Tertullian — On Monogamy 7

After the ancient examples of the patriarchs, let us equally pass on to the ancient documents of the legal Scriptures, that we may treat in order of all our canon. And since there are some who sometimes assert that they have nothing to do with the law (which Christ has not dissolved, but fulfilled), sometimes catch at such parts of the law as they choose; plainly do we too assert that the law has deceased in this sense, that its burdens — according to the sentence of the apostles — which not even the fathers were able to sustain, have wholly ceased: such (parts), however, as relate to righteousness not only permanently remain reserved, but even amplified; in order, to be sure, that our righteousness may be able to redound above the righteousness of the scribes and of the Pharisees . If righteousness must, of course chastity must too. If, then, forasmuch as there is in the law a precept that a man is to take in marriage the wife of his brother if he have died without children, for the purpose of raising up seed to his brother; and this may happen repeatedly to the same person, according to that crafty question of the Sadducees ; men for that reason think that frequency of marriage is permitted in other cases as well: it will be their duty to understand first the reason of the precept itself; and thus they will come to know that that reason, now ceasing, is among those parts of the law which have been cancelled. Necessary it was that there should be a succession to the…

8. From the Law Tertullian Comes to the Gospel. He Begins with Examples Before Proceeding to Dogmas Turning now to the law, which is properly ours — that is, to the Gospel — by what kind of examples are we met, until we come to definite dogmas ? Behold, there immediately present themselves to us, on the threshold as it were, the two priestesses of Christian sanctity , Monogamy and Continence: one modest, in Zechariah the priest ; one absolute, in John the forerunner: one appeasing God ; one preaching Christ: one proclaiming a perfect priest ; one exhibiting more than a prophet , — him, namely, who has not only preached or personally pointed out, but even baptized Christ. For who was more worthily to perform the initiatory rite on the body of the Lord, than flesh similar in kind to that which conceived and gave birth to that (body)? And indeed it was a virgin , about to marry once for all after her delivery, who gave birth to Christ , in order that each title of sanctity might be fulfilled in Christ's parentage, by means of a mother who was both virgin, and wife of one husband. Again, when He is presented as an infant in the temple, who is it who receives Him into his hands? Who is the first to recognise Him in spirit? A man just and circumspect, and of course no digamist, (which is plain) even (from this consideration), lest (otherwise) Christ should presently be more worthily preached by a woman , an aged widow , and the wife of one man; who, living devoted to the temple,…

9. From Examples Tertullian Passes to Direct Dogmatic Teachings. He Begins with the Lord's Teaching But grant that these argumentations may be thought to be forced and founded on conjectures, if no dogmatic teachings have stood parallel with them which the Lord uttered in treating of divorce , which, permitted formerly, He now prohibits, first because from the beginning it was not so, like plurality of marriage; secondly, because What God has conjoined, man shall not separate, — for fear , namely, that he contravene the Lord: for He alone shall separate who has conjoined (separate, moreover, not through the harshness of divorce , which (harshness) He censures and restrains, but through the debt of death) if, indeed, one of two sparrows falls not on the ground without the Father's will. Therefore if those whom God has conjoined man shall not separate by divorce , it is equally congruous that those whom God has separated by death man is not to conjoin by marriage; the joining of the separation will be just as contrary to God's will as would have been the separation of the conjunction. So far as regards the non- de struction of the will of God , and the re struction of the law of the beginning. But another reason, too, conspires; nay, not another, but (one) which imposed the law of the beginning, and moved the will of God to prohibit divorce : the fact that (he) who shall have dismissed his wife, except on the ground of adultery , makes her commit adultery ; and (he) who shall…