Required reading
Ante-Nicene Fathers (Vol 4) (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read 'On exhortation to chastity'.
My summary
Today Tertullian continues to teach on the subject of marriage.
This week the focus is on polygamy.
Tertullian speaks about:
(i) the power of volition;
(ii) Paul's teaching on marriage in 1 Corinthians 7;
(iii) the polygamy of the patriarchs;
(iv) the Levitical laws against polygamy;
(v) second marriage as a form of adultery;
(vi) the difficulties of polygamy.
What grabbed me
I think Tertullian's answer for polygamy amongst the patriarchs was rather weak: ' As I think, moreover, each pronouncement and arrangement is (the act) of one and the same God; who did then indeed, in the beginning, send forth a sowing of the race by an indulgent laxity granted to the reins of connubial alliances, until the world should be replenished, until the material of the new discipline should attain to forwardness: now, however, at the extreme boundaries of the times, has checked (the command) which He had sent out, and recalled the indulgence which He had granted; not without a reasonable ground for the extension (of that indulgence) in the beginning, and the limitation of it in the end. Laxity is always allowed to the beginning (of things). The reason why any one plants a wood and lets it grow, is that at his own time he may cut it. The wood was the old order, which is being pruned down by the new Gospel, in which withal “the axe has been laid at the roots.” So, too, “Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth,” has now grown old, ever since “Let none render evil for evil” grew young. I think, moreover, that even with a view to human institutions and decrees, things later prevail over things primitive. '
When Jesus is asked about marriage, he goes back to the monogamous marriage of Adam and Eve for our model.
A fact Tertullian appears to have overlooked.
Next week's reading
Read 'On monogamy'.
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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