31. From this obedience that
Father, who was not without a wife, was prepared to be without an
only son,2016
| 2016 Retract. b. ii. c. 22. 2. “I do not quite approve this; as one
should rather believe that he believed his son would presently be
restored to him by resurrection, as we read in the Epistle to the
Hebrews.” |
and that
slain by himself. For I shall not without due cause call him an
only son, concerning whom he heard the
Lord say, “In
Isaac shall
there be called for thee a
seed.
2017
” Therefore how much
sooner would he hear it, that he should be even without a
wife, if
this he were bidden? Wherefore it is not without reason that we
often consider, that some of both sexes, containing from all sexual
intercourse, are negligent in obeying
precepts, after having with
so great warmth caught at the not making use of things that are
allowed. Whence who doubts that we do not rightly compare unto the
excellence of those holy fathers and mothers begetting sons, the
men and
women of our time, although free from all intercourse, yet
in
virtue of obedience inferior: even if there had been wanting to
those men in
habit of
mind also, what is plain in the
deed of the
latter. Therefore let these follow the
Lamb,
boys singing the new
song, as it is written in the
Apocalypse, “who have not
defiled
themselves with
women:”
2018
for no other reason than that they
have continued
virgins. Nor let them on this account think
themselves better than the first holy fathers, who used
marriage,
so to speak, after the fashion of
marriage. Forsooth the use of it
is such, as that, if in it there hath taken place through
carnal
intercourse aught which exceeds necessity of begetting, although in
a way that deserves pardon, there is
pollution. For what doth
pardon expiate, if that advance cause no
pollution whatever? From
which
pollution it were strange if boys following the Lamb were
free, unless they continued virgins.
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
