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| Design of the Treatise. Disavowal of Personal Motives in Writing It.
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IV.
To His Wife. 337
| 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.] |
Book I.
[Translated by the Rev. S.
Thelwall.]
————————————
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 honour340
the observance of the provision. For in
things worldly341
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 posterity342
| 342 Posteritati; or, with
Mr. Dodgson, “our future.” | 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 allotted343
out of (our) immortal goods, and from the
heritage of the heavens? Only, that you may be able to receive in
its entirety344
this feoffment in
trust345
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 one348
| 348
Nulla…neminem—two negatives. | of her so many
husbands; nor is any (husband) awaiting her to put her to
confusion.349
| 349 See Matt. xxii. 23–33; Mark xii.
18–27; Luke xx. 27–40. | 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 period350
| 350 Jam hinc. See
beginning of chapter. |
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.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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