{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-421","native_reference":{"book_number":530,"chapter_from":7,"chapter_to":7,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":39,"verse_to":39},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Ambrosiaster</b>: Paul writes this in order to make it clear that a woman who has been rejected by her husband is not free to marry again. If he should die, then she may remarry, but only in the Lord, which means without any suspicion of wrongdoing and within the bounds of the church.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES</i></p><p><b>Augustine of Hippo</b>: The death referred to here is clearly the death of the body, not of the soul. Forgiveness and attempts at reconciliation of the offending person are offered as better solutions than divorce.<br/><i>— ADULTEROUS MARRIAGES</i></p><p><b>Cyprian</b>: That marriage is not to be contracted with Gentiles. In Tobias: \"Take a wife from the seed of thy parents, and take not a strange woman who is not of the tribe of thy parents.\" Also in Genesis, Abraham sends his servant to take from his seed Rebecca, for his son Isaac. Also in Esdras, it was not sufficient for God when the Jews were laid waste, unless they forsook their foreign wives, with the children also whom they had begotten of them. Also in the first Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians: \"The woman is bound so long as her husband liveth; but if he die, she is freed to marry whom she will, only in the Lord. But she will be happier if she abide thus.\" And again: \"Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? Far be it from me. Or know ye not that he who is joined together with an harlot is one body? for two shall be in one flesh. But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.\" Also in the second to the Corinthians: \"Be not joined together with unbelievers. For what participation is there between righteousness and unrighteousness? or what communication hath light with darkness? \" Also concerning Solomon in the third book of Kings: \"And foreign wives turned away his heart after their gods.\"<br/><i>— Treatise XII Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews</i></p><p><b>Shepherd of Hermas</b>: And again I asked him, saying, \"Sir, since you have been so patient in listening to me, will you show me this also?\" \"Speak,\" said he. And I said, \"If a wife or husband die, and the widower or widow marry, does he or she commit sin?\" \"There is no sin in marrying again,\" said he; \"but if they remain unmarried, they gain greater honour and glory with the Lord; but if they marry, they do not sin. Guard, therefore, your chastity and purity, and you will live to God.\"<br/><i>— Shepherd of Hermas, Commandment 4</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: You have the law from the patriarchs indeed; you have the apostle enjoining people to marry in the Lord. You have a crowning also on the making of a freeman; but you have been already ransomed by Christ, and that at a great price.<br/><i>— De Corona</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: You degrade your god, O Marcion, when you make him circumscribed at all by the Creator's time. Assuredly also, when (the apostle) rules that marriage should be \"only in the Lord,\" that no Christian should intermarry with a heathen, he maintains a law of the Creator, who everywhere prohibits marriage with strangers.<br/><i>— Against Marcion Book V</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: Further, if we set down in order the higher and happier grades of bodily patience, (we find that)it is she who is entrusted by holiness with the care of continence of the flesh: she keeps the widow, and sets on the virgin the seal and raises the self-made eunuch to the realms of heaven.<br/><i>— Of Patience</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: Let us now turn our attention to the next best advice, in regard of human infirmity; admonished hereto by the examples of certain, who, when an opportunity for the practice of Continence has been offered them, by divorce, or by the decease of the husband, have not only thrown away the opportunity of attaining so great a good, but not even in their remarriage have chosen to be mindful of the rule that \"above all they marry in the Lord.<br/><i>— To His Wife Book II</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: But in as far as marrying \"in the Lord\" is permissible, as being within our power, so far more culpable is it not to observe that which you can observe. Add to this the fact that the apostle, with regard to widows and the unmarried, advises them to remain permanently in that state, when he says, \"But I desire all to persevere in (imitation of) my example: \" but touching marrying \"in the Lord,\" he no longer advises, but plainly bids. Therefore in this case especially, if we do not obey, we run a risk, because one may with more impunity neglect an \"advice\" than an \"order; \"in that the former springs from counsel, and is proposed to the will (for acceptance or rejection): the other descends from authority, and is bound to necessity. In the former case, to disregard appears liberty, in the latter, contumacy.<br/><i>— To His Wife Book II</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: But it is Gentiles who \"are called,\" I take it, not believers. But if he had been pronouncing absolutely, (in the words under discussion,) touching the marriage of believers merely, (then) had he (virtually) given to saints a permission to marry promiscuously. If, however, he had given such a permission, he would never have subjoined a declaration so diverse from and contrary to his own permission, saying: \"The woman, when her husband is dead, is free: let her marry whom. she wishes, only in the Lord.\" Here, at all events, there is no need for reconsidering; for what there might have been reconsideration about, the Spirit has oracularly declared.<br/><i>— To His Wife Book II</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: Again, the woman, if intending to marry, has to marry \"in the Lord; \" that is, not to an heathen, but to a brother, inasmuch as even the ancient law forbids marriage with members of another tribe.<br/><i>— On Monogamy</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: You ought to take more pains to please him for whose sake you have not preferred to please God! Such (conduct) the Psychics will have it the apostle approved, or else totally failed to think about, when he wrote: \"The woman is bound for such length of time as her husband liveth; but if he shall have died, she is free; whom she will let her marry, only in the Lord.\" For it is out of this passage that they draw their defence of the licence of second marriage; nay, even of (marriages) to any amount, if of second (marriage): for that which has ceased to be once for all, is open to any and every number.<br/><i>— On Monogamy</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"4711b0ceab059baefd4c20fddd85bf9b76e22c6a30039d1101263f06cbfb6026","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":421,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"ac2f8e2b1e0ebb1985f0a24eefb8367add2358a5329362c29a42714906978d74","translator":null,"work":null}