14. Wherefore I cannot indeed say, of females who have fallen away from a better purpose, in case they shall have married, that they are adulteries, not marriages; but I plainly would not hesitate to say, that departures and fallings away from a holier chastity, which is vowed unto the Lord, are worse than adulteries. For if, what may no way be doubted, it pertains unto an offense against Christ, when a member of Him keepeth not faith to her husband; how much graver offense is it against Him, when unto Himself faith is not kept, in a matter which He requires when offered, Who had not required that it should be offered. For when each fails to render that which, not by force of command, but by advice of counsel, he vowed, by so much the more doth he increase the unrighteousness of the wrong done to his vow, by how much the less necessity he had to vow. These matters I for this reason treat of, that you may not think either that second marriages are criminal, or that any marriages whatsoever, being marriages, are an evil. Therefore let this be your mind, not that you condemn them, but that you despise them. Therefore the good of widowed chastity is becoming after a brighter fashion, in that in order to make vow and profession of it, females may despise what is both pleasing and lawful. But after profession of vow made they must continue to rein in, and overcome, what is pleasing, because it is no longer lawful.

14. Lapsus a sancto proposito malus, nuptiae tamen lapsarum bonae. Quapropter non possum quidem dicere, a proposito meliore lapsas, si nupserint, feminas, adulteria esse, non conjugia: sed plane non dubitaverim dicere, lapsus et ruinas a castitate sanctiore, quae vovetur Domino, adulteriis esse pejores. Si enim, quod nullo modo dubitandum est, ad offensionem Christi pertinet, cum membrum ejus fidem non servat marito; quanto gravius offenditur, cum illi ipsi non servatur fides in eo quod exigit oblatum, qui non exegerat offerendum? Cum enim quisque non reddit, quod non imperio compulsus, sed consilio commonitus vovit; tanto magis fraudati voti auget iniquitatem, quanto minus habuit vovendi necessitatem. Haec ideo disputo, ne arbitreris vel secundas nuptias crimen esse, vel quascumque nuptias, cum sint nuptiae, malum esse . Non itaque illas abs te damnatas velis esse, sed spretas. Bonum ergo continentiae vidualis luculentius decet, cum pro illo vovendo et profitendo possunt contemnere feminae quod et libet et licet. Sed post voti professionem perseveranter frenandum et vincendum est quod libet, quia jam non licet.