Migne Reading Room
PL 2 · cols. 963–978
Tertullian, Liber de exhortatione castitatis
Editors' preface
Q. SEPT. FLOR. TERTULLIANI
Q[uintus] Sept[imius] Flor[ens] Tertullian's
LIBER
Book
DE EXHORTATIONE CASTITATIS.
On the Exhortation to Chastity.
ARGUMENTUM. — Hic tractatus a Tertulliano Montanista exaratus est, in quo quemdam viduum fratrem, a secundis nuptiis dehortatur; quas modo diserte permittit nec a sancto Paulo prohibitas asserit, modo damnat et tanquam adulterium traducit. EDD.
ARGUMENT. — This treatise was written by Tertullian as a Montanist; in it he dissuades a certain widowed brother from second marriage, which at one moment he expressly permits and asserts was not forbidden by Saint Paul, at another condemns and denounces as adultery. THE EDITORS.
CAPUT PRIMUM.
CHAPTER I.
Non dubito, frater, te post uxorem in pace praemissam, ad compositionem animi conversum, de exitu singularitatis cogitare, et utique consilii indigere. Quanquam in hujusmodi cum fide sua colloqui debet unusquisque, ejusque vires consulere; tamen quoniam, in ista specie, carnis necessitas cogitatum movet, quae fere apud eamdem conscientiam fidei resistit, opus est fidei extrinsecus consilio, tanquam advocato adversus carnis necessitates. Quae quidem necessitas facillime circumscribi potest, si voluntas potius Dei, quam indulgentia consideretur. Nemo indulgentia utendo promeretur, sed voluntati obsequendo. Voluntas Dei est sanctificatio nostra. Vult enim imaginem suam nos etiam similitudinem fieri, ut simus sancti, sicuti ipse sanctus est. Id bonum, sanctificationem dico, in species distribuit complures, ut in aliqua earum deprehendamur. Prima species, virginitas a nativitate. Secunda virginitas, a secunda nativitate, id est a lavacro, quae aut in matrimonio purificat ex compacto, aut in viduitate perseverat ex arbitrio. Tertius gradus superest
I do not doubt, brother, that, your wife having been sent on ahead in peace, you have turned to the settling of your mind and are thinking about the outcome of your single state, and certainly that you need counsel. Although in matters of this kind each person ought to confer with his own faith and consult its strength, yet since in this particular case the necessity of the flesh stirs up the thought, which generally resists faith within that same conscience, faith needs counsel from outside, as an advocate against the necessities of the flesh. This necessity indeed can very easily be held within bounds if the will of God, rather than His indulgence, is considered. No one earns merit by making use of indulgence, but by obeying the will. The will of God is our sanctification. For He wills that we, His image, should also become His likeness, that we may be holy, just as He Himself is holy. That good, I mean sanctification, He has divided into several kinds, so that we may be found in one or other of them. The first kind is virginity from birth. The second is virginity from the second birth, that is, from the font, which either purifies within marriage by mutual agreement or perseveres in widowhood by free choice. A third degree remains
Editors' notes and page, col. 963
Footnotes
Variae lectiones (set across the full page width; numbered calls) (printed under page 486)
(1) ‹in pace› · call in col 963
Pacem Rig. Venet.
"Pacem" (peace): Rigault, Venice edition.
(printed under page 486)
(2) ‹consilii indigere› · call in col 963
Consilium digere Rhen. Seml. dirigere Fran. Paris.
"Consilium digere": Rhenanus, Semler; "dirigere": Franeker and Paris editions.
(printed under page 486)
(3) ‹Quanquam in› · call in col 963
De Latin. et Rhen. Seml. Oberth.
"De": Latinius and Rhenanus, Semler, Oberthür.
(printed under page 486)
(4) ‹cogitatum movet› · call in col 963
Monet Jun.
"Monet" (warns): Junius.
(printed under page 486)
(5) ‹quæ fere› · call in col 963
Quærere Rhen. Seml. Oberth. Pam.
"Quærere": Rhenanus, Semler, Oberthür, Pamelius.
(printed under page 486)
(6) ‹eamdem conscientiam› · call in col 963
Quæ add. Rhen. Seml. Oberth. Pam.
"Quæ" (which) is added by Rhenanus, Semler, Oberthür, Pamelius.
(printed under page 486)
(7) ‹tanquam advocato› · call in col 963
Consilium t. advocatum Rhen. Pam. Seml. Oberth.
"Consilium tanquam advocatum": Rhenanus, Pamelius, Semler, Oberthür.
(printed under page 486)
(8) ‹carnis necessitates› · call in col 963
Necessitatem Rhen. Seml. Oberth.
"Necessitatem" (singular, necessity): Rhenanus, Semler, Oberthür.
(printed under page 486)
(9) ‹necessitas facillime› · call in col 963
Facillime omitt. Rhen. Pam. Seml. Oberth.
"Facillime" (most easily) is omitted by Rhenanus, Pamelius, Semler, Oberthür.
(printed under page 486)
(10) ‹etiam similitudinem› · call in col 963
Similitudine Jun.
"Similitudine" (ablative): Junius.
(printed under page 486)
(11) ‹species distribuit› · call in col 963
Distribuo Rig. Venet.
"Distribuo" (I distribute): Rigault, Venice edition.
(printed under page 486)
(12) ‹secunda nativitate, id est› · call in col 963
A secunda nativitate, id est absunt a Rhen. Seml. Pam. Oberth.
"A secunda nativitate, id est" (from the second birth, that is) are missing in Rhenanus, Semler, Pamelius, Oberthür.
(printed under page 486)
(13) ‹monogamia› · call in col 964
Monogamiæ Rhen.
"Monogamiæ" (of monogamy): Rhenanus.
(printed under page 486)
(14) ‹virginitas felicitatis› · call in col 964
Primæ virginitatis Jun. Prima felicitas, primæ virginitatis — secundæ virginitatis est — rel. species hactenus non nubendi — præter virtutis etiam m. l. est, cod. Wouw.
"Primæ virginitatis" (of the first virginity): Junius. "Prima felicitas, primæ virginitatis — secundæ virginitatis est — rel. species hactenus non nubendi — præter virtutis etiam m. l. est": Wouwer's manuscript.
(printed under page 486)
(15) ‹in totum› · call in col 964
In totum deest Rhen. Seml.
"In totum" (wholly) is missing in Rhenanus, Semler.
(printed under page 486)
(16) ‹Secunda› · call in col 964
Secunda virginitatis est Rhen. Seml.
"Secunda virginitatis est": Rhenanus, Semler.
(printed under page 486)
(17) ‹præter virtutis› · call in col 964
Virtutes Rhen. Seml.
"Virtutes" (virtues): Rhenanus, Semler.
(printed under page 486)
(18) ‹etiam modestiæ› · call in col 964
Modestiæ enim laus est Rig.
"Modestiæ enim laus est" (for it is the praise of modesty): Rigault.
(printed under page 486)
(1) ‹title: De exhortatione castitatis› · call in col 964 (on the title, which spans cols 963–964)
De exhortatione castitatis. Titulum fecit huic operi Tertullianus, dc Exhortatione castitatis, eadem forma qua legimus in catalogo eorum quæ vetustissimo codice Agobardi continentur, de Scorpiace, de Præscriptione hæreticorum : et apud Cyprianum de Exhortatione martyrii. Quæ sunt intelligenda, uti si concepta sic essent : Exhortatio ad castitatem, Scorpiace, Præscriptio adversus hæreticos, Exhortatio ad martyrium. Sic 1, de Pudicitia, dixit, de exhortatione sanctimoniarum, pro Exhortatione ad sanctimonias. Hæc vero nostra hujusce libri editio tam multis loci suppleta, refecta atque castigata est, ut jam pro nova haberi debeat. Omnium Tertulliani scriptorum pessime istud habitum fuerat, Rig.
On the exhortation to chastity. Tertullian gave this work the title de Exhortatione castitatis, in the same form as we read, in the catalogue of the works contained in the very ancient codex of Agobard, de Scorpiace, de Præscriptione hæreticorum, and in Cyprian de Exhortatione martyrii. These are to be understood as if they had been framed thus: Exhortation to chastity, Scorpiace, Prescription against heretics, Exhortation to martyrdom. So in [chapter] 1 of On Modesty he said de exhortatione sanctimoniarum for "Exhortation to holinesses". This our edition of the present book, however, has been supplemented, restored and corrected in so many places that it ought now to be taken for a new one. Of all Tertullian's writings this one had been in the worst state. Rigault.
(printed under page 486)
(2) ‹De exitu singularitatis› · call in col 963
De exitu singularitatis. Hoc est de tuo eventu, qui jam singularis et superstes conjugi tuæ degis. Rig.
On the outcome of singleness. That is, on your own lot, who now live single and as survivor of your wife. Rigault.
(printed under page 486)
(3) ‹Exinde sexui renuntiatur› · call in col 964
Exinde sexui renuntiatur. Sexus devoratur a virgine, inquit Hieronymus ad Principiam, epist. 3. Rig.
Thenceforth sex is renounced. "Sex is swallowed up by the virgin," says Jerome to Principia, letter 3. Rigault.
(printed under page 486)
Editors' prose
- The work's title (Q. SEPT. FLOR. TERTULLIANI / LIBER / DE EXHORTATIONE CASTITATIS) and the ARGUMENTUM (signed EDD.) are editors' matter, not Tertullian's; both are set in layer 1 at the head of this column, as printed, and translated.
Page
- running head: 963 TERTULLIANI OPERUM PARS II. — [rest of the head lies over col. 964]
- marginal letters: A ARGUMENTUM. — Hic tractatus a Tertulliano Monta-; B cus consilio, tanquam advocato
- old-edition numerals: 915 after consideretur.
- other: full_width: the work's title (Q. SEPT. FLOR. TERTULLIANI / LIBER / DE EXHORTATIONE CASTITATIS (1).) is printed across both columns; its left half is in this column's images, its right half (…OR. TERTULLIANI / …TIONE CASTITATIS (1).) in col. 964's top image. Completed from col. 964's top image by QA Q1 (2026-10-18); the settle step need not add it again.
- other: column ends at a full word ("superest"); no split word at the break.
- other: misprint kept as printed in Commentarius (1): "dc" (for "de") before Exhortatione castitatis; also "loci" (for "locis"). QA Q2 (2026-10-18).
monogamia, cum post matrimonium unum interceptum exinde sexui renuntiatur. Prima virginitas felicitatis est, non nosse in totum a quo postea optabis liberari. Secunda virtutis est, contemnere cujus vim optime noris. Reliqua species hactenus nubendi post matrimonium morte disjunctum, praeter virtutis, etiam modestiae laus est. Modestia est enim, ablatum non desiderare, et ablatum a Domino Deo; sine cujus voluntate nec folium de arbore delabitur, nec passer assis unius ad terram cadit.
monogamy, when, after one marriage has been cut off, sex is thenceforth renounced. The first virginity is one of happiness: not to know at all that from which you will afterwards wish to be freed. The second is one of virtue: to despise that whose force you know very well. The remaining kind, of marrying only thus far, after a marriage severed by death, has besides the praise of virtue also that of modesty. For it is modesty not to long for what has been taken away, and taken away by the Lord God, without Whose will not even a leaf slips down from a tree, nor does a sparrow of one as fall to the ground.
CAPUT II.
Chapter II.
Quam denique modesta illa vox est: Dominus dedit, Dominus abstulit (Job. I, 21), ut Domino visum est, ita factum est: et ideo si nuptias sublatas restauremus, sine dubio contra voluntatem Dei nitimur, volentes habere rursus, quod habere nos noluit. Si enim voluisset, non abstulisset. Nisi si et hoc voluntatem Dei interpretamur, quasi et rursus nos voluerit habere quod jam noluit. Non est bonae et solidae fidei, sic omnia ad voluntatem Dei referre, et ita adulari sibi unumquemque, dicendo nihil fieri sine nutu ejus, ut non intelligamus esse aliquid in nobis ipsis. Caeterum, excusabitur omne delictum, si contenderimus nihil fieri in nobis sine Dei voluntate; et ibit definitio ista in destructionem totius disciplinae, etiam ipsius Dei, si aut quae non vult de sua voluntate producit, aut nihil est quod Deus non vult. Sed quomodo veta
How modest, finally, is that saying: The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away (Job 1:21); as it seemed good to the Lord, so it was done. And therefore, if we restore a marriage that has been taken away, without doubt we strive against the will of God, wishing to have again what He did not wish us to have. For if He had wished it, He would not have taken it away. Unless we interpret this too as the will of God, as though He wished us to have again what He has already not wished. It does not belong to a good and solid faith thus to refer all things to the will of God, and for each person thus to flatter himself by saying that nothing happens without His nod, in such a way that we do not understand that there is something in ourselves. Otherwise, every offence will be excused if we contend that nothing happens in us without the will of God; and that definition will go on to the destruction of all discipline, even of God Himself, if either He produces from His own will things which He does not will, or there is nothing which God does not will. But how does He forbid
Editors' notes and page, col. 964
Footnotes
(19) ‹quod jam noluit› · call in col 964
Alii, rursus vellet in nos, cod. Wouw. in nobis, quod jam noluit Deus.
Others read "rursus vellet in nos"; Wouwer's manuscript: "in nobis, quod jam noluit Deus" (in us, what God has already not willed).
(printed under page 486)
(20) ‹sine nutu› · call in col 964
Al. jussione.
Others read "jussione" (command).
(printed under page 486)
(21) ‹si contenderimus› · call in col 964
Continuerimus Rhen, Seml.
"Continuerimus": Rhenanus, Semler.
(printed under page 486)
(22) ‹et ibit definitio› · call in col 964
²³ At ibi definitio istam destruction. Rhen. Seml. at tibi definio cod Wouw.
[Numbered 23 as printed; the call in the text is 22.] "At ibi definitio istam destruction.": Rhenanus, Semler; "at tibi definio": Wouwer's manuscript.
(printed under page 486)
(23) ‹voluntate producit› · call in col 964
Producat Rig. Ven.
"Producat" (subjunctive): Rigault, Venice edition.
(printed under page 486)
(24) ‹Sed quomodo› · call in col 964
Quando Rig. Ven.
"Quando" (when): Rigault, Venice edition.
Commentarius (printed under page 486)
Page
- running head: [...]UM PARS II. — SERIES II, MORALIA. 964
- marginal letters: A ‹monogamia, cum post matrimonium›; B ‹restauremus, sine dubio contra›
- old-edition numerals: (none)
- misprint: the column ends "veta-" and col. 965 begins "quædam," — the printer dropped the "t" of "vetat" at the column break (checked on c965_1.png by QA Q1). Set as printed, "veta"; the English renders "vetat". The receive join had wrongly carried "quaedam," from col. 965 into this column (removed by Q1); the settle step should confirm that col. 965's file begins "quaedam,".
- note calls 13–18 and Commentarius (1) (on the title) and (3) stand in this column; their notes are set in n963.
quaedam, quibus etiam supplicium aeternum comminatur? utique enim quae vetat non vult, a quibus et offenditur: sicut et quae vult, praecipit, et accipit, et aeternitatis mercede dispungit. Itaque cum utrumque ex praeceptis ejus didicerimus, quid velit, et quid nolit; tamen nobis est voluntas et arbitrium eligendi alterum, sicut scriptum est: Ecce posui ante te bonum et malum (Eccles. XV, 18), gustati enim de arbore agnitionis. Et ideo non debemus quod nostro expositum est arbitrio, in Dei referre voluntatem, quos vult ipse et velle, qui malum non vult. Ita nostra est voluntas, cum malum volumus adversus Dei voluntatem, qui bonum vult. Porro, si quaeris unde venit ea voluntas, qua quid volumus adversus Dei voluntatem dicam: ex nobis ipsis. Nec temere; semini enim tuo respondeas necesse est: siquidem ille princeps et generis et delicti, Adam, voluit quod deliquit. Neque enim diabolus voluntatem ei imposuit delinquendi, sed materiam voluntati subministravit. Caeterum, voluntas Dei in obaudientiam venerat. Proinde et tu, si non obaudieris Deo, qui te, proposito praecepto, liberae potestatis instituit, per voluntatis libertatem volens deverges in id quod Deus non vult, et ita te putas a diabolo subversum, qui etsi quid vult te velle quod Deus non vult, non tamen facit ut et velis; quia nec tunc istos protoplastos ad voluntatem delicti subegit; imo neque invitos, neque ignorantes quid Deus nollet; utique enim nolebat fieri, cum admisso mortem destinabat. Ita diaboli opus unum est, tentare quod in te est, an velis. At ubi voluisti, seqûitur ut te sibi subigat, non operatus in te voluntatem, sed nactus occasionem voluntatis. Igitur cum solum sit in nobis velle, et in hoc probetur nostra erga Deum mens, an ea velimus quae cum voluntate ipsius faciant.
things, for which He even threatens eternal punishment? For certainly He does not will the things which He forbids, by which He is also offended; just as He both commands the things which He wills, and accepts them, and repays them with the reward of eternity. Therefore, although we have learned both from His precepts, what He wills and what He does not will, nevertheless we have the will and the choice of electing one or the other, as it is written: Behold, I have set before you good and evil (Sir. 15:18); for we have tasted of the tree of knowledge. And therefore we ought not to refer to the will of God what has been laid open to our own choice, [as though] He Himself also wills whom He wills [to will], He Who does not will evil. Thus the will is ours, when we will evil against the will of God, Who wills good. Moreover, if you ask whence comes that will by which we will something against the will of God, I shall say: from ourselves. Nor without reason; for you must needs answer to your seed: since that first author both of the race and of the offence, Adam, willed the offence he committed. For the devil did not impose on him the will to offend, but supplied material to his will. Moreover, the will of God had come into [the matter of] obedience. Accordingly you too, if you do not obey God, Who, by setting forth a precept, established you with free power, will through the freedom of your will willingly turn aside into that which God does not will, and so you think yourself overthrown by the devil, who, although he wills that you should will what God does not will, yet does not bring it about that you also will it; for neither then did he subdue those first-formed ones to the will to offend; nay, they were neither unwilling, nor ignorant of what God did not wish; for certainly He was unwilling that it be done, when He appointed death for the deed committed. Thus the work of the devil is one: to test what is in you, whether you will. But when you have willed, it follows that he subjects you to himself, not having worked the will in you, but having obtained the occasion of your will. Since, therefore, willing alone is in us, and in this our mind towards God is proved, whether we will those things which accord with His will.
CAPUT III.
Chapter III.
Alte et impresse recogitandam esse dico Dei voluntatem, quid etiam in occulto velit. Quae
Deeply and earnestly, I say, must the will of God be pondered, what He wills even in secret. What
Editors' notes and page, col. 965
Footnotes
Variae lectiones (set across the full page width; numbered calls) (printed under page 487)
(25) ‹utique enim› · call in col 965
Utique etiam Seml. Leop.
"Utique etiam" (certainly also): Semler, Leopold.
(printed under page 487)
(26) ‹et accipit› · call in col 965
Sicut e contrario... et præcipit et accepto facit Rig. Paris. Venet.
"Sicut e contrario... et præcipit et accepto facit": Rigault, Paris and Venice editions.
(printed under page 487)
(27) ‹et arbitrium› · call in col 965
Et arbitrium omitt. Pam.
"Et arbitrium" (and choice) is omitted by Pamelius.
(printed under page 487)
(28) ‹quod nostro› · call in col 965
Nostri Rhen. Seml.
"Nostri" (of us): Rhenanus, Semler.
(printed under page 487)
(29) ‹referre voluntatem› · call in col 965
Voluntate Rhen. Seml.
"Voluntate" (ablative, by the will): Rhenanus, Semler.
(printed under page 487)
(30) ‹ipse et velle› · call in col 965
Nos quos vult ipse et velle est Seml.
"Nos quos vult ipse et velle est": Semler.
(printed under page 487)
(31) ‹voluntatem dicam› · call in col 965
Dei voluntatem. Ut dicam Seml. Rhenan.
"Dei voluntatem. Ut dicam" (the will of God. To say): Semler, Rhenanus.
(printed under page 487)
(32) ‹voluntatem ei› · call in col 965
Ejus Rhen. Seml.
"Ejus" (his): Rhenanus, Semler.
(printed under page 487)
(33) ‹in obaudientiam› · call in col 965
Obedientiam cod. Wouw. Leop.
"Obedientiam" (obedience): Wouwer's manuscript, Leopold.
(printed under page 487)
(34) ‹in id quod Deus› · call in col 965
Voleus te vergi sinit quod Deus Rhen. Seml. volens devergis in id quod Fran. Paris. Pam.
"Voleus [sic, for volens] te vergi sinit quod Deus": Rhenanus, Semler; "volens devergis in id quod": Franeker, Paris editions, Pamelius.
(printed under page 487)
(35) ‹nec tunc istos› · call in col 965
Invitos Seml.
"Invitos" (unwilling): Semler.
(printed under page 487)
(36) ‹est, tentare› · call in col 965
Temperare Rhen. Seml.
"Temperare" (to moderate): Rhenanus, Semler.
(printed under page 487)
(37) ‹te sibi subigat› · call in col 965
Ut et sibi subjungat Fran. Venet. Rig.
"Ut et sibi subjungat" (that he also yoke you to himself): Franeker and Venice editions, Rigault.
(printed under page 487)
(38) ‹nactus occasionem› · call in col 965
Possessionem Rhen. Seml.
"Possessionem" (possession): Rhenanus, Semler.
(printed under page 487)
(39) ‹solum sit› · call in col 965
Erit Rhen. Seml.
"Erit" (will be): Rhenanus, Semler.
(printed under page 487)
(40) ‹in hoc probetur› · call in col 965
Probat iid.
"Probat" (proves): the same.
(printed under page 487)
(41) ‹ipsius faciant› · call in col 965
Sapiant iid.
"Sapiant" (savour of): the same.
(printed under page 487)
(42) ‹Alte› · call in col 965
A te impresse mss. Wouw. Paris.
"A te impresse" (by you, deeply): Wouwer's manuscripts, Paris edition.
(printed under page 487)
(43) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 966
Enim manifesto Rhen. Seml.
"Enim manifesto" (for manifestly): Rhenanus, Semler.
(printed under page 487)
(44) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 966
Nam si ibid.
"Nam si" (for if): in the same.
(printed under page 487)
(45) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 966
In loco ibid.
"In loco" (in place): in the same.
(printed under page 487)
(46) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 966
Secunda species Rhen. Seml.
"Secunda species" (the second kind): Rhenanus, Semler.
(printed under page 487)
(47) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 966
Non abest ab iisd.
"Non" (not) is missing in the same.
(printed under page 487)
(48) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 966
Vult nos Deus quædam placita Rhen. Seml.
"Vult nos Deus quædam placita" (God wills us [to do] certain things pleasing): Rhenanus, Semler.
(printed under page 487)
(49) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 966
Operatur patrocinatur iid.
"Operatur patrocinatur": the same.
(printed under page 487)
(50) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 966
Ista proponit iid.
"Ista proponit" (sets these forth): the same.
(printed under page 487)
(51) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 966
Taxanda esse iid.
"Taxanda esse" (are to be assessed): the same.
(printed under page 487)
(52) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 966
Quia alia iid.
"Quia alia" (because other things): the same.
(printed under page 487)
(53) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 966
Proinde habenda sunt iid.
"Proinde habenda sunt" (are accordingly to be held): the same.
(printed under page 487)
(54) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 966
Atque soli omitt. Seml.
"Atque soli" (and alone) is omitted by Semler.
(printed under page 487)
(55) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 966
Ostendo Seml. ostendendo Pam. Wouw.
"Ostendo" (I show): Semler; "ostendendo" (by showing): Pamelius, Wouwer.
(printed under page 487)
(56) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 966
Paravit te Seml.
"Paravit te" (prepared you): Semler.
(printed under page 487)
(57) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 966
Totum locum sic e ms. corrigit Wouwer. aliquam habet causam in illo cui — Vide quanta sit voluntas ea — consideranda ut non puræ voluntaiis. Vult nos Deus sibi placita facere in quibus. — Si tamen et alia — magis vult. Nec dubium est ea nobis taxanda esse, quæ vult, cum ea, quæ minus vult, qui magis vult, perinde habenda sint, quasi nolit. Nam ostendendo.
Wouwer corrects the whole passage thus from a manuscript: "aliquam habet causam in illo cui — Vide quanta sit voluntas ea — consideranda ut non puræ voluntaiis [sic, for voluntatis]. Vult nos Deus sibi placita facere in quibus. — Si tamen et alia — magis vult. Nec dubium est ea nobis taxanda esse, quæ vult, cum ea, quæ minus vult, qui magis vult, perinde habenda sint, quasi nolit. Nam ostendendo." (… has some cause in that to which — See how great that will is — to be considered as not of pure will. God wills us to do things pleasing to him in which. — If yet other things also — he wills more. Nor is there doubt that those things are to be assessed by us which he wills, since the things he wills less, he who wills more, are to be held as though he did not will them. For by showing.)
(printed under page 487)
(4) ‹Ex indulgentia est› · call not visible on this page
Ex indulgentia est. Locum scilicet Apostoli I C. VII detorquet : Hoc autem dico secundum indulgentiam, non secundum imperium. Quod etiam idem præstat lib. de Monog. c. 3. Le Pr.
It is from indulgence. He is, that is, twisting the Apostle's passage in 1 [Corinthians] 7: But this I say by indulgence, not by command. The same author does this also in the book On Monogamy, ch. 3. Le Prieur.
(printed under page 487)
Page
- running head: 965 LIBER DE EXHORTATIONE C[ASTITATIS] (cut off at right edge)
- marginal letters: A quaedam, quibus 916 etiam; B voluntas, cum malum volumus; C Ita diaboli opus unum est
- old-edition numerals: 916 after quibus; 917 after voluntatem,
- other: "seqûitur" printed with a circumflex, set as printed; "quos vult ipse et velle" is obscure, translation UNSURE; Variae lectiones and Commentarius at page foot not set (editors' apparatus); running head and right-hand column 966 not set
- other: QA Q2 (2026-10-18): Variae lectiones 43–57 are called in col. 966 (e.g. 44 "etsi", 52 "quia" in col. 966), not 965; call column corrected; 58–63 (also under page 487) are called in col. 966. Misprint kept as printed in note 57: "voluntaiis" (for "voluntatis").
enim in manifesto, scimus omnes; eaque ipsa qualiter in manifesto sint, perspiciendum est. Nam etsi quaedam videntur voluntatem Dei sapere, dum a Deo permittuntur, non statim omne quod permittitur, ex mera et tota voluntate procedit ejus qui permittit. Ex indulgentia est, quodcunque permittitur; quae etsi sine voluntate non est, quia tamen aliquam habet causam in illo cui indulgetur, quasi de invita venit voluntate, passa causam sui, quae cogit voluntatem. Vide qualis sit voluntas, cujus alter est causa. Secunda item species consideranda est non purae voluntatis. Vult nos Deus agere quaedam placita sibi, in quibus non indulgentia patrocinatur, sed disciplina dominatur. Si tamen alia istis praeposuit, utique quae magis vult, dubiumne est ea nobis sectanda esse, quae mavult; cum quae minus vult, quia alia magis vult, perinde habenda sint atque si nolit? Nam ostendens quid magis velit, minorem voluntatem majore delevit. Quantoque notitiae tuae utramque proposuit, tanto definiit id te sectari debere, quod declaravit se magis velle. Ergo si ideo declaravit ut id secteris quod magis vult, sine dubio nisi ita facis contra voluntatem ejus sapis, sapiendo contra potiorem ejus voluntatem; magisque offendis quam promereris, quod vult quidem faciendo, et quod mavult respuendo. Ex parte delinquis: ex parte, si non delinquis, non tamen promereris. Porro et promereri nolle, delinquere est. Secundum igitur matrimonium, si est ex illa Dei voluntate, quae indulgentia vocatur, negabimus meram voluntatem, cui indulgentia est causa; si ex ea, cui potior alia praeponitur continentiae magis appetendae, didicerimus non potiorem a potiore rescindi. Haec praestrinxerim, ut jam Apostoli voces decurram. In primis autem non videbor irreligiosus si, quod ipse profitetur, animadvertam; omnem illum indulgentiam nuptiarum, de suo, id est, de humano sensu, non de divino praescripto induxisse. Nam et cum de viduis
indeed is in plain view, we all know; and how these very things are in plain view must be examined. For although certain things seem to savour of the will of God, since they are permitted by God, it does not at once follow that everything which is permitted proceeds from the pure and entire will of Him who permits. Whatever is permitted is from indulgence; and although indulgence is not without will, yet because it has some cause in him to whom indulgence is granted, it comes as it were from an unwilling will, having undergone a cause of itself which compels the will. See what kind of will that is of which another is the cause. A second species likewise is to be considered, one not of pure will. God wills us to do certain things pleasing to Him, in which it is not indulgence that pleads, but discipline that rules. If however He has set other things before these, namely those which He wills more, is it doubtful that those which He prefers are to be followed by us, since those which He wills less, because He wills others more, are to be held just as if He did not will them? For by showing what He wills more, He has blotted out the lesser will with the greater. And inasmuch as He has set both before your knowledge, so far has He laid down that you ought to follow that which He has declared He wills more. Therefore if He declared it for this purpose, that you should follow that which He wills more, without doubt, unless you do so, you think contrary to His will, by thinking contrary to His preferable will; and you offend more than you merit, by doing what He indeed wills and spurning what He prefers. In part you transgress; in part, if you do not transgress, yet you do not merit. Moreover, to be unwilling to merit is itself to transgress. Therefore, as for second marriage: if it is from that will of God which is called indulgence, we shall deny that it is pure will, since indulgence is its cause; if from that will to which another, preferable one is preferred, namely continence which is rather to be sought, we shall have learned that what is not preferable is annulled by what is preferable. Let me have touched on these things briefly, so that I may now run through the words of the Apostle. And first of all I shall not seem irreligious if I take notice of what he himself professes, namely that he introduced all that indulgence of marriage from his own mind, that is, from human sense, not from divine prescription. For also when concerning widows
Editors' notes and page, col. 966
Footnotes
(58) ‹quam promereris› · call in col 966
Rhen. Seml. usque distinguunt promereris. Quod ac simul continuo legunt respuendo ex parte.
Rhenanus and Semler punctuate up to "promereris", and read "Quod … respuendo ex parte" all together continuously.
(printed under page 487)
(59) ‹indulgentia vocatur› · call in col 966
Cogitur Rhen. Seml.
"Cogitur" (is compelled): Rhenanus, Semler.
(printed under page 487)
(60) ‹negabimus› · call in col 966
Negavimus iid.
"Negavimus" (we have denied): the same.
(printed under page 487)
(61) ‹meram voluntatem› · call in col 966
Voluntatem abest a Rhen.
"Voluntatem" (will) is missing in Rhenanus.
(printed under page 487)
(62) ‹a potiore rescindi› · call in col 966
Scindi Rhen.
"Scindi" (to be split): Rhenanus.
(printed under page 487)
(63) ‹Apostoli voces› · call in col 966
Voce Rhen. Seml.
"Voce" (singular, voice): Rhenanus, Semler.
Commentarius (printed under page 487)
Page
- running head: [DE E]XHORTATIONE CASTITATIS. 966 (left part cut off at the image edge)
- marginal letters: A ‹enim in manifesto›; B ‹Vult nos Deus agere›; C ‹illa Dei voluntate›; D (none)
- old-edition numerals: 918 after ‹irreligiosus›
et innuptis definiit uti nubant, si continere non possunt, quia melius sit nubere quam uri; conversus ad alteram speciem: Nuptis autem denuntio, inquit, non quidem ego, sed Dominus (I Cor. VII, 10). Ita ostendit, ex tralatione personae suae in Dominum, id quod supra dixerat, non ex Domini persona, sed ex sua pronuntiasse. Melius est nubere quam uri. Quae vox licet ad eos pertineat, qui innupti, vel vidui a fide deprehenduntur; quia tamen omnes eam ad nubendi licentiam amplectuntur, velim pertractare, quale bonum ostendat, quod melius est poena: quod non potest videri bonum, nisi pessimo comparatum; ut ideo bonum sit nubere, quia deterius est ardere. Bonum ita est, si perseveret nomen obtinens sine comparatione, non dico mali, sed etiam boni alterius: ut et si bono alii comparatur et alio adumbratur, nihilominus remaneat in boni nomine. Caeterum, si per mali conditionem cogitur bonum dici, non tam bonum est quam genus mali inferioris, quod a superiore malo obscuratum ad nomen boni impellitur. Aufer denique conditionem comparationis, ut non dicas: melius est nubere quam uri; et quaero, an dicere audeas: melius est nubere; non adjiciens quid sit id, quod melius est. Ergo quod non melius, utique nec bonum; quia abstulisti et removisti conditionem comparationis, quae dum melius illud facit, ita bonum haberi cogit. Melius est nubere quam uri; sic accipiendum est, quomodo melius est uno oculo quam duobus carere; si tamen a comparatione discedas, non erit melius unum oculum habere, quia nec bonum. Nemo igitur captet ex hoc capitulo defensionem, quod proprie ad innuptos et viduos spectat, quibus nulla adhuc conjunctio numeratur. Quanquam ostenderim etiam illis intelligendam esse permissi conditionem.
and the unmarried he laid down that they should marry if they cannot contain themselves, because it is better to marry than to burn; then, turning to the other class: But to the married I give charge, he says, not indeed I, but the Lord (1 Cor. 7:10). Thus he shows, by the transfer of his own person to the Lord, that what he had said above he had pronounced not in the person of the Lord but in his own. It is better to marry than to burn. Although this saying pertains to those who are found by the faith unmarried or widowed, yet since all embrace it as a licence to marry, I should like to examine thoroughly what sort of good it shows, which is better than a penalty: a thing which cannot appear good except when compared with what is worst; so that marrying is good for this reason, that burning is worse. A thing is good in this way: if it continues holding its name without comparison, I do not say with an evil, but even with another good; so that even if it is compared with another good and overshadowed by another, it nonetheless remains in the name of good. But if it is forced to be called good by the condition of an evil, it is not so much a good as a kind of lesser evil, which, obscured by the greater evil, is driven into the name of good. Take away, then, the condition of comparison, so that you do not say: it is better to marry than to burn; and I ask whether you would dare to say: it is better to marry, without adding what that is than which it is better. Therefore what is not better is certainly not good either; because you have taken away and removed the condition of comparison, which, while it makes the thing better, thus compels it to be held good. It is better to marry than to burn: this is to be understood in the way that it is better to lack one eye than two; yet if you depart from the comparison, it will not be better to have one eye, because it is not even good. Let no one, therefore, snatch from this passage a defence, since it properly concerns the unmarried and the widowed, to whom no union is yet reckoned. And yet I have shown that even for them it must be understood as the condition of something permitted.
CAPUT IV.
Chapter IV.
Caeterum, de secundo matrimonio scimus plane
But as regards a second marriage, we know clearly
Editors' notes and page, col. 967
Footnotes
Variae lectiones (set across the full page width; numbered calls) (printed under page 488)
(64) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 967
Et deest in Rhen.
"Et" (and) is missing in Rhenanus.
(printed under page 488)
(65) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 967
Aliam Rhen. Seml. Pam.
"Aliam" (another): Rhenanus, Semler, Pamelius.
(printed under page 488)
(66) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 967
Extra rationem Rhen. Seml.
"Extra rationem" (outside reason): Rhenanus, Semler.
(printed under page 488)
(67) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 967
Nubi impersonaliter Rhen. Paris.
"Nubi" impersonally: Rhenanus, Paris edition.
(printed under page 488)
(68) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 967
Nupti Rhen.
"Nupti" (the married): Rhenanus.
(printed under page 488)
(69) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 967
Viduæ Rhen. Seml. a fido depreh. absunt ab iisd.
"Viduæ" (widows): Rhenanus, Semler; "a fido depreh[enditur]" is missing in the same.
(printed under page 488)
(70) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 967
Qui Pam. Rhen. Seml.
"Qui" (who): Pamelius, Rhenanus, Semler.
(printed under page 488)
(71) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 967
Ad abest iisd.
"Ad" (to) is missing in the same.
(printed under page 488)
(72) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 967
Retractare Rig.
"Retractare" (to reconsider): Rigault.
(printed under page 488)
(73) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 967
Si per se nomen hoc obtinet Rhen. Pam. Seml.
"Si per se nomen hoc obtinet" (if it holds this name of itself): Rhenanus, Pamelius, Semler.
(printed under page 488)
(74) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 967
Comparetur et ab illo adumbretur cod. Wouw.
"Comparetur et ab illo adumbretur" (be compared and be shadowed by that): Wouwer's manuscript.
(printed under page 488)
(75) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 967
Per mali collationem Seml. Rhen.
"Per mali collationem" (by comparison with an evil): Semler, Rhenanus.
(printed under page 488)
(76) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 967
Impellitur, auferendique dictionem comparationis iid.
"Impellitur, auferendique dictionem comparationis": the same.
(printed under page 488)
(77) ‹bonum haberi› · call in col 967
Ita bonum, ita habere cogit iid.
"Ita bonum, ita habere cogit" (so good, so it compels one to have): the same.
(printed under page 488)
(78) ‹quomodo› · call in col 967
Ac si iid.
"Ac si" (as if): the same.
(printed under page 488)
(79) ‹nec bonum› · call in col 967
Quam et bonum iid.
"Quam et bonum": the same.
(printed under page 488)
(80) ‹et viduos› · call in col 967
Nuptos et viduas Rhen. Seml.
"Nuptos et viduas" (married men and widows): Rhenanus, Semler.
(printed under page 488)
(81) ‹intelligendam› · call in col 967
Numerandam?
"Numerandam" (to be counted)? [query]
(printed under page 488)
(5) ‹Quale bonum ostendat, quod melius est pœna› · call not visible on this page
Quale bonum ostendat, quod melius est pœna. Certissimum est priscis illis temporibus virginitatem pluris habitam, nuptiasque, si conferrentur cum ea, malum quoddam videri, licet revera non esset. Hujus opinionis fundus præter laudabilem eo tempore continentiam, locus Apostoli, melius est nubere quam uri. Quod ita a veteribus illis explicatum est, quasi dixisset Paulus, melius esse uno oculo carere quam duobus. Beatus ipse Hieronymus qui in Jovinianum stylum acuerat, eo quod inter cætera deliria virginitatem et nuptias pari merito donaret, eam aliquando sequi videtur hujus scriptoris mentem; is tamen epist. de Monog, ad Ageruchiam fatetur secundas, atque enim tertias nuptias, si necesse forent, ab Apostolo concessas incontinentibus. Le Pr.
What sort of good it shows, which is better than punishment. It is quite certain that in those ancient times virginity was held of greater worth, and that marriage, if compared with it, seemed a kind of evil, though in truth it was not. The ground of this opinion, besides the continence praised at that time, was the Apostle's passage, it is better to marry than to burn, which those ancients explained as if Paul had said that it is better to lack one eye than two. Blessed Jerome himself, who had sharpened his pen against Jovinian because among his other ravings he gave virginity and marriage equal merit, seems at times to follow this writer's mind; yet in his letter on monogamy to Ageruchia he admits that second, and indeed third, marriages, if they were necessary, were granted by the Apostle to the incontinent. Le Prieur.
(printed under page 488)
Page
- running head: TERTULLIANI OPERUM PARS II. — (cut off at right edge)
- marginal letters: A et innuptis definiit uti nubant; B comparatione, non dico mali; C quam duobus carere; D (5) Quale bonum ostendat (beside the editors' commentary)
- old-edition numerals: 919 after defensionem
Apostolum pronuntiasse, Solutus es ab uxore, ne quaesieris uxorem: sed si duxeris, non delinquis. Perinde tamen et hujus sermonis ordinem, de consilio suo, non de divino praecepto introducit. Multum autem interest inter Dei praeceptum, et consilium hominis. Praeceptum Domini, inquit, non habeo; sed consilium do, quasi misericordiam consecutus a Domino fidelis esse. Caeterum, neque in Evangelio, neque in ipsius Pauli Epistolis, ex praecepto Dei invenias permissam matrimonii separationem. Unde unum habendum confirmatur; quia quod a Domino permissum non invenitur, id ignoscitur. Adde quod et haec ipsa humani consilii interjectio quasi jam in recogitationem excessus sui passa, statim se refrenat et revocat, cum subjungit: Verumtamen hujusmodi, pressuram carnis habebunt; cum parcere se eis dicit; cum tempus in collectum esse adjicit, quo oporteat etiam habentes matrimonia pro non habentibus agere: cum sollicitudinem nuptorum et innuptorum committit. Per haec enim docens, cur non expediat nubere, dissuadet ab eo quod supra indulserat. Et hoc de primo matrimonio; quanto magis de secundo? Cum vero nos ad exemplum suum hortatur, utique ostendens quid nos velit esse, id est continentes, pariter declarat quid nos esse nolit, id est incontinentes. Ita et ipse cum aliud vult, id quod non vult nec sponte nec veritate permittit. Si enim vellet, non permisisset, imo imperasset. Sed ecce rursus (I Cor. VII), mulierem marito defuncto dicit nubere posse, si cui velit, tantum in Domino. At enim felicior erit, inquit, si sic permanserit secundum meum consilium. Puto autem, et ego Dei spiritum habeo. Videmus duo consilia, quo supra nubendi veniam facit, et quo postmodum continentiam nubendi indicit. Cui ergo, inquis, adsentabimur? Inspice, et lege. Cum veniam facit, hominis prudentis consilium adlegat. Cum continentiam indicit, Spiritus sancti consilium affirmat. Sequere admonitionem cui divinitas patrocinatur. Spiritum quidem Dei etiam fideles
that the Apostle declared: You are loosed from a wife, do not seek a wife; but if you marry, you do not sin. Yet he likewise introduces the course of this statement also as from his own counsel, not from a divine precept. But there is a great difference between a precept of God and the counsel of a man. A precept of the Lord, he says, I do not have; but I give counsel, as one who has obtained mercy from the Lord to be faithful. Moreover, neither in the Gospel nor in the Epistles of Paul himself would you find the separation of marriage permitted by a precept of God. Whence it is confirmed that one [marriage] is to be held; because what is not found permitted by the Lord is [only] pardoned. Add that this very interjection of human counsel, as though it had already undergone a reconsideration of its own excess, at once reins itself in and recalls itself, when he adds: Nevertheless such will have tribulation of the flesh; when he says that he spares them; when he adds that the time is drawn together, in which even those who have marriages ought to act as those who do not have them; when he sets the anxiety of the married against that of the unmarried. For by these things, teaching why it is not expedient to marry, he dissuades from that which he had granted above. And this concerning a first marriage; how much more concerning a second? But when he exhorts us to his own example, showing indeed what he wishes us to be, that is, continent, he equally declares what he does not wish us to be, that is, incontinent. So he too, since he wills something else, permits what he does not will, neither willingly nor truly. For if he had willed it, he would not have permitted it, but rather commanded it. But see, again (1 Cor. 7), he says that a woman whose husband has died can marry, to whomever she wishes, only in the Lord. But she will be happier, he says, if she so remains according to my counsel. And I think that I too have the Spirit of God. We see two counsels: that by which above he grants leave to marry, and that by which afterwards he enjoins continence from marrying. To which, then, you say, shall we assent? Look, and read. When he grants leave, he cites the counsel of a prudent man. When he enjoins continence, he affirms the counsel of the Holy Spirit. Follow the admonition which divinity supports. The Spirit of God indeed the faithful also
Editors' notes and page, col. 968
Footnotes
(82) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 968
In collecto Rhen. Seml. Pam.
"In collecto": Rhenanus, Semler, Pamelius.
(printed under page 488)
(83) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 968
Et innuptorum, hæc verba desunt ibid.
"Et innuptorum" (and of the unmarried): these words are missing in the same.
(printed under page 488)
(84) ‹id est incontinentes› · call in col 968
Hæc ultima verba desunt apud Rhen. et Seml.
These last words are missing in Rhenanus and Semler.
(printed under page 488)
(85) ‹nubendi indicit› · call in col 968
Inducit alii.
"Inducit" (brings in): others.
Commentarius (printed under page 488)
(6) ‹suum hortatur› · call in col 968
Cum vero nos ad exemplum suum hortatur. Facit etiam hic locus pro continentia B. Apostoli Pauli a nuptiis. Pam.
But when he urges us to his own example. This passage also tells in favour of blessed Paul the Apostle's continence from marriage. Pamelius.
(printed under page 488)
(7) ‹nubere posse› · call in col 968
Sed ecce rursus, mulierem defuncto marito dicit nubere posse. Hic adhuc satis moderate agit Auctor, non prorsus prohibens digamiam, sed feliciorem probans monogamiam : quare et B. Hieronymus fatetur his verbis Apostolum secundas et tertias nuptias concedere in Domino. Pam.
But see, again he says that a woman whose husband has died may marry. Here the author still deals moderately enough, not forbidding a second marriage outright but commending single marriage as happier; which is why blessed Jerome also admits that in these words the Apostle grants second and third marriages in the Lord. Pamelius.
(printed under page 488)
Page
- running head: [...]UM PARS II. — SERIES II, MORALIA. 968 (left part cut off at image edge)
- marginal letters: A ‹Apostolum pronuntiasse, Solutus es›; B ‹hujusmodi, pressuram carnis habebunt›; C ‹tantum in Domino. At enim felicior erit›; D ‹ruchiam fatetur secundas (in the Commentarius, not set)›
- old-edition numerals: 920 after ‹patrocinatur.›
habent, sed non omnes fideles Apostoli. Cum ergo qui se fidelem dixerat, adjecit postea, Spiritum Dei se habere, quod nemo dubitaret etiam de fideli; idcirco id dixit, ut sibi Apostoli fastigium redderet. Proprie enim Apostoli Spiritum sanctum habent in operibus prophetiae et efficacia virtutum, documentisque linguarum, non ex parte, quod caeteri. Ita Spiritus sancti auctoritatem ad eam speciem adire fecit, qui nos magis obsequi voluit: et factum est jam non consilium divini Spiritus, sed pro ejus majestate praeceptum.
have, but not all the faithful are apostles. Since, then, he who had called himself one of the faithful added afterwards that he had the Spirit of God, which no one would doubt even of a believer, he said it for this reason, to restore to himself the dignity of an apostle. For apostles properly have the Holy Spirit in works of prophecy and in the efficacy of powers and the proofs of tongues, not in part, as the rest do. Thus he made the authority of the Holy Spirit attach to that kind [of counsel], since he wished us the more to comply: and it has become no longer a counsel of the divine Spirit but, in view of His majesty, a precept.
CAPUT V.
Chapter V.
Ad legem semel nubendi dirigendam, ipsa origo humani generis patrocinatur, contestatus quid Deus in primordio constituerit, in formam posteritati recensendam.
For establishing the law of marrying once, the very origin of the human race acts as advocate, bearing witness to what God established in the beginning, as a pattern to be reviewed by posterity.
Nam cum hominem figurasset, eique parem necessariam prospexisset, unam de costis ejus mutuatus, unam illi feminam finxit; cum utique nec artifex, nec materia defecisset, plures costae in Adam, et infatigabiles manus in Deo, sed non plures uxores apud Deum, et ideo homo Dei, Adam, et mulier Dei Eva, unis inter se nuptiis functi sunt. Formam hominibus Dei, de originis auctoritate, et prima Dei voluntate sanxerunt. Denique, Erunt duo, inquit, in carne una; non tres, neque quatuor. Alioquin jam non una caro, nec duo in unam carnem. Tunc erunt, si conjunctis et concretio in unitatem semel fiat. Si vero rursus aut saepius, jam una esse desiit; et erunt non duo in unam carnem, sed una plane costa in plures. At quam Apostolus in Ecclesiam et Christum iuterpretatur, erunt duo in unam carnem, secundum spiritales nuptias Ecclesiae et Christi (unus enim Christus, et una ejus Ecclesia), agnoscere debemus duplicatam et exaggeratam esse nobis unius matrimonii legem, tam secundum generis fundamentum, quam secundum Christi sacramentum. De uno matrimonio censemur utrobique, et carnaliter in Adam, et spiritaliter in Christo. Duarum nativitatum unum est monogamiae praescriptum. In utraque degenerat, qui de monogamia exorbitat. Numerus matrimonii a maledicto viro coepit. Primus Lamech, duabus maritatus, tres in unam carnem effecit.
For when He had fashioned man and had foreseen that a partner was necessary for him, borrowing one of his ribs, He formed one woman for him; although assuredly neither the craftsman nor the material had failed, there were more ribs in Adam and tireless hands in God, but not more wives in the sight of God; and therefore the man of God, Adam, and the woman of God, Eve, performed a single marriage with each other. They ratified a pattern for the men of God on the authority of the origin and the first will of God. Accordingly, They shall be two, He says, in one flesh; not three, nor four. Otherwise there is no longer one flesh, nor two into one flesh. They will be so only if the joining and the growing together into unity happens once. But if again or more often, it has already ceased to be one; and they will be not two into one flesh, but plainly one rib into many. But as to the saying which the Apostle interprets of the Church and Christ, they shall be two into one flesh, according to the spiritual marriage of the Church and Christ (for Christ is one, and His Church is one), we ought to recognize that the law of one marriage is doubled and heightened for us, both according to the foundation of the race and according to the sacrament of Christ. In both respects we are reckoned from one marriage, carnally in Adam and spiritually in Christ. Of the two births there is one prescription of monogamy. In each he degenerates who strays from monogamy. Plurality of marriage began with an accursed man. Lamech first, married to two, made three into one flesh.
Editors' notes and page, col. 969
Footnotes
Variae lectiones (set across the full page width; numbered calls) (printed under page 489)
(86) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 969
Quod fidelem dixerit Rhen. Pam. Seml.
"Quod fidelem dixerit" (that he called faithful): Rhenanus, Pamelius, Semler.
(printed under page 489)
(87) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 969
⁸⁶ Atque documentorum linguam.
[Numbered 86 again as printed; evidently 87.] "Atque documentorum linguam" (and the language of the proofs).
(printed under page 489)
(88) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 969
Quasi addit Rhen.
Rhenanus adds "Quasi" (as if).
(printed under page 489)
(89) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 969
Anctoritate ad eam Rhen. Seml.
"Auctoritate [printed Anctoritate] ad eam" (by authority to it): Rhenanus, Semler.
(printed under page 489)
(90) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 969
Dirigam Pam Rhen. Seml.
"Dirigam" (I shall direct): Pamelius, Rhenanus, Semler.
(printed under page 489)
(91) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 969
Ab initio ibid.
"Ab initio" (from the beginning): in the same.
(printed under page 489)
(92) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 969
Recensendum al.
"Recensendum" (to be reviewed): others.
(printed under page 489)
(93) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 969
Figulasset alii scribunt.
Others write "Figulasset" (had moulded).
(printed under page 489)
(94) ‹Formam hominibus Dei› · call in col 969
Nuptiis functi formam hominibus Dei, etc. Rigal.
"Nuptiis functi formam hominibus Dei, etc." (having performed marriage, the form for men of God, etc.): Rigault.
(printed under page 489)
(95) ‹Tunc› · call in col 969
Jam non una caro tunc erunt, si conjunctio, etc. Jun.
"Jam non una caro tunc erunt, si conjunctio, etc." (they will then no longer be one flesh, if the union, etc.): Junius.
(printed under page 489)
(96) ‹una plane costa› · call in col 969
Caro Seml. Rhen.
"Caro" (flesh): Semler, Rhenanus.
(printed under page 489)
(97) ‹unius matrimonii› · call in col 969
Legem abest a Pam. Rhen. Seml.
"Legem" (law) is missing in Pamelius, Rhenanus, Semler.
(printed under page 489)
(98) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 969
Absolescit Pam. Rhen. Seml.
"Absolescit" (grows obsolete): Pamelius, Rhenanus, Semler.
(printed under page 489)
(99) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 969
Repastinationis iidem.
"Repastinationis" (of re-digging): the same.
(printed under page 489)
(1) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 969 or 970
Fines contrahuntur absunt Venet.
"Fines contrahuntur" (the bounds are drawn in) are missing in the Venice edition.
(printed under page 489)
(8) ‹Sed et benedicti, inquit, Patriarchæ› · call not visible on this page
Sed et benedicti, inquit, Patriarchæ. Libro ad martyras : « Inter carnis alimenta benedicti martyres designati. » Quem loquendi usum habes etiam lib. IV de Vita B. Martini : Et Fortunati benedicti, matyris urnam. Le Pr.
But the blessed Patriarchs too, he says. In the book To the Martyrs: "Among the nourishments of the flesh, blessed martyrs designate." You have this usage also in book IV of the Life of Blessed Martin: "And of Fortunatus the blessed, the martyr's [printed matyris] urn." Le Prieur.
(printed under page 489)
(9) ‹Innumerum nubere› · call not visible on this page
Innumerum nubere. Ipse alibi dixit : Plurifariam matrimoniis uti. Rig.
To marry without number. He himself said elsewhere: to make use of marriages in many ways. Rigault.
(printed under page 489)
(10) ‹Si adhuc typi› · call not visible on this page
Si adhuc typi, futuri alicujus sacramenta, supersunt. Sic legitur in exemplari, neque aliter legit Hieronymus Ep. ad Gerontiam de Monog. Typos sive figuras nuncupat sacramenta futurorum, signa sacra. signa a Deo præmissa futuri alicujus. Rig.
If types still remain, sacraments of something to come. So it reads in the exemplar, and Jerome reads no otherwise in his letter to Gerontia on monogamy. He calls types or figures "sacraments of things to come": sacred signs, signs sent ahead by God of something to come. Rigault.
(printed under page 489)
Page
- running head: 969 LIBER DE EXHORTATIONE C[...] (cut off at image edge)
- marginal letters: A habent, sed non omnes fideles Apostoli; B steritati recensendam; C una esse desiit; D (8) Sed et benedicti, inquit, Patriarchae (in the footnote area)
- old-edition numerals: (none)
CAPUT VI.
Chapter VI.
Sed et benedicti, inquis, patriarchae non modo pluribus uxoribus, verum etiam concubinis conjugia miscuerunt. Ergo propterea nobis quoque licebit innumerum nubere? Sane licebit si adhuc typi futuri alicujus sacramenta supersunt, quos nuptiae tuae figurent; vel si etiam nunc locus est vocis illius: Crescite et multiplicamini, id est, si nondum alia vox supervenit, tempus jam in collecto esse, restare ut et qui uxores habent, tanquam non hab⟨e⟩ntes agant; utique enim continentiam indicens, et compescens concubitum, seminarium generis, abolefecit crescite illud et multiplicamini. Ut opinor autem, unius et ejusdem Dei utraque pronuntiatio et dispositio est: qui tum quidem in primordio sementem generis emisit, indultis conjugiorum habenis, donec mundus repleretur, donec novae disciplinae materia proficeret; nunc vero sub extremitatibus temporum compressit quod emiserat, et revocavit quod indulserat, non sine ratione prorogationis primordio, et pastinationis in ultimo. Semper initia laxantur, fines contrahuntur. Propterea sylvam quis instituit, et crescere sinit, ut tempore suo caedat. Sylva erit vetus dispositio, quae ab Evangelio novo deputatur, in quo et (matth XXI) securis ad radices arboris posita est. Sic et oculum pro oculo, et dentem pro dente, jam senuit, ex quo juvenuit (Rom. XII. 17) malum pro malo nemo reddat. Puto autem etiam in humanas constitutiones atque decreta posteriora pristinis praevalere.
But even the blessed patriarchs, you say, joined in marriage not only with several wives but even with concubines. Shall it therefore on that account be lawful for us too to marry without number? Certainly it will be lawful, if there still remain the sacraments of the type of something to come, which your nuptials are to figure; or if even now there is room for that utterance: Increase and multiply, that is, if no other utterance has yet supervened, that the time is now drawn together, that it remains that even those who have wives should behave as not having them; for assuredly, by enjoining continence and restraining intercourse, the seed-bed of the race, it abolished that Increase and multiply. But, as I think, each pronouncement and dispensation is of one and the same God: Who then indeed, in the beginning, sent forth the seed of the race, with the reins of marriages slackened, until the world should be filled, until the material of a new discipline should grow; but now, at the extremities of the times, He has checked what He had sent forth, and recalled what He had permitted, not without reason for the extension at the beginning, and for the trenching at the last. Beginnings are always relaxed, ends are drawn tight. Thus a man plants a wood and lets it grow, that in its own time he may cut it down. The wood will be the old dispensation, which is pruned away by the new Gospel, in which also (Matt. 21) the axe is laid to the roots of the tree. So too an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth has grown old from the time when (Rom. 12:17) let no one render evil for evil grew young. And I think that even in human constitutions and decrees the later prevail over the earlier.
CAPUT VII.
Chapter VII.
Cu⟨r⟩ ⟨a⟩utem de pristinis exemplis non ea potius agnoscamus, quae cum posterio⟨r⟩ibus communicant, de disciplina et forma vetustatis ad novitatem transmitunt? Ecce enim in veteri lege animadverto castratam licentiam saepius nubendi. Cautum in Levitico: Sacerdotes mei non plus nubent (Levit XXI, 14). Possum dicere, etiam illud plus esse quod semel non est. Quod non unum est, numerus est. Denique, post unum incipit numerus. Unum autem est omne quod semel est. Sed Christo servabatur, sicut in caeteris, ita in isto quoque legis plenitudo. Inde igitur apud nos plenius atque instructius praescribitur, unius matrimonii esse oportere (Tit. I, 6) qui
Why, moreover, do we not rather recognize from the former examples those things which have something in common with the later ones, and carry over [something] of discipline and form from antiquity to novelty? For behold, in the old law I observe that the licence of marrying more often is castrated. It is laid down in Leviticus: My priests shall not marry more [than once] (Lev. 21:14). I can say that even that is more which is not once. What is not one is number. Indeed, after one, number begins. But everything that is once is one. But for Christ was reserved, as in other things, so in this too, the fullness of the law. Hence, therefore, among us it is prescribed more fully and more instructively that those ought to be of one marriage (Titus 1:6) who
Editors' notes and page, col. 970
Footnotes
(2) ‹decreta posteriora› · call in col 970
Postera Rhen. Seml. Leop.
"Postera" (later): Rhenanus, Semler, Leopold.
(printed under page 489)
(3) ‹cum posterioribus› · call in col 970
Posteris Rhen.
"Posteris" (with later ones): Rhenanus.
(printed under page 489)
(4) ‹Sed Christo› · call in col 970
Uni Christo Fron. Paris. Gelen. in Christo Seml.
"Uni Christo" (for Christ alone): Franeker [printed Fron.], Paris edition, Gelenius; "in Christo": Semler.
(printed under page 489)
(5) ‹atque instructius› · call in col 970
Structius Rhen. Seml. strictius Fran. Lat.
"Structius": Rhenanus, Semler; "strictius" (more strictly): Franeker edition, Latinius.
Commentarius (printed under page 489)
(11) ‹semel non est› · call in col 970
Possum dicere, etiam illud plus esse quod semel non est. Etenim semel, ut notat Asconius II Verr., « ex eodem sensu est, inquit, quod semel in ita risisse Crassum scribit Lucilius, et semel in vita pertimuisse Verrem Tullius. » Rig.
I can say that even what is not once is more. For "once", as Asconius notes on the second [speech] against Verres, "is of the same sense," he says, "as when Lucilius writes that Crassus laughed once in his [life] thus, and Tully that Verres once in his life was thoroughly afraid." Rigault.
(printed under page 489)
Page
- running head: EXHORTATIONE CASTITATIS. 970 (cut off at left edge; reads XHORTATIONE CASTITATIS.)
- marginal letters: A CAPUT VI.; B tem generis emisit; C pristinis praevalere.; D supersunt. Sic legitur (in the Commentarius at the page foot)
- old-edition numerals: 921 before CAPUT VI.; 922 after agnoscamus
alleguntur in ordinem sacerdotalem. Usque adeo quosdam memini digamos loco dejectos. Sed dices: Ergo caeteris licet quos excipit. Vani erimus, si putaverimus quod sacerdotibus non liceat, laicis licere. Nonne et laici sacerdotes sumus? Scriptum est: Regnum quoque nos et sacerdotes Deo et Patri suo fecit (Apoc. I, 6). Differentiam inter ordinem et plebem constituit Ecclesiae auctoritas, et honor per ordinis consessum sanctificatus. Adeo ubi ecclesiastici ordinis non est consessus, et offers, et tinguis, et sacerdos es tibi solus, Sed ubi tres. Ecclesia est, licet laici. Unusquisque enim sua fide vivit, nec est personarum acceptio apud Deum; quoniam non auditores legis justificantur a Deo, sed factores, secundum quod et Apostolus dicit (Rom. II, 11, 13). Igitur si habes jus sacerdotis in temetipso, ubi necesse est; habeas oportet etiam disciplinam sacerdotis, ubi necesse sit habere jus sacerdotis. Digamus tinguis? digamus offers? Quanto magis laico digamo capitale est agere pro sacerdote, cum ipsi sacerdoti digamo facto auferatur agere sacerdotem! Sed necessitati, inquis, indulgetur. Nulla necessitas excusatur, quae potest non esse. Noli denique digamus deprehendi, et non committis in necessitatem administrandi quod non licet digamo. Omnes nos Deus ita vult dispositos esse, ut ubique sacramentis ejus obeundis apti simus. Unus Deus, una fides una et disciplina. Usque adeo, nisi et laici ea observent, per quae presbyteri alleguntur, quomodo
are chosen into the priestly order. So much so that I remember certain digamists being removed from their place. But you will say: Therefore it is permitted to the rest, whom it excepts. We shall be foolish if we suppose that what is not permitted to priests is permitted to laymen. Are not we laymen also priests? It is written: He has made us also a kingdom and priests to God and His Father (Rev. 1:6). It is the authority of the Church that has established the difference between the order and the people, and the honour sanctified through the bench of the order. So much so that where there is no bench of the ecclesiastical order, you both offer and baptize and are a priest for yourself alone. But where there are three, there is a church, even if they are laymen. For each one lives by his own faith, and there is no respect of persons with God; since not the hearers of the law are justified by God, but the doers, according to what the Apostle also says (Rom. 2:11, 13). Therefore, if you have the right of a priest in yourself, where it is necessary, you ought also to have the discipline of a priest, where it may be necessary to have the right of a priest. Do you, a digamist, baptize? Do you, a digamist, offer? How much more is it a capital offence for a digamist layman to act for a priest, when from the priest himself, once he has become a digamist, the acting as priest is taken away! But, you say, indulgence is granted to necessity. No necessity is excused which can be avoided. In short, refuse to be found a digamist, and you do not bring yourself into the necessity of administering what is not permitted to a digamist. God wills us all to be so disposed that everywhere we may be fit for performing His sacraments. One God, one faith, one discipline also. So much so that, unless laymen too observe those things by which presbyters are chosen, how
Editors' notes and page, col. 971
Footnotes
Variae lectiones (set across the full page width; numbered calls) (printed under page 490)
(6) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 971
Ita Rig.: Rhen. editio. quos alleget; edit. Fran. quos allegi liceat; cod. Wouw.: quos allegi in ord, sac. oportet; leg. fortasse : quos allegerint in ordinem sacerdotalem Leop.
So Rigault. The Rhenanus edition: "quos alleget"; the Franeker edition: "quos allegi liceat"; Wouwer's manuscript: "quos allegi in ord[inem] sac[erdotalem] oportet"; perhaps read: "quos allegerint in ordinem sacerdotalem" (whom they have chosen into the priestly order), Leopold.
(printed under page 490)
(7) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 971
Licet cum quibus non liceat excipit vani Rhen. licet cum, quibus non liceat excepit Pam. licet c. q. n. l. non excepit vani Par.
"Licet cum quibus non liceat excipit vani": Rhenanus; "licet cum, quibus non liceat excepit": Pamelius; "licet c[um] q[uibus] n[on] l[iceat] non excepit vani": Paris edition.
(printed under page 490)
(8) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 971
Adeo Rhen. sanctificatus ideo ubi cod, Wouw. adeo ubi Fran. Par. Venet. a Deo Pam. Seml. sanctificatus. Adeo Leop.
"Adeo": Rhenanus; "sanctificatus ideo ubi": Wouwer's manuscript; "adeo ubi": Franeker, Paris, Venice editions; "a Deo": Pamelius, Semler; "sanctificatus. Adeo": Leopold.
(printed under page 490)
(9) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 971
Sic Rig. qui est tibi Pam. Fran. Paris.
So Rigault; "qui est tibi" (who is to you): Pamelius, Franeker and Paris editions.
(printed under page 490)
(10) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 971
De sua fide Rhen. Pam. Seml.
"De sua fide" (by his own faith): Rhenanus, Pamelius, Semler.
(printed under page 490)
(11) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 971
Justificabuntur Rhen. Pam.
"Justificabuntur" (will be justified): Rhenanus, Pamelius.
(printed under page 490)
(12) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 971
Tingues offeres cod. Wouw,
"Tingues offeres" (you will baptize, you will offer): Wouwer's manuscript.
(printed under page 490)
(13) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 971
Vitiose prima ed. Rhen. laico dicat quo apud salutem sic et Fran. ad salutem erit. Pam. habet quanto magis laico dicat quod ad salutem erit.
Corruptly, Rhenanus's first edition: "laico dicat quo apud salutem"; so also the Franeker edition: "ad salutem erit". Pamelius has "quanto magis laico dicat quod ad salutem erit" (how much more would he say to a layman what will be for salvation).
(printed under page 490)
(14) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 971
Prima Rhen. legeb. sacerdoti dicitur quove facto communicatur (pro quo Lat. reposuit excommunicatur) actione sacerdotis; Pam. legeb., qui eo facto communicatur actione sacerdotis.
Rhenanus's first edition read "sacerdoti dicitur quove facto communicatur (for which Latinius put "excommunicatur") actione sacerdotis"; Pamelius read "qui eo facto communicatur actione sacerdotis".
(printed under page 490)
(15) ‹administrandi› · call in col 971
Necessitate administrantes Fran.
"Necessitate administrantes" (ministering by necessity): Franeker edition.
(printed under page 490)
(16) ‹ita vult› · call in col 971
Voluit Rhen. Pam.
"Voluit" (willed): Rhenanus, Pamelius.
(printed under page 490)
(17) ‹ejus obeundis› · call in col 971
Sanctioni ejus obeundæ al. sanctiones ejus obeund. Pam.
"Sanctioni ejus obeundæ": others; "sanctiones ejus obeund[is]": Pamelius.
(printed under page 490)
(18) ‹et disciplina› · call in col 971
Ita edidit Rigalt. cæteri vel omiser. vel nihil. habent. sani.
So Rigault edited; the others either omitted it or have nothing sound.
(printed under page 490)
(19) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 971
Perferre Rhen. Fran. Paris. præferre Pam. Fran. proferre cod Wouw.
"Perferre": Rhenanus, Franeker and Paris editions; "præferre": Pamelius, Franeker edition; "proferre": Wouwer's manuscript.
(printed under page 490)
(20) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 971
Retinere Pam. Seml. continere cod. Wouw.
"Retinere" (to retain): Pamelius, Semler; "continere" (to contain): Wouwer's manuscript.
(printed under page 490)
(21) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 971
Qui abest. a Seml.
"Qui" (who) is missing in Semler.
(printed under page 490)
(22) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 971
Maritatus Rhen. Seml. Pam.
"Maritatus" (married): Rhenanus, Semler, Pamelius.
(printed under page 490)
(23) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 971
Pro salute Rhen. Pam. Seml.
"Pro salute" (for salvation): Rhenanus, Pamelius, Semler.
(printed under page 490)
(24) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 971
Ergo. Rhen. Pam.
"Ergo" (therefore): Rhenanus, Pamelius.
(printed under page 490)
(25) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 971
Utilitatem edit.i Venet. cæteri salutem.
"Utilitatem" (advantage): the Venice edition; the others "salutem" (salvation).
(printed under page 490)
(12) ‹Ubi ecclesiastici ordinis non est consessus› · call not visible on this page
Ubi ecclesiastici ordinis non est consessus. Hunc ordinem constare episcopis, presbyteris, et diaconis dixit lib. de Baptismo : itaque diaconi in tertio sacerdotio constituti; presbyteri in secundo : apices et principes omnium episcopi : unde et summi sacerdotes, et simpliciter sacerdotes. Presbyteri autem secundi sacerdotes, sive, ut est apud Sidonium, antistites ordine in secundo. Denique laici, sive plebeii, sive plebs, cæteri omnes in Ecclesia nondum ulla dignitate suffulti, ut loquitur Optatus Milevitanus, lib. I, qui et lib. II, ministros subjicit diaconis : « Certa membra sua, inquit, habet Ecclesia : episcopos, presbyteros, diaconos, ministros, et turbam fidelium. » Qui turbæ et consessui præerat, communi vocabulo dicebatur præses, sive præsidens, et præpositus ὁ προεστώς. Rig.
Where there is no bench of the Church's order. In the book On Baptism he said that this order consists of bishops, presbyters and deacons: so deacons are set in the third priesthood, presbyters in the second; the summits and chiefs of all are the bishops, whence they are also called high priests, and simply priests. Presbyters are the second priests, or, as Sidonius has it, prelates in the second rank. Lastly the laity, or the common people, or the people: all the rest in the Church not yet upheld by any dignity, as Optatus of Milevis speaks in book I, who also in book II places ministers under the deacons: "The Church," he says, "has its fixed members: bishops, presbyters, deacons, ministers, and the crowd of the faithful." He who presided over the crowd and the bench was called by a common term president, or presiding one, and superior, ὁ προεστώς. Rigault.
(printed under page 490)
(13) ‹Et offers, et tinguis› · call not visible on this page
Et offers, et tinguis, et sacerdos es tibi solus Sic omnino habet exemplar Agobardi. Hæc autem obscura videntur non advertentibus quid offerendi verbo, quid oblationum, quid orationum, quid sacrificiorum, quid denique sacramentorum vocabulis Tertullianus significare soleat. Ea vero cuncta ex Indice Glossarum colligentur. Rig.
And you offer, and you baptize, and you are a priest to yourself alone. The Agobard exemplar has exactly this. These words seem obscure to those who do not notice what Tertullian is accustomed to mean by the verb "offer", and by the words "oblations", "prayers", "sacrifices" and lastly "sacraments". All of it can be gathered from the Index of Glosses. Rigault.
(printed under page 490)
(14) ‹Digamus tinguis› · call not visible on this page
Digamus tinguis! Qui digami erant, Ecclesia hos non admittebat ad sacerdotium, neque etiam χήραν λάγνην, hos non sinit Ecclesia præsidere, inquit hic idem lib. I ad Uxorem, c. 7. Le Pr
You, twice married, baptize! Those who were twice married the Church did not admit to the priesthood, nor a lustful widow [χήραν λάγνην] either; the Church does not allow these to preside, says this same author in book I To his Wife, ch. 7. Le Prieur.
(printed under page 490)
(15) ‹Quis nostrum utilitatis præstantiam sectetur› · call not visible on this page
Quis nostrum utilitatis præstantiam sectetur. Forte presentiam, quod vocabulum alibi usurpat, cum id significat quod est conducibilius. Rig.
Which of us pursues the pre-eminence of advantage. Perhaps presentiam, a word he uses elsewhere when he means what is more expedient. Rigault.
(printed under page 490)
Page
- running head: 971 TERTULLIANI OPERUM PARS II. — S[...] (cut off at right edge)
- marginal letters: A ‹alleguntur in ordinem sacerdotalem›; B ‹a Deo, sed factores›; C ‹observent, per quae presbyteri›; D ‹(12) Ubi ecclesiastici ordinis› (in the commentary at the page foot)
- old-edition numerals: 923 after ‹cum›
erunt presbyteri, qui de laicis alleguntur? Ergo pugnare debemus ante laicum jussum a secundo matrimonio abstinere, dum presbyter esse non alius potest, quam laicus qui semel fuerit maritus.
will there be presbyters, who are chosen from among the laity? Therefore we must contend that the layman is commanded beforehand to abstain from a second marriage, since no other can be a presbyter than a layman who has been a husband once.
CAPUT VIII.
Chapter VIII.
Liceat nunc d⟨e⟩nuo nubere, si omne quod licet bonum est. Idem Apostolus exclamat :omnia licent, sed non omnia prosunt (I Cor. VI, 12). Quod non pro⟨d⟩est, oro te , bonum potest dici? Si licita sunt et quae non pro salute, ergo et quae non bona sunt, licita sunt. Quid autem magis velle debebis, quod ideo bonum est, quia licet, an quod ideo quia prodest? Multum existimo esse inter licentiam et salutem. De bono non dicitur, licet, quia bonum permitti non exspectat, sed adsumi. Permittitur autem quod, an bonum sit, in dubio est, quod potest etiam non permitti, si non habeat aliquam sui causam primam. Propter incontinentiae periculum permittitur nubere secundo; quia nisi licentia alicujus non bonae rei subjaceret, no esset in quo probaretur qui divinae voluntati, et quae suae potestati obsequeretur; quis nostrum utilitatis praesentiam sectetur, et quis cccasionem licentiae amplexetur. Licentia plerumque tentatio est disciplinae, quoniam disciplina per tentationem probatur, tentati per licentiam operatur. Ita fit, ut omnia liceant sed non omnia expediant; dum tentatur cui permittitur, et judicatur dum in permissione tentatur. Licebat et apostolis nubere, et uxores circumducere
Let it now be permitted to marry again, if everything that is permitted is good. The same Apostle cries out: all things are permitted, but not all things are profitable (1 Cor. 6:12). What is not profitable, I ask you, can it be called good? If even the things that are not for salvation are permitted, then the things that are not good are also permitted. But which ought you to wish for more: what is good for this reason, that it is permitted, or what [is good] for this reason, that it is profitable? I think there is a great difference between licence and salvation. Of the good it is not said "it is permitted", because the good does not wait to be permitted, but to be taken up. But that is permitted about which it is in doubt whether it is good, which might also not be permitted if it did not have some primary cause of its own. On account of the danger of incontinence it is permitted to marry a second time; for unless the licence of some thing not good lay at hand, there would be nothing in which it could be proved who obeys the divine will and who his own power; which of us pursues the immediacy of advantage, and who embraces the occasion of licence. Licence is for the most part a temptation of discipline, since discipline is proved through temptation, [and] temptation operates through licence. Thus it comes about that all things are permitted but not all things are expedient; while he to whom it is permitted is tempted, and he is judged while he is tempted in the permission. It was permitted to the apostles too to marry, and to lead wives about
Editors' notes and page, col. 972
Footnotes
(26) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 972
Non vincis scilicet Rhen
"Non vincis scilicet": Rhenanus.
(printed under page 490)
(27) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 972
Præstantiam forte Rig.
"Præstantiam" (excellence), perhaps: Rigault.
(printed under page 490)
(28) ‹et judicatur› · call in col 972
Cui permittitur et vinci ms. Wouw.
"Cui permittitur et vinci" (to whom it is permitted, and to be overcome): Wouwer's manuscript.
Commentarius (printed under page 490)
(16) ‹uxores circumducere› · call in col 972
Licebat et apostolis nubere exores circumducere. Eas habebant pro sororibus, ut Strom. III, docet Clemens Alex. : unde Lutheranorum conatus abiit in fumos, qui ex Tertulliano conjugium clericorum astruere nituntur. Post Magdeburgenses, Calixtus insignis Lutheranus hoc tuendum suscepit, librumque prægrandem edidit de conjugio clerico- (continues)
The apostles too were permitted to marry and lead wives [printed exores] about. They had them as sisters, as Clement of Alexandria teaches in Stromata III; whence the attempt of the Lutherans, who strive to establish the marriage of clerics from Tertullian, has gone up in smoke. After the Magdeburg Centuriators, Calixtus, a noted Lutheran, undertook to defend this, and published a huge book on the marriage of cler- (continues)
(printed under page 490)
Page
- running head: [...]M PARS II. — SERIES II, MORALIA. (cut off at left edge)
- marginal letters: A erunt presbyteri, qui de laicis; B num permitti non exspectat; C et apostolis nubere; D quid offerendi verbo (in the Commentarius)
- old-edition numerals: 924 after quoniam
(I Cor. VI, 12); licenat et de Evangelio ali. Sed qui jure hoc usus non est in occasionem, ad exemplum nos suum provocat, docens in eo esse probationem, in quo licentia experimentum abstinentiae praestruxit.
(1 Cor. 6:12); it was permitted [him] also to be supported by the Gospel. But he who did not use this right as an occasion calls us to his own example, teaching that the proof lies in that in which licence has laid the groundwork for a trial of abstinence.
CAPUT IX.
Chapter IX.
Si penitus sensus ejus interpretemur, non aliud dicendum erit secundum matrimonium, quam species stupri. Cum enim dicat, maritos hoc in sollicitudine habere, quemadmodum sibi placeant; non utique de moribus (nam bonam sollicitudinem non sugillaret); et de cultu, et ornatu, et omni studio formae, ad illecebras movendas sollicitos intelligi velit; de forma autem et cultu placere carnalis concupiscentiae ingenium sit, quae etiam stupri causa est: ecquid videtur tibi stupri affine esse secundum matrimonium, quoniam ea in illo deprehendo quae stupro competunt? Ipse Dominus: Qui viderit, inquit, mulierem ad concupiscendum, jam stupravit eam in corde suo (Matth. V, 28). Qui autem eam ad ducendum viderit, minus an plus fecit? Quid, si etiam duxerit? quod non faceret, nisi et ad ducendum concupisset, et ad concupiscendum vidisset. Nisi si potest duci uxor, quam non videris nec concupieris. Multum sane interest, maritus an caelebs aliam concupiscat. Omnis mulier etiam caelibi alia est, quandiu aliena; nec per aliud tamen fit marita, nisi per quod et adultera. Leges videntur matrimonii et stupri differentiam facere per diversitatem illiciti, non per conditionem rei ipsius. Alioquin quae res et viris et feminis omnibus adest ad matrimonium et stuprum? commistio carnis scilicet, cujus concupiscentiam Dominus stupro adaequavit. Ergo, inquis, jam et primas, id est, unas nuptias destruis. Nec immerito, quoniam et ipsae ex eo constant, quo et stuprum. Ideo optimum est homini mulierem non attingere, et ideo virginis principalis sanctitas,
If we interpret his meaning thoroughly, second marriage will have to be called nothing other than a species of fornication. For since he says that husbands have this as their concern, how they may please one another; not, of course, in respect of morals (for he would not have censured a good concern); and since he wishes them to be understood as anxious about dress and adornment and every pursuit of beauty, for the stirring up of allurements; and since to please by beauty and dress is the character of carnal concupiscence, which is also the cause of fornication: does not second marriage seem to you akin to fornication, since I find in it those things which belong to fornication? The Lord Himself says: Whoever has looked upon a woman to lust after her has already debauched her in his heart (Matt. 5:28). But he who has looked upon her in order to marry her, has he done less or more? What if he has even married her? This he would not do unless he had both lusted in order to marry and looked in order to lust. Unless perhaps a wife can be married whom you have neither seen nor desired. It certainly makes a great difference whether a husband or an unmarried man desires another woman. Every woman, even to an unmarried man, is another woman so long as she is someone else's; and yet she becomes a wife by no other means than that by which she also becomes an adulteress. The laws seem to make the difference between marriage and fornication through the diversity of what is unlawful, not through the nature of the thing itself. Otherwise, what thing is present to all men and women alike for marriage and for fornication? The mingling of flesh, namely, the lust for which the Lord has equated with fornication. 'Then', you say, 'you are now destroying even first, that is, single marriages.' And not without reason, since they too consist of that of which fornication also consists. Therefore it is best for a man not to touch a woman, and therefore the virgin's sanctity is the principal one,
Editors' notes and page, col. 973
Footnotes
Variae lectiones (set across the full page width; numbered calls) (printed under page 491)
(29) ‹abstinentiae praestruxit› · call in col 973
Abstinentiam præstruxit Jun. præstruxerit cod. Wouw.
"Abstinentiam præstruxit" (laid down abstinence beforehand): Junius; "præstruxerit": Wouwer's manuscript.
(printed under page 491)
(30) ‹illecebras movendas› · call in col 973
Moliendas Seml. ed. Venet.
"Moliendas": Semler, Venice edition.
(printed under page 491)
(31) ‹Ipse Dominus› · call in col 973
Interim Dominus ipse Rhen. Fran. Par. Pam.
"Interim Dominus ipse" (meanwhile the Lord himself): Rhenanus, Franeker and Paris editions, Pamelius.
(printed under page 491)
(32) ‹minus an plus fecit› · call in col 973
Minus perfecerit Fran. Par. minus par fecit Rhen.
"Minus perfecerit": Franeker and Paris editions; "minus par fecit": Rhenanus.
(printed under page 491)
(33) ‹nec concupieris› · call in col 973
Etsi non videris, concupieris saltem, cum ipsam ducere cœperis Rhen. Par. et al.
"Etsi non videris, concupieris saltem, cum ipsam ducere cœperis" (even if you have not seen her, you will at least have desired her when you begin to marry her): Rhenanus, Paris edition and others.
(printed under page 491)
(34) ‹aliam concupiscat› · call in col 973
Maritus ab zelo non concupiscens Fran. Paris. multum sane abest maritus ab zelo Pam.
"Maritus ab zelo non concupiscens": Franeker and Paris editions; "multum sane abest maritus ab zelo": Pamelius.
(printed under page 491)
(35) ‹alia est› · call in col 973
Mulier zelivira est Pam. Par. Fran.
"Mulier zelivira est": Pamelius, Paris and Franeker editions.
(printed under page 491)
(36) ‹quæ› · call in col 973
³⁷ Quæ abest a Pam. Rhen. Seml.
[Numbered 37 as printed; the call in the text is 36.] "Quæ" (which) is missing in Pamelius, Rhenanus, Semler.
(printed under page 491)
(37) ‹omnibus adest› · call in col 973
Eadem imponit, est enim et matr. Fran. Par. Pam.
"Eadem imponit, est enim et matr[imonium]": Franeker and Paris editions, Pamelius.
(printed under page 491)
(38) ‹Dominus› · call in col 973
Scilicet certandum cujus concupiscentia nos Pam.
"Scilicet certandum cujus concupiscentia nos": Pamelius.
(printed under page 491)
(39) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 974
Prævidebuntur Rhen. Pam.
"Prævidebuntur" (will be foreseen): Rhenanus, Pamelius.
(printed under page 491)
(40) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 974
Junxere Rhen. sinceræ conjiciebat id. inuxoræ Pam. Par.
"Junxere" (joined): Rhenanus; "sinceræ" the same conjectured; "inuxoræ": Pamelius, Paris edition.
(printed under page 491)
(41) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 974
Deliquisse Rhen. Pam. Hoc verb. intulit Rig.
"Deliquisse" (to have sinned): Rhenanus, Pamelius. Rigault brought this word in.
(printed under page 491)
(16) (continued) · call on the previous page
rum. In eo autem errore deprehenduntur Socrates et Sozomenus qui Nicænum conclium aiunt liberum reliquisse clericis conjugium, quod quam falsum sit docet canon tertius, ἀπηγόρευσεν καθόλου ἡ μεγάλη Σύνοδος μήτε ἐπισκόπῳ, μήτε πρεσβυτέρῳ, μήτε διακόνῳ· μήτε ὅλως τινὶ τῶν ἐκ κλήρῳ ἐξεῖναι συνείσακτον ἔχειν· πλὴν εἰ μὴ ἄρα μητέρα ἢ ἀδελφὴν, ἢ θείαν, ἢ ἃ μόνα πρόσωπα πᾶσαν ὑποψίαν διαπέφευγεν. Omnino prohibuit, magna synodus, ne episcopus, neque presbyter, neque diaconus, neque ulli ordinis ecclesiastici extraneam habere, prætermatrem aut sororem aut amitam, aut eas tantum personas quæ a suspicione omni essent immunes. Idem habes can. 3, conc. Carthag. et ex jure civili l. sacris. can. 45, c. de episc. et cler. Le Pr.
-ics. Socrates and Sozomen are caught in this error, who say that the Council of Nicaea left clerics free to marry; how false this is the third canon shows: "The great Synod has altogether forbidden any bishop, presbyter or deacon, or anyone at all of those in the clergy, to have a woman brought in to live with him, unless perhaps a mother or sister or aunt, or only such persons as have escaped all suspicion." The great synod wholly forbade any bishop, presbyter, deacon, or anyone of any ecclesiastical order to have a woman from outside, except a mother or sister or aunt, or only such persons as were free of all suspicion. You have the same in canon 3 of the Council of Carthage, and from the civil law, the law Sacris, canon 45, [Code, title] on bishops and clerics. Le Prieur.
(printed under page 491)
(17) ‹Minus an plus fecit› · call in col 973
Minus an plus fecit? In exemplari legitur, minus amplius fecit. Forte autem vocula an cum sequenti coaluit affinitate soni, minus an amplius fecit.
Did he do less or more? In the exemplar it reads minus amplius fecit. But perhaps the little word an ran together with the next one through likeness of sound: minus an amplius fecit.
(printed under page 491)
(18) ‹Credo post finem vivendi› · call in col 974
Credo post finem vivendi. Sic legebat Hieronymus, Epist. ad Gerontiam, non ut in vulgatis editionibus : « Post finem subaudi. Adhinniamus, inquit, ad omnes, feminas, et in exemplum Sodomiæ et Gomorrhæ, ab ultimo die deprehendamur vendentes et ementes, et nubentes et nuptui tradentes, ut tunc sit finis cujugii, quando terminus vitæ. » Rig.
I believe, after the end of living. So Jerome read, in his Letter to Gerontia, not as in the common editions: "After the end, understand [it]. Let us neigh," he says, "after all women, and, after the example of Sodom and Gomorrah, let the last day find us selling and buying, marrying and giving in marriage, so that the end of wedlock [printed cujugii] may come only when life is ended." Rigault.
(printed under page 491)
Page
- running head: 973 LIBER DE EXHORTATIONE C[ASTITATIS] (cut off at right edge)
- marginal letters: A (I Cor. VI, 12); licenat; B concupiscentiae ingenium sit; C (none visible); D rum. In eo autem error (in the Commentarius)
- old-edition numerals: 925 after per
- misprint: "licenat" (for licebat), first line of the column, kept as printed; the English renders "licebat".
quia caret stupri affinitate. Et cum haec etiam de primis et unis nuptiis praetendi ad caussam continentiae possint, quanto magis secundo matrimonio recusando praejudicabunt! Gratus esto, si semel tibi indulsit Deus nubere; gratus autem eris, si iterum indulsisse illum tibi nescias. Caeterum, abuteris indulgentia, cum sine modestia uteris. Modestia a modo intelligitur. Non tibi sufficit de summo illo immaculatae virginitatis gradu in secundum recidisse nubendo; sed in tertium adhuc devolveris, et in quartum, et fortassis in plures, postquam in secunda statione continens non fuisti: quia nec prohibere plures nuptias voluit, qui de secundis provocandis retractavit. Nubamus igitur quotidie, et nubentes ab ultimo die deprehendamur tanquam Sodoma et Gomorrha: quo die, Vae illud super praegnantes [adimplebitur,] id est, super maritos et incontinentes: de nuptiis enim uteri, et ubera, et infantes. Et quando finis nubendi? Credo post finem vivendi.
because it lacks any kinship with debauchery. And since these things can be put forward for the cause of continence even concerning first and single marriages, how much more will they prejudge [the matter] in refusing a second marriage! Be grateful if God has once granted you to marry; but you will be grateful if you do not know that He has granted it to you a second time. Otherwise, you abuse an indulgence when you use it without moderation. Moderation is understood from measure. It does not suffice you to have fallen back by marrying from that highest grade of immaculate virginity into the second; but you will roll down further into the third, and into the fourth, and perhaps into more, since in the second station you were not continent: for he who reconsidered the matter of calling forth second marriages did not wish to forbid more marriages either. Let us marry, then, daily, and in marrying let us be overtaken by the last day like Sodom and Gomorrah: on which day that "Woe upon the pregnant" [will be fulfilled], that is, upon husbands and the incontinent: for from marriages come wombs, and breasts, and infants. And when is the end of marrying? I believe, after the end of living.
CAPUT X.
Chapter X.
Renuntiemus carnalibus, ut aliquando spiritalia retractemus. Rape occasionem, etsi non exoptatissimam, attamen opportunam, non habere cui debitum solveres, et a quo exsolvereris: desiisti esse debitor. O te felicem! dimisisti debitorem; sustine damnum. Quid si, quod diximus damnum, lucrum sentias? Per continentiam enim negotiaberis magnam substantiam sanctitatis; parcimonia carnis, spiritum adquires. Recogitemus enim ipsam conscientiam nostram, quam alium se homo sentiat: cum forte a sua femina cessat, spiritaliter sapit. Si orationem facit ad Dominum, prope est coelo. Si scripturis incumbit, totus illic est. Si psalmum canit, placet sibi. Si daemonem adjurat, confidit sibi. Ideo Apostolus temporalem purificationem orationum commendandarum
Let us renounce carnal things, so that we may at length take up spiritual things. Seize the occasion, even if not the most desired, yet an opportune one, of not having anyone to whom you might pay the debt, and by whom you might be released from it: you have ceased to be a debtor. O happy you! You have released your debtor; bear the loss. What if you should perceive what we have called a loss to be a gain? For through continence you will trade for a great substance of sanctity; by thrift of the flesh you will acquire the spirit. For let us reconsider our own conscience, how different a man feels himself: when perhaps he abstains from his woman, he has a spiritual understanding. If he makes prayer to the Lord, he is near to heaven. If he applies himself to the scriptures, he is wholly there. If he sings a psalm, he is pleased with himself. If he adjures a demon, he has confidence in himself. Therefore the Apostle a temporary purification, of prayers to be commended
Editors' notes and page, col. 974
Footnotes
(43) ‹retractemus› · call in col 974
Fructificemus Rig.
"Fructificemus" (let us bear fruit): Rigault. [No note 42 is printed.]
(printed under page 491)
(44) ‹sustine damnum› · call in col 974
Simile damnum Rhen. Pam.
"Simile damnum" (a like loss): Rhenanus, Pamelius.
(printed under page 491)
(45) ‹parcimonia carnis› · call in col 974
Carnis servientis Fran. Par. carni sævienti Jun.
"Carnis servientis" (of the serving flesh): Franeker and Paris editions; "carni sævienti" (to the raging flesh): Junius.
Commentarius (printed under page 491)
Page
- running head: XHORTATIONE CASTITATIS. (cut off at left edge; column number 974)
- marginal letters: A ‹ctitas, quia caret stupri›; B ‹qui de secundis provocandis›; C (none); D ‹c. de episc. et cler.› (in the Commentarius at the page foot, not in the text)
- old-edition numerals: 926 after ‹Si›
causa adjecit; ut sciremus, quod ad tempus prodest semper nobis exercendum esse, ut semper prosit. Quotidie, imo omni momento oratio hominibus necessaria est, utque et continentia, postquam oratio necessaria est. Oratio de conscientia procedit. Si conscientia erubescat, erubescit oratio. Spiritus deducit orationem ad Deum. Si spiritus reus apud se sit conscientiae erubescentis, quomodo audebit orationem ducere ab illa, de qua erubescente et ipse suffunditur sa⟨n⟩ctus minister ? Etenim est prophetica vox veteris Testamenti: Svncti eritis, quia Deus sanctus (Levit. XI, 44, seq.; XIX; 2; I Petr., I, 16); et rursus : Cum sancto sanctificaberis, et cum viro innoente innocens eris, et cum electo electus (Psal. XVIII, 26). Debemus enim ita ingredi in disciplina Domini, ut dignum est, non secundum carnis calentes concupiscentias. Ita enim et Apostolus dicit, quod sapere secundum carnem mors sit; secundum spiritum vero sapere vita aeterna sit in Christo Jesu Domino nostro. Si haec obfusio, etiam cum in unis nuptiis res carnis exercetur, Spiritum sanctum avertit, quanto magis cum in secundo matrimonio agitur ?
for the sake, he added; so that we might know that what is beneficial for a time must always be practised by us, so that it may always be beneficial. Daily, nay at every moment, prayer is necessary for men, and so certainly is continence too, since prayer is necessary. Prayer proceeds from the conscience. If the conscience blushes, prayer blushes. The spirit leads prayer to God. If the spirit is guilty in its own sight of a blushing conscience, how will it dare to lead prayer away from that conscience, at whose blushing the holy minister himself also is suffused? For indeed there is the prophetic voice of the Old Testament: You shall be holy, because God is holy (Lev. 11:44 ff.; 19:2; 1 Pet. 1:16); and again: With the holy you will be sanctified, and with the innocent man you will be innocent, and with the elect elect (Ps. 17:26). For we ought so to enter upon the discipline of the Lord as is fitting, not according to the hot concupiscences of the flesh. For so the Apostle too says that to be minded according to the flesh is death, but to be minded according to the spirit is life eternal in Christ Jesus our Lord. If this clouding, even when the business of the flesh is carried on within a single marriage, turns away the Holy Spirit, how much more when it is done in a second marriage?
CAPUT XI.
Chapter XI.
Duplex enim rubor est ; quia in secundo matrimonio duae uxores eumdem circumstant maritum ; una spiritu, alia in carne : neque enim pristinam poteris odisse, cui etiam religiosiorem reservas affectionem, ut jam receptae apud Dominum, pro cujus spiritu postulas, pro qua oblationes annuas reddis. Stabis ergo ad Dominum cum tot uxoribus, quot in oratione commemoras ? et offeres pro duabus ? et commendabis illas duas per sacerdotem de monogamia, ordinatum, aut etiam de virginitate sancitum, circumdatum virginibus ac univiris, et ascendet sacrificium tuum libera froute ? et inter caeteras voluntates bonae mentis, postulabis tibi et uxori castitatem ?
For the shame is twofold; because in a second marriage two wives surround the same husband; one in spirit, the other in the flesh: for you will not be able to hate the former, for whom you even reserve a more religious affection, as for one already received with the Lord, for whose spirit you make petition, for whom you render annual offerings. Will you then stand before the Lord with as many wives as you commemorate in prayer? And will you make offering for two? And will you commend those two through a priest ordained out of monogamy, or even consecrated out of virginity, surrounded by virgins and once-married women, and will your sacrifice ascend with an unabashed brow? And among the other wishes of a good mind, will you ask chastity for yourself and your wife?
Editors' notes and page, col. 975
Footnotes
Variae lectiones (set across the full page width; numbered calls) (printed under page 492)
(46) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 975
Purificationi orationem commendavit causatus id q. a. t, permiserat Pam. Par. Fran.
"Purificationi orationem commendavit causatus id q[uod] a[d] t[empus] permiserat": Pamelius, Paris and Franeker editions.
(printed under page 492)
(47) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 975
Cod. Wouweri : Quot., imo si omni mom. Rig. : Quotidie, omni mom. al. : si quot., omni mom.
Wouwer's manuscript: "Quot[idie], imo si omni mom[ento]"; Rigault: "Quotidie, omni mom[ento]"; others: "si quot[idie], omni mom[ento]".
(printed under page 492)
(48) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 975
Cod. Wouweti : si conscientia erubescit. Rig. conscientiæ erubescentis.
Wouwer's [printed Wouweti] manuscript: "si conscientia erubescit" (if conscience blushes); Rigault: "conscientiæ erubescentis" (of a blushing conscience).
(printed under page 492)
(49) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 975
⁴⁰ Cod. Agobardi : orat. deducere ab aliare. Verba. de qua—minister Rig. solus refert.
[Numbered 40 as printed; evidently 49.] The Agobard codex: "orat[ionem] deducere ab aliare [sic]". The words "de qua … minister" Rigault alone reports.
(printed under page 492)
(50) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 975
Rhen. aliique : ut Deo dignum fructum, non sec. carnis ex squalentio conc. Rig. calentes concupiscentias Par. f. squalentes. Jun.
Rhenanus and others: "ut Deo dignum fructum, non sec[undum] carnis ex squalentio conc[upiscentias]"; Rigault: "calentes concupiscentias" (glowing desires); Paris edition; perhaps "squalentes": Junius.
(printed under page 492)
(51) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 975
Obtusio Fran. Pår. Pam.
"Obtusio" (dullness): Franeker and Paris editions, Pamelius.
(printed under page 492)
(52) ‹religiosiorem› · call in col 975
Cariorem Jun. clariorem Fran. Par.
"Cariorem" (dearer): Junius; "clariorem" (brighter): Franeker and Paris editions.
(printed under page 492)
(53) ‹et commendabis› · call in col 975
Commemorabis Fran. Par.
"Commemorabis" (you will commemorate): Franeker and Paris editions.
(printed under page 492)
(54) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 975 or 976
Communiendas Rig.
"Communiendas": Rigault.
(printed under page 492)
(19) ‹Ideo Apostolus temporalem purificationem› · call not visible on this page
Ideo Apostolus temporalem purificationem orationum commendandarum causa adjecit. Religiosas nuptiarum inducias significat. Et aliquid ejusmodi etiam apud Gentiles fuisse testatur illud Juvenalis, in sexta sat. ; Ille petit veniam, quotiens non abstinet uxor Concubitu, sacris observandisque diebus. Rig.
For this reason the Apostle added a temporary purification for the sake of commending prayers. He means a religious truce in marriage. That there was something of the kind among the Gentiles too is attested by Juvenal's line in the sixth satire: "He begs pardon whenever his wife does not abstain from lying with him on sacred days that are to be kept." Rigault.
(printed under page 492)
(20) ‹Vita æterna sit in Christo Jesu Domino nostro› · call not visible on this page
(20 Vita æterna sit in Christo Jesu Domino nostro. Post hæc verba in antiquissimo exemplari leguntur pluscula, quæ rejecta fuisse videntur, ob nimias laudes Priscæ illius Montanicæ, cujus et verba citantur. Reddimus hic tamen, quo magis miremur hominem tantum etiam talibus decipi potuisse. Rig. — Rig. in suo mscr. hæc inserta reperit, quæ non dubitat Aug. Neander quin ab ipso Tertull. sint scripta : « Item per sanctam prophetidem Priscam ita evangelizatur, quod sanctus minister sanctimoniam noverit ministrare. Purificantia enim concordat, ait, et visiones vident et ponentes faciem deorsum etiam voces audiunt manifestas, tam salutares quam et occultas. »
Let there be eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. After these words a few more lines are read in the most ancient exemplar, which seem to have been rejected for their excessive praise of that Montanist Prisca, whose words are even quoted. We give them here nonetheless, so that we may wonder the more that so great a man could be deceived even by such things. Rigault. — Rigault found these words inserted in his manuscript, and August Neander does not doubt that they were written by Tertullian himself: "Likewise through the holy prophetess Prisca the gospel is preached thus, that the holy minister knows how to minister holiness. For purification brings harmony, she says, and they see visions, and, setting their faces downward, they also hear voices that are clear, as wholesome as they are hidden."
(printed under page 492)
Page
- running head: 975 TERTULLIANI OPERUM PARS II. — (cut off at right edge)
- marginal letters: A rum causa adjecit; B xviii, 26). Debemus enim; C poteris odisse, cui etiam; D beside the commentary at the page foot ((19) Ideo Apostolus), not in the text
- old-edition numerals: 927 after sacrificium
CAPUT XII.
Chapter XII.
Scio quibus cassationibus coloremus insatiabilem carnis cupiditatem: praetendimus necessitates adminiculorum, domum administrandam, familiam regendam, loculos, claves custodiendas, lanificium dispensandum, victum procurandum, curas domesticas. Scilicet solis maritorum domibus bene est. Perierunt coelibum familiae, res spadonum, fortunae militum, aut peregrinantium sine uxoribus. Non enim nos et milites sumus? eo quidem majoris disciplinae, quanto tanti imperatoris. Non et nos peregrinantes in isto saeculo sumus? Cur autem ita dispositus es, o christiane, ut sine uxore non possis? Nunc et consors onerum domesticorum necessaria est. Habe aliquam uxorum spiritalem, adsume de viduis, fide pulcram, paupertate dotatam, aetate signatam: bonas nuptias feceris. Hujusmodi uxores etiam plures haberi Deo gratum est. Sed posteritatem recogitant christiani, quibus crastinum non est. Haeredes Dei servus desiderabit, qui semetipsum de saeculo exhaeredavit? Et ideo quis repetat matrimonium, si de pristino non habeat liberos? Habebit itaque hoc primum, ut diutius velit vivere, ipso apostolo festinante ad Dominum? Certe expeditissimus in persecutionibus, constantissimus in martyriis, promptissimus in communicationibus, temperantissimus in acquisitionibus: postremo securus morietur, relictis filiis forsitan qui illi parentent. Numquid ergo hujusmodi et reipublicae prospectu aguntur, ne civitates deficiant, si soboles non exerceantur: ne leges, ne jura, ne commercia delabantur; ne templa derelinquantur; ne non sint qui adclament: CHRISTIANI AD BESTIAS. Haec enim audire desiderant, qui filios quaerunt. Sufficiant ad consilium viduitatis vel ista, praecipue apud nos, importunitas liberorum, ad quos suscipiendos legibus compelluntur homines; quia sapiens quique nunquam libens filios desiderasset. Quid ergo facies si novam uxorem de tua conscientia impleveris? dissolvas medicaminibus
I know with what pretexts we colour the insatiable desire of the flesh: we put forward the need for support, a house to be managed, a household to be ruled, purses and keys to be guarded, the wool-work to be distributed, provisions to be procured, domestic cares. Clearly, it goes well only with the houses of married men. The households of the celibate have perished, the property of eunuchs, the fortunes of soldiers, or of those who travel abroad without wives. For are we not soldiers too? soldiers indeed of a stricter discipline, inasmuch as of so great an emperor. Are we not also sojourners in this world? But why are you so disposed, O Christian, that you cannot do without a wife? Now, too, a partner in domestic burdens is necessary. Have some spiritual wife; take one from among the widows, beautiful in faith, dowered with poverty, sealed by age: you will have made a good marriage. To have even several wives of this kind is pleasing to God. But Christians, for whom there is no tomorrow, give thought to posterity. Will the servant of God desire heirs, who has disinherited himself from the world? And is anyone for that reason to repeat marriage, if he has no children from the former one? Will he then have this as his first concern, that he wishes to live longer, while the apostle himself hastens to the Lord? Certainly he will be most unencumbered in persecutions, most steadfast in martyrdoms, most ready in sharing his goods, most temperate in acquisitions: lastly he will die free of care, leaving behind sons perhaps to perform funeral rites for him. Are such things then done also out of regard for the commonwealth, lest cities fail if offspring are not reared; lest laws, lest rights, lest commerce collapse; lest temples be deserted; lest there be none to shout: CHRISTIANS TO THE BEASTS! For this is what they long to hear who seek sons. Let even these considerations suffice for the counsel of widowhood, especially among us, the burdensomeness of children, to the begetting of whom men are compelled by laws; since no wise man would ever willingly have desired sons. What then will you do if you have filled a new wife with your own conscience? are you to dissolve with drugs
Editors' notes and page, col. 976
Footnotes
(55) ‹CHRISTIANI AD BESTIAS› · call in col 976
Christianis leonem Rig.
"Christianis leonem" (the lion for the Christians): Rigault.
(printed under page 492)
(56) ‹si novam› · call in col 976
Si nolens ux. Ciaccon. si nolis, si uxorem Paris. Pam.
"Si nolens ux[orem]": Chacón; "si nolis, si uxorem": Paris edition, Pamelius.
Commentarius (printed under page 492)
Page
- running head: …UM PARS II. — SERIES II, MORALIA. 976 (left edge cut off)
- marginal letters: A CAPUT XII.; B de viduis, fide pulcram; C publicae prospectu aguntur; D nimias laudes Priscae (commentary)
- old-edition numerals: 928 after nunquam
- other: Variae lectiones and Commentarius (editors' notes, incl. remarks on Prisca the Montanist) at page foot not set; full-width headings "Variae lectiones." and "Commentarius." not set; column ends mid-word "medicamini-"; "aguntur" and "Sufficiant" partly damaged type, read as such; left column fragments belong to col. 975
conceptum? Puto nobis non magis licere nascentem necare, quam natum. Sed fortassc illo tempore praegnantis uxoris, remedium tantae sollicitudini a Deo petere audebis, quod in te positum recusasti. Aliqua, opinor, sterilis prospicietur, jam vel frigidioris aetatis. Satis consu⟨l⟩te, et in primis fideliter. Nullam enim credidimus, Deo volente, sterilem aut anum enixam; quod adeo magis evenire potest, si quis praesumptione hujus providentiae suae Dei aemulationem provocarit. Scimus denique quemdam ex fratribus, cum, propter filiam suam, secundo matrimonio sterilem captasset uxorem, tam iterum patrem factum, quam et iterum maritum.
what has been conceived? I think it is no more lawful for us to kill one who is being born than one who has been born. But perhaps at that time of your wife's pregnancy you will dare to ask of God a remedy for so great an anxiety, which, when it was placed in your own power, you refused. Some barren woman, I suppose, will be looked out for, or one already of a colder age. Very prudently, and above all faithfully! For we have believed that, if God wills it, no woman is [too] barren or [too] old to give birth; and this can happen all the more if anyone, by the presumption of this foresight of his, has provoked the jealousy of God. Indeed we know a certain one of the brethren who, when on account of his daughter he had sought out a barren wife in a second marriage, was made a father again just as he was made a husband again.
CAPUT XIII.
Chapter XIII.
Ad hanc meam cohortationem, frater dilectissime, accedunt etiam saecularia exempla, quae saepe nobis etiam in testimonio posita sunt, cum quid bonum, et Deo placitum ab extraneis quoque agnoscitur, et testimonio oneratur. Denique, monogamia apud ethnicos ita in summo honore est, ut et virginibus legitime nubentibus univira pronuba adhibeatur; et si auspicii causa, utique boni auspicii est. Item, ut in quibusdam solemnibus et officiis, prior sit univirae locus. Certe flaminica nonnisi univira est, quae et flaminis lex est. Nam prior cum ipsi pontifici maximo iterare matrimonium non licet, utique monogamiae gloria est: cum autem Dei sacramenta Satanas affectat, provocatio est nostra; imo suffusio, si pigri sumus ad continentiam Deo exhibendam, quam diabolo quidam praestant, nunc virginitate, nunc viduitate perpetua.
To this exhortation of mine, dearest brother, are added also secular examples, which have often been set before us even as testimony, when something good and pleasing to God is recognized even by outsiders and is laden with their testimony. Thus monogamy is held in such supreme honour among the heathen that even for virgins marrying lawfully a once-married woman is employed as bridesmaid; and if this is for the sake of the omen, then surely it is of good omen. Likewise, that in certain solemnities and offices the first place should belong to the once-married woman. Certainly the flaminica is none other than a once-married woman, which is also the law of the flamen. For when, first, it is not lawful for the pontifex maximus himself to repeat marriage, surely this is the glory of monogamy; but since Satan imitates the sacraments of God, it is a challenge to us; nay rather a shame, if we are slack in showing to God a continence which certain people offer to the devil, now by virginity, now by perpetual widowhood.
Editors' notes and page, col. 977
Footnotes
Variae lectiones (set across the full page width; numbered calls) (printed under page 493)
(57) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 977
Dissoluturus es medicamine Fran. Par.
"Dissoluturus es medicamine" (you are going to dissolve with a drug): Franeker and Paris editions.
(printed under page 493)
(58) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 977
Tanta solitudine Rhen.
"Tanta solitudine" (with such loneliness): Rhenanus.
(printed under page 493)
(59) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 977
⁵⁷ Contentionem Fran. Par. Pam.
[Numbered 57 again as printed; evidently 59.] "Contentionem" (striving): Franeker and Paris editions, Pamelius.
(printed under page 493)
(60) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 977
Qui antistant nunc virginitate. nunc vid. evirant Fran.
"Qui antistant nunc virginitate. nunc vid[uitate] evirant": Franeker edition.
(printed under page 493)
(61) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 977
Cum autem Dei sit simius tantum Satanas ad perficiendum provocatio est nostri — quia diabolo — noverimus (noverim Par.) virgines Vestæ apud Romam, et Junonis apud Achaiam, et Apollinis apud Delphos, et Minervæ et Dianæ omnibus locis. Noverimus (noveram Par.) continentes viros cod. Wouw.
"Cum autem Dei sit simius tantum Satanas ad perficiendum provocatio est nostri — quia diabolo — noverimus (noverim: Paris edition) virgines Vestæ apud Romam, et Junonis apud Achaiam, et Apollinis apud Delphos, et Minervæ et Dianæ omnibus locis. Noverimus (noveram: Paris edition) continentes viros": Wouwer's manuscript. (Since Satan is so much the ape of God for bringing things to completion, it is a challenge to us … because to the devil … we know virgins of Vesta at Rome, of Juno in Achaia, of Apollo at Delphi, and of Minerva and Diana in every place. We know continent men.)
(printed under page 493)
(62) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 977
²⁰ Exinde adempto contactu Fran. Par.
[Numbered 20 as printed; evidently 62.] "Exinde adempto contactu" (contact thereafter being taken away): Franeker and Paris editions.
(printed under page 493)
(63) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 977
Lux castitatis Fran. Par.
"Lux castitatis" (light of chastity): Franeker and Paris editions.
(printed under page 493)
(64) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 977
Aliqua Dido Rig.
"Aliqua Dido" (some Dido): Rigault.
(printed under page 493)
(65) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 977
Ut Fran. Par. et Rhen.
"Ut" (as): Franeker and Paris editions and Rhenanus.
(printed under page 493)
(66) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 977
Maculata Rhen. certo Rhen Seml. Pam.
"Maculata" (stained): Rhenanus; "certo" (surely): Rhenanus, Semler, Pamelius.
(printed under page 493)
(67) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 977
Inveniam Rhen. Seml. Pam.
"Inveniam" (I shall find): Rhenanus, Semler, Pamelius.
(printed under page 493)
(68) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 977
Quanto majus est Rhen. Pam. Rig.
"Quanto majus est" (how much greater it is): Rhenanus, Pamelius, Rigault.
(printed under page 493)
(69) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 977
⁸⁵ Quam vivendo separari animam a malo Jun. id bonum inseri, quam viventi separari. Lat quam non vivendo separari. Quantæ et quæ cod. Wouw. quam vivendo separari animam Fran. Par.
[Numbered 85 as printed; evidently 69.] "Quam vivendo separari animam a malo" (than for the soul to be separated from evil by living): Junius; "id bonum inseri, quam viventi separari": Latinius; "quam non vivendo separari. Quantæ et quæ": Wouwer's manuscript; "quam vivendo separari animam": Franeker and Paris editions.
(printed under page 493)
(70) ‹anchor not visible› · call in col 977 or 978
Quæ Fran.
"Quæ" (who, feminine): Franeker edition.
(printed under page 493)
(21) ‹Tantæ sollicitudini a Deo petere audebis› · call not visible on this page
Tantæ sollicitudini a Deo petere audebis, etc. Legi hunc locum, sed immutatis tantisper verbis : « Tanta sollicitudine petere audebis, quod in te positum recusabis ? » Illud autem est quod ait Aristides de concord. ad Rhod. Ἄτοπον τοῖς θεοῖς ἐνοχλεῖν αὐτοῖς δὲ μὴ βούλεσθαι πράττειν ἅ γ' ἡμῖν εἶναι δοκεῖ τοῖς θεοῖς αὐτοῖς. Ridiculum esse Deos fatigare, nolle tamen ea facere quæ in nostra potestate sita esse, Dii ipsi norunt. Sic objurgat Græcos Demosthenes, Philipp. III, quod facerent quemadmodum ii qui grandinem jamjam cadentem spectant, ab ea incolumes se optant, cum tamen nullus de ea avertenda laboret. Pe Pr.
You will dare to ask from God with such anxiety, etc. I have read this passage, but with the words a little changed: "Will you dare to ask with such anxiety what you will refuse when it lies in your own power?" It is what Aristides says in On Concord, to the Rhodians: "It is absurd to trouble the gods and yet be unwilling oneself to do what the gods themselves think lies with us." It is ridiculous to weary the gods and yet be unwilling to do what the gods themselves know lies within our power. So Demosthenes rebukes the Greeks in the third Philippic for acting like those who watch hail just about to fall and wish to come through it unharmed, while no one takes pains to ward it off. Le Prieur [printed Pe Pr].
(printed under page 493)
(22) ‹Accedunt etiam sæcularia exemplaria› · call not visible on this page
Accedunt etiam sæcularia exemplaria. Etiam apud eos qui pecudes et boves immolabant, in summa commendatione castitatem fuisse tradidit Porphyrius, ἁγνὴν τε ταύτην κομίζοντα τὴν ἱερὸν ὁσίαν καὶ θεῖος κεχαρισμέναν. Rig.
Secular examples are added too. Porphyry records that even among those who sacrificed sheep and oxen chastity was held in the highest esteem, "bringing this as a pure, holy offering, pleasing to the divine." Rigault.
(printed under page 493)
(23) ‹Univira pronuba› · call not visible on this page
Univira pronuba. Pronuba, teste Donato, ex parte uxoris nuptiis præeundis et comitandis præsrat : sicut auspex, cujus etiam hic meminit Auctor, ex parte viri, sic dictus quod suspicia sint dicta quasi avispicia pro nuptiis ex volatu avium captare soleret. Pam.
A once-married matron of honour. The pronuba, on Donatus's testimony, presided [printed præs-rat] on the wife's side over leading and escorting the wedding; just as the auspex, whom the author also mentions here, did on the husband's side, so called because he used to take the "suspicia", called as it were "avispicia", for weddings from the flight of birds. Pamelius.
(printed under page 493)
(24) ‹Maluit e contrario uri quam nubere› · call not visible on this page
Maluit e contrario uri quam nubere. Igne contrario scilicet amoris ignem exstinxit. Rig.
She preferred, on the contrary, to burn rather than to marry. With a contrary fire, that is, she put out the fire of love. Rigault.
(printed under page 493)
(25) ‹Maculatam carnem› · call not visible on this page
Maculatam carnem. Animus enim immaculatus restiterat adulterio. Itaque splendide ac verissime dictum illud a declamatore quodam veteri : « Duo fuerunt, et unus adulterium commisit. » Præclare autem Augustinus hujus facinoris gloriam elevans, ut vanam, ut humanam, ut minime christianam, non esse ait in ea specie quod tantopere laudetur. » Lucretia violata, inquit, Lucretiam castam interemit. Cur interfectricem innocentis et castæ tanta prædicatione laudatis? » Rig.
Stained flesh. For the unstained mind had withstood the adultery. So that saying of a certain old declaimer was splendidly and most truly put: "There were two, and one committed adultery." Augustine, finely lowering the glory of this deed as vain, as human, as not at all Christian, says that there is nothing in it of the kind that deserves such praise: "Lucretia violated," he says, "killed Lucretia chaste. Why do you praise with such acclaim the slayer of an innocent and chaste woman?" Rigault.
(printed under page 493)
(26) ‹Plura exempla curiosius de nostris invenias› · call not visible on this page
Plura exempla curiosius de nostris invenias Totam periodum hic repræsentamus uti est in exemplari Agobardino. Rig.
You may find more examples, if you look more carefully, among our own. We give the whole sentence here as it stands in the Agobard exemplar. Rigault.
(printed under page 493)
Page
- running head: 977 LIBER DE EXHORTATIONE CAST (cut off at the image edge)
- marginal letters: A ‹bus conceptum›; B ‹Ad hanc meam cohortationem›; C ‹cum autem Dei sacramenta›; D ‹(21) Tantae sollicitudini (commentary)›
- old-edition numerals: (none)
- other: column begins with the fragment "bus" of a word broken from the previous column; column ends with "per-" hyphenated across the column break; in "consulte" the l is broken type; "Nam prior cum" set as printed, sense of "prior" unsure; Variae lectiones and Commentarius (editors' notes) at the page foot not set; right-hand column (978) cut off and not set
Novimus virgines Vestae et Junonis apud Achaiae oppidum, Apollinis apud Ephesos, et Minervae quibusdam locis. Novimus et continentes viros, et quidem tauri illius aegyptii antistites. Feminas vero Cereri Africanae; cui etiam sponte abdicato matrimonio adsenescunt, aversantes exinde contactum masculorum, usque ad oscula filiorum. Invenit scilicet diabolus, post luxuriam, etiam castitatem perditricem, quo magis reus sit Christianus, qui castitatem recusaverit conservatricem. Erunt nobis in testimonium et feminae quaedam saeculares, ob univiratus obstinationem, famam consecutae: ut Dido, quae profuga in alieno solo, ubi nuptias regis ultro optasse debuerat, ne tamen secundas experiretur, maluit e contrario uri quam nubere; vel illa Lucretia quae etsi semel per vim, et invita, alium virum passa est, sanguine suo maculatam carnem abluit, ne viveret jam non sibi univira. Plura exempla curiosius de nostris invenias, et quidem tanto potiora, quanto facilius est vivere in castitate, quam pro ea mori; hoc est, animae id bonum misceri, quam non vivendo separari. Quanti igitur et quantae in ecclesiasticis ordinibus de continentia censentur, qui Deo nubere maluerunt, qui carnis suae honorem restituerunt, quique se jam illius aevi filios dicaverunt, occidentes in se concupiscentiam libidinis, et totum illud quod intra ⟨pa⟩radisum non potuit admitti? Unde praesumendum est hos, qui intra paradisum recipi volent, tandem debere cessare ab ea re, a qua paradisus intactus est.
We know of virgins of Vesta and of Juno at a town of Achaia, of Apollo at Ephesus, and of Minerva in certain places. We know also of continent men, and indeed the priests of that Egyptian bull. And women too, dedicated to the African Ceres, in whose service they even grow old, having of their own accord renounced marriage, shunning thereafter the touch of males, even to the kisses of their sons. The devil, evidently, has devised, after luxury, also a chastity that destroys, so that the Christian may be the more guilty who has refused a chastity that preserves. Certain women of the world too will serve us as witness, who have won fame for their persistence in having but one husband: such as Dido, who, a fugitive on foreign soil, where she ought even to have wished of her own accord for marriage with a king, nevertheless, so as not to experience a second marriage, preferred on the contrary to burn rather than to marry; or that Lucretia who, although once, by force and against her will, she had suffered another man, washed her stained flesh with her own blood, so that she might not live on as one who was no longer, for herself, the wife of one man. You may find more examples among our own people if you search more carefully, and indeed so much the better, by as much as it is easier to live in chastity than to die for it; that is, for the soul to be joined to that good than to be separated from it by not living. How many men, then, and how many women in the ecclesiastical orders are reckoned on the ground of continence, who have preferred to be wedded to God, who have restored the honour of their flesh, and who have already dedicated themselves as sons of that age, killing in themselves the concupiscence of lust, and all that which could not be admitted within paradise? Whence it must be presumed that those who wish to be received within paradise ought at length to cease from that thing from which paradise is untouched.
Editors' notes and page, col. 978
Footnotes
(71) ‹quique› · call in col 978
Quæque Fran.
"Quæque" (and who, feminine): Franeker edition.
Commentarius (printed under page 493)
Page
- running head: ...RTATIONE CASTITATIS. 978 (start of running head cut off at left edge)
- marginal letters: A petua. Novimus virgines Vestae; B trario uri quam nubere; C ⟨pa⟩radisum non potuit admitti; D rat : sicut auspex (in the commentarius at page foot)
- old-edition numerals: 929 after abdicato; 930 after curiosius
- note calls 60–70 (60 on the tail "petua" at the column head) and Commentarius calls (24), (25) and (26) stand in this column; their notes are set in n977, labelled "call in col 977" / "call not visible on this page" (QA Q1, 2026-10-18: the settle step should relabel them to col 978).
- misprint in the calls: the Commentarius call after "maculatam carnem" is printed (26) for (25); "invenias" carries the true (26).