dilexit Ecclesiam. Sed viros et a re inferiore adhortatus est, id est, a corpore suo; non tantum a superiore, id est, a Domino suo. Non enim solum ait, Viri, diligite uxores vestras, sicut et Christus dilexit Ecclesiam, quod est a superiore; verum etiam dixit, Viri debent diligere uxores suas sicut corpora sua (Ephes. V, 22-28), quod est ab inferiore: quia et superiora et inferiora bona sunt omnia. Nec tamen mulier a corpore vel carne accepit exemplum, ut ita esset subdita viro, sicut spiritui caro: sed aut consequenter Apostolus intelligi voluit, quod dicere praetermisit; aut forte quia caro concupiscit adversus spiritum in hujus vitae mortalitate atque languore, ideo de illa noluit mulieri exemplum subjectionis adhibere. Viris autem ideo voluit, quia etsi concupiscit spiritus adversus carnem, etiam in hoc ipso consulit carni: non sicut caro concupiscens adversus spiritum, nec spiritui consulit tali repugnatione , nec sibi. Non tamen ei spiritus bonus, sive ejus naturam per providentiam nutriendo ac fovendo, sive ejus vitiis per continentiam resistendo, 0365 consuleret, nisi utraque substantia utriusque artificem Deum, etiam decore sui hujus ordinis indicaret. Quid est ergo quod vos vera dementia et christianos esse jactatis, et contra Scripturas christianas oculis clausis, vel potius exstinctis, tanta perversitate contenditis, et Christum asserentes in falsa carne apparuisse mortalibus, et Ecclesiam in anima ad Christum, in corpore ad diabolum pertinere, et sexum virilem atque muliebrem diaboli opera esse, non Dei, et spiritui carnem tanquam malam substantiam bonae substantiae cohaerere?