Chapter XIII.—Further Objections from St. Paul Answered.

“But again, writing to Timotheus, he ‘wills the very young (women) to marry, bear children, act the housewife.’”92    1 Tim. v. 14.  He is (here) directing (his speech) to such as he denotes above—“very young widows,” who, after being, “apprehended” in widowhood, and (subsequently) wooed for some length of time, after they have had Christ in their affections, “wish to marry, having judgment, because they have rescinded the first faith,”—that (faith), to wit, by which they were “found” in widowhood, and, after professing it, do not persevere.  For which reason he “wills” them to “marry,” for fear of their subsequently rescinding the first faith of professed widowhood; not to sanction their marrying as often as ever they may refuse to persevere in a widowhood plied with temptation—nay, rather, spent in indulgence.

“We read him withal writing to the Romans:  ‘But the woman who is under an husband, is bound to her husband (while) living; but if he shall have died, she has been emancipated from the law of the husband.’  Doubtless, then, the husband living, she will be thought to commit adultery if she shall have been joined to a second husband.  If, however, the husband shall have died, she has been freed from (his) law, (so) that she is not an adulteress if made (wife) to another husband.”93    Rom. vii. 2, 3, not exactly rendered.  But read the sequel as well in order that this sense, which flatters you, may evade (your grasp).  “And so,” he says, “my brethren, be ye too made dead to the law through the body of Christ, that ye may be made (subject) to a second,—to Him, namely, who hath risen from the dead, that we may bear fruit to God.  For when we were in the flesh, the passions of sin, which (passions) used to be efficiently caused through the law, (wrought) in our members unto the bearing of fruit to death; but now we have been emancipated from the law, being dead (to that) in which we used to be held,94    Comp. the marginal reading in the Eng. ver., Rom. vii. 6. unto the serving of God in newness of spirit, and not in oldness of letter.”  Therefore, if he bids us “be made dead to the law through the body of Christ,” (which is the Church,95    Comp. Eph. i. 23, and the references there. which consists in the spirit of newness,) not “through the letter of oldness,” (that is, of the law,)—taking you away from the law, which does not keep a wife, when her husband is dead, from becoming (wife) to another husband—he reduces you to (subjection to) the contrary condition, that you are not to marry when you have lost your husband; and in as far as you would not be accounted an adulteress if you became (wife) to a second husband after the death of your (first) husband, if you were still bound to act in (subjection to) the law, in so far as a result of the diversity of (your) condition, he does prejudge you (guilty) of adultery if, after the death of your husband, you do marry another:  inasmuch as you have now been made dead to the law, it cannot be lawful for you, now that you have withdrawn from that (law) in the eye of which it was lawful for you.

CAPUT XIII.

Sed et Timotheo scribens, vult juvenculas nubere, filios suscipere, matres familiae agere (I Tim., v. 14). Ad eas dirigit, quales supra denotat, juvenculas viduas, quae in viduitate deprehensae, et aliquandiu adsectatae , postquam in deliciis habuerunt Christum, nubere volunt, habentes judicium quod primam fidem resciderunt: illam videlicet, a qua in viduitate inventae, et professae eam, non perseverant. Propter quod vult eas nubere, ne primam fidem susceptae viduitatis postea rescindant, non ut totiens nubant, quotieas in viduitate tentata , imo et in deliciis habita 0948C noluerint perseverare. Legimus eum et ad Romanos scribentem: Quae autem sub viro est mulier, viventi viro vincta est; si autem obierit, evacuata est a lege viri. Nempe ergo vivente viro adulterare putabitur, si juncta fuerit alteri viro. Si vero obierit vir, liberata est a lege, quod non sit adultera facta alii viro0949A (Rom. VII, 2, 6). Sed et sequentia recognosce, quo sensus iste, qui tibi blanditur, evadat: Itaque, inquit, fratres mei, mortificamini et vos legi per corpus Christi, ut efficiamini alteri, ei scilicet qui a mortuis resurrexit, uti fructum feramus Deo. Cum enim eramus in carne, passiones delictorum, quae per legem efficiebantur in membris nostris ad fructum ferendum morti: nunc autem evacuati sumus a lege, mortui in quo tenebamur, ad serviendum Deo in novitate spiritus, et non in vetustate literae. Igitur, si mortificari nos jubet legi per corpus Christi, quod est Ecclesia, quae spiritu novitatis constat, non per literam vetustatis, id est legis; auferens te a lege, quae non tenet uxorem, marito defuncto, quominus alii viro fiat, ad contrariam te redigit conditionem, ne, 0949B amisso viro, nubas; quantumque non deputareris adultera facta alteri viro post mortem mariti, si adhuc in lege agere deberes, tanto ex diversitate conditionis adulterii te praejudicat post mortem mariti alii nubentem: quia jam mortificata es legi, non potest tibi licere, cum recessisti ab ea apud quam tibi licebat.