Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Tertullian: Part Fourth/To His Wife/II/Chapter 8

by Tertullian

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

Let us further inquire, as if we were in very deed inquisitors of divine sentences, whether they be lawfully (thus condemned).  Even among the nations, do not all the strictest lords and most tenacious of discipline interdict their own slaves from marrying out of their own house?—in order, of course, that they may not run into lascivious excess, desert their duties, purvey their lords’ goods to strangers.  Yet, further, have not (the nations) decided that such women as have, after their lords’^[1] formal warning, persisted in intercourse with other men’s slaves, may be claimed as slaves?  Shall earthly disciplines be held more strict than heavenly prescripts; so that Gentile women, if united to strangers, lose their liberty; ours conjoin to themselves the devil’s slaves, and continue in their (former) position?  Forsooth, they will deny that any formal warning has been given them by the Lord through His own apostle!^[2]

What am I to fasten on as the cause of this madness, except the weakness of faith, ever prone to the concupiscences of worldly^[3] joys?—which, indeed, is chiefly found among the wealthier; for the more any is rich, and inflated with the name of “matron,” the more capacious house does she require for her burdens, as it were a field wherein ambition may run its course.  To such the churches look paltry.  A rich man is a difficult thing (to find) in the house of God;^[4] and if such an one is (found there), difficult (is it to find such) unmarried.  What, then, are they to do?  Whence but from the devil are they to seek a husband apt for maintaining their sedan, and their mules, and their hair-curlers of outlandish stature?  A Christian, even although rich, would perhaps not afford (all) these.  Set before yourself, I beg of you, the examples of Gentiles.  Most Gentile women, noble in extraction and wealthy in property, unite themselves indiscriminately with the ignoble and the mean, sought out for themselves for luxurious, or mutilated for licentious, purposes.  Some take up with their own freedmen and slaves, despising public opinion, provided they may but have (husbands) from whom to fear no impediment to their own liberty.  To a Christian believer it is irksome to wed a believer inferior to herself in estate, destined as she will be to have her wealth augmented in the person of a poor husband!  For if it is “the poor,” not the rich, “whose are the kingdoms of the heavens,”^[5] the rich will find more in the poor (than she brings him, or than she would in the rich).  She will be dowered with an ampler dowry from the goods of him who is rich in God.  Let her be on an equality with him on earth, who in the heavens will perhaps not be so.  Is there need for doubt, and inquiry, and repeated deliberation, whether he whom God has entrusted with His own property^[6] is fit for dotal endowments?^[7]  Whence are we to find (words) enough fully to tell the happiness of that marriage which the Church cements, and the oblation confirms, and the benediction signs and seals; (which) angels carry back the news of (to heaven), (which) the Father holds for ratified?  For even on earth children^[8] do not rightly and lawfully wed without their fathers’ consent.  What kind of yoke is that of two believers, (partakers) of one hope, one desire,^[9] one discipline, one and the same service?  Both (are) brethren, both fellow servants, no difference of spirit or of flesh; nay, (they are) truly “two in one flesh.”^[10]  Where the flesh is one, one is the spirit too.  Together they pray, together prostrate themselves, together perform their fasts; mutually teaching, mutually exhorting,^[11] mutually sustaining.  Equally (are they) both (found) in the Church of God; equally at the banquet of God; equally in straits, in persecutions, in refreshments.  Neither hides (ought) from the other; neither shuns the other; neither is troublesome to the other.  The sick is visited, the indigent relieved, with freedom.  Alms (are given) without (danger of ensuing) torment; sacrifices (attended) without scruple; daily diligence (discharged) without impediment:  (there is) no stealthy signing, no trembling greeting, no mute benediction.  Between the two echo psalms and hymns;^[12] and they mutually challenge each other which shall better chant to their Lord.  Such things when Christ sees and hears, He joys.  To these He sends His own peace.^[13]  Where two (are), there withal (is) He Himself.^[14]  Where He (is), there the Evil One is not.

These are the things which that utterance of the apostle has, beneath its brevity, left to be understood by us.  These things, if need shall be, suggest to your own mind.  By these turn yourself away from the examples of some.  To marry otherwise is, to believers, not “lawful;” is not “expedient.”^[15]

Footnotes

1. Oehler refers us to Tac., Ann., xii. 53, and the notes on that passage.  (Consult especially Orelli’s edition.)
2. The translator inclines to think that Tertullian, desiring to keep up the parallelism of the last-mentioned case, in which (see note 1) the slave’s master had to give the “warning,” means by “domino” here, not “the Lord,” who on his hypothesis is the woman’s Master, not the slave’s, but the “lord” of the “unbeliever,” i.e., the devil:  so that the meaning would be (with a bitter irony, especially if we compare the end of the last chapter, where “the Evil One” is said to “procure” these marriages, so far is he from “condemning” them):  “Forsooth, they” (i.e., the Christian women) “will deny that a formal warning has been given them by the lord:”  (of the unbelievers, i.e., the Evil One) “through an apostle of his!”  If the other interpretation be correct, the reference will be to c. ii. above.
3. Sæcularium.
4. Matt. xix. 23, 24; Mark x. 23, 24; Luke xviii. 24, 25; 1 Cor. i. 26, 27.
5. Matt. v. 3; but Tertullian has omitted “spiritu,” which he inserts in de Pa., c. xi., where he refers to the same passage.  In Luke vi. 20 there is no τῷ πνεύματι.
6. Censum.
7. Invecta.  Comp. de Pa., c. xiii. ad init.
8. Filii.
9. Comp. de Or., c. v. ad fin.; de Pa., c. ix. ad fin.; ad Ux., i. c. v. ad init.
10. Gen. ii. 24; Matt. xix. 5; Mark x. 8; Eph. v. 31.
11. Col. iii. 16.
12. Eph. v. 19; Col. iii. 16.
13. Comp. John xiv. 27.
14. Matt. xviii. 20.
15. Comp. 1 Cor. x. 23.