Book I.
[Translated by the Rev. S. Thelwall.]
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Chapter I.--Design of the Treatise. Disavowal of Personal Motives in Writing It.
I have thought it meet, my best beloved fellow-servant in the Lord, even from this early period, [338] to provide for the course which you must pursue after my departure from the world, [339] if I shall be called before you; (and) to entrust to your honour [340] the observance of the provision. For in things worldly [341] we are active enough, and we wish the good of each of us to be consulted. If we draw up wills for such matters, why ought we not much more to take forethought for our posterity [342] in things divine and heavenly, and in a sense to bequeath a legacy to be received before the inheritance be divided,--(the legacy, I mean, of) admonition and demonstration touching those (bequests) which are allotted [343] out of (our) immortal goods, and from the heritage of the heavens? Only, that you may be able to receive in its entirety [344] this feoffment in trust [345] of my admonition, may God grant; to whom be honour, glory, renown, dignity, and power, now and to the ages of the ages!
The precept, therefore, which I give you is, that, with all the constancy you may, you do, after our departure, renounce nuptials; not that you will on that score confer any benefit on me, except in that you will profit yourself. But to Christians, after their departure from the world, [346] no restoration of marriage is promised in the day of the resurrection, translated as they will be into the condition and sanctity of angels. [347] Therefore no solicitude arising from carnal jealousy will, in the day of the resurrection, even in the case of her whom they chose to represent as having been married to seven brothers successively, wound any one [348] of her so many husbands; nor is any (husband) awaiting her to put her to confusion. [349] The question raised by the Sadducees has yielded to the Lord's sentence. Think not that it is for the sake of preserving to the end for myself the entire devotion of your flesh, that I, suspicious of the pain of (anticipated) slight, am even at this early period [350] instilling into you the counsel of (perpetual) widowhood. There will at that day be no resumption of voluptuous disgrace between us. No such frivolities, no such impurities, does God promise to His (servants). But whether to you, or to any other woman whatever who pertains to God, the advice which we are giving shall be profitable, we take leave to treat of at large.
[337] [Written circa a.d. 207. Tertullian survived his wife; and we cannot date these books earlier than about the time of his writing the De Pallio, in the opinion of some.]
[338] Jam hinc.
[339] Sæculo.
[340] Fidei.
[341] Sæcularibus.
[342] Posteritati; or, with Mr. Dodgson, "our future."
[343] Deputantur.
[344] Solidum; alluding to certain laws respecting a widow's power of receiving "in its entirety" her deceased husband's property.
[345] Fidei commissum.
[346] Sæculo.
[347] Luke xx. 36.
[348] Nulla...neminem--two negatives.
[349] See Matt. xxii. 23-33; Mark xii. 18-27; Luke xx. 27-40.
[350] Jam hinc. See beginning of chapter.
Chapter II.--Marriage Lawful, But Not Polygamy.
We do not indeed forbid the union of man and woman, blest by God as the seminary of the human race, and devised for the replenishment of the earth [351] and the furnishing of the world, [352] and therefore permitted, yet singly. For Adam was the one husband of Eve, and Eve his one wife, one woman, one rib. [353] We grant, [354] that among our ancestors, and the patriarchs themselves, it was lawful [355] not only to marry, but even to multiply wives. [356] There were concubines, too, (in those days.) But although the Church did come in figuratively in the synagogue, yet (to interpret simply) it was necessary to institute (certain things) which should afterward deserve to be either lopped off or modified. For the Law was (in due time) to supervene. (Nor was that enough:) for it was meet that causes for making up the deficiencies of the Law should have forerun (Him who was to supply those deficiencies). And so to the Law presently had to succeed the Word [357] of God introducing the spiritual circumcision. [358] Therefore, by means of the wide licence of those days, materials for subsequent emendations were furnished beforehand, of which materials the Lord by His Gospel, and then the apostle in the last days of the (Jewish) age, [359] either cut off the redundancies or regulated the disorders.
[351] Orbi. Gen. i. 28.
[352] Sæculo.
[353] Gen. ii. 21, 22.
[354] Sane.
[355] "Fas," strictly divine law, opp. to "jus," human law; thus "lawful," as opp. to "legal."
[356] Plurifariam matrimoniis uti. The neut. pl. "matrimonia" is sometimes used for "wives." Comp. c. v. ad fin. and de Pæn., c. xii. ad fin.
[357] Sermo, i.e., probably the personal Word. Comp. de Or., c. i. ad init.
[358] Rom. ii. 28, 29; Phil. iii. 3; Col. ii. 11.
[359] Sæculi. The meaning here seems clearly to be, as in the text, "the Jewish age" or dispensation; as in the passages referred to--1 Cor. x. 11, where it is ta tele ton aionon; and Heb. ix. 26, where again it is ton aionon, the Jewish and all preceding ages being intended.