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| Unity of Marriage Taught by Its First Institution, and by the Apostle's Application of that Primal Type to Christ and the Church.
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Chapter V.—Unity of
Marriage Taught by Its First Institution, and by the Apostle’s
Application of that Primal Type to Christ and the Church.
For the laying down526
of
the law of once marrying, the very origin of the human race is our
authority; witnessing as it emphatically does what God constituted in
the beginning for a type to be examined with care by posterity.
For when He had moulded man, and had foreseen that a peer was necessary
for him, He borrowed from his ribs one, and fashioned for him one
woman;527
whereas, of course, neither the Artificer nor
the material would have been insufficient (for the creation of
more). There were more ribs in Adam, and hands that knew no
weariness in God; but not more wives528
| 528 Or, “but no
plurality of wives.” | in the eye of
God.529
And accordingly the man of God, Adam,
and the woman of God, Eve, discharging mutually (the duties of) one
marriage, sanctioned for mankind a type by (the considerations of) the
authoritative precedent of their origin and the primal will of
God. Finally, “there shall be,” said He, “two
in one flesh,”530
not three nor
four. On any other hypothesis, there would no longer be
“one flesh,” nor “two (joined) into one
flesh.” These will be so, if the conjunction and the
growing together in unity take place once for all. If,
however, (it take place) a second time, or oftener, immediately (the
flesh) ceases to be “one,” and there will not be “two
(joined) into one flesh,” but plainly one rib (divided) into
more. But when the apostle interprets, “The two shall be
(joined) into one flesh”531
of the Church and
Christ, according to the spiritual nuptials of the Church and Christ
(for Christ is one, and one is His Church), we are bound to recognise a
duplication and additional enforcement for us of the law of
unity of marriage, not only in accordance with the foundation of our
race, but in accordance with the sacrament of Christ. From one
marriage do we derive our origin in each case; carnally in Adam,
spiritually in Christ. The two births combine in laying down one
prescriptive rule of monogamy. In regard of each of the two, is
he degenerate who transgresses the limit of monogamy. Plurality
of marriage began with an accursed man. Lamech was the first who,
by marrying himself to two women, caused three to be (joined)
“into one flesh.”532
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