not to touch a woman.  Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.  Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence:  and likewise also the wife unto the husband.  The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband:  and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.  Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may have leisure for prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incon- tinency.  But I speak this by permission, and not of commandment.  For I would that all men were even as I myself:  but every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that."157 79.  Has the apostle, think you, both shown sufficiently to the strong what is highest, and permitted to the weaker what is next best?  Not to touch a woman he shows is highest when he says, "I would that all men were even as I myself."  But next to this highest is conjugal chastity, that man may not be the prey of fornication.  Did he say that these people were not yet believers because they were married?  Indeed, by this conjugal chastity he says that those who are united are sanctified by one another, if one of them is an unbeliever, and that their children also are sanctified.  "The unbelieving husband," he says, "is sanctified by the believing wife, and the unbelieving woman by the believing husband:  otherwise your children would be unclean; but now are they holy."158  Why do you persist in opposition to such plain truth?  Why do you try to darken the light of Scripture by vain shadows? 80.  Do not say that catechumens are allowed to have wives, but not believers; that cat- echumens may have money, but not believers.  For there are many who use as not using.  And in that sacred washing the renewal of the new man is begun so as gradually to reach perfection, in some more quickly, in others more slowly.  The progress, however, to a new life is made in the case of many, if we view the matter without hostility, but attentively.  As the apostle says of himself, "Though the outward man perish, the inward man is renewed day by day."159  The apostle says that the inward man is renewed day by day that it may reach perfection; and you wish it to begin with perfection!  And it were well if you did wish it.  In reality, you aim not at raising the weak, but at misleading the unwary.  You ought not to have spoken so arrogantly, even if it were known that you are perfect in your childish precepts.  But when your conscience knows that those whom you bring into your sect, when they come to a more intimate acquaintance with you, will find many things in you which nobody hearing you accuse others would suspect, is it not great impertinence to demand perfection in the weaker Catholics, to turn away the inexperienced from the Catholic Church, while you show nothing of the kind in yourself to those thus turned away?  But not to seem 157 1 Cor. vii. 1-7. 158 1 Cor. vii. 14. 159 2 Cor. iv. 16. 110 Marriage and Property Allowed to the Baptized by the Apostles.