Question IV

GRATIAN. That it is lawful for someone to seek children from a female slave because of his wife’s sterility is proved by the example of Abraham, who, because of the sterility of his wife Sarah, went in to Hagar the Egyptian so that he might receive children from her. Likewise Jacob, when he could not have children from Rachel, raised up children for himself from her female slave; and not only because of sterility, but also because fertility had ceased, he is read to have gone in to Leah’s female slave and to have begotten children from her. From all these things it is gathered that because of a wife’s sterility children may lawfully be sought either from a female slave or from any other woman; otherwise Abraham and Jacob will be marked with the stain of adultery. But just as, after Sarah’s death, Abraham took Keturah as wife so that, according to Augustine, Christians might not think it a sin to take another after a wife’s death, so he appears to have received children from a female slave while his wife was living, lest this be reckoned a crime by some. But that saying of Augustine is found in Book II Against the Adversary of the Law and the Prophets, [c. 9]:

This man also objects against Abraham the crime of fornication even into the decrepit age of old age, evidently because he took another wife even after Sarah’s death. Here, even if no sacrament of a hidden matter were understood, Abraham ought to have done this for this reason alone: lest the heretics who oppose the people of God—among whom Tertullian also stands as a supporter—think that it is a crime to take a wife after a wife’s death.

GRATIAN. The sacrament of this matter is that through good persons the evil and good were to be begotten in faith, and through evil persons the good and evil were to come to the faith. Hence Augustine on John, [tractate XI]:

Let your mind now return to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In these three we find free women giving birth; we find female slaves giving birth. There we find offspring of free women; there we find offspring of female slaves. A female slave signifies nothing good. “Cast out the female slave,” he says, “and her son.”

§ 1. We find a wondrous matter in these generations of free women and female slaves: namely, four kinds of human beings. In these four kinds the figure of the whole Christian people is fulfilled, so that it is no wonder that concerning those three it was said: “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” For among all Christians—brothers, attend—either good persons are born through evil persons, or evil persons are born through good persons, or good through good, or evil through evil. Beyond these four kinds nothing can be found.

§ 2. There you find good sons of Jacob born from female slaves and good sons born from free women. Birth from the wombs of female slaves did not harm them when they recognized their seed in their father and consequently held the kingdom with their brothers. Therefore, just as in the sons of Jacob it did not harm those who were born from female slaves so as to prevent them from holding the kingdom and the land of promise which they received with their brothers—their birth from female slaves did not harm them, but the paternal seed prevailed—so all who are baptized through evil persons appear to have been born, as it were, from female slaves; nevertheless, because they are from the seed of the word of God, which is figured in Jacob, they will possess the inheritance together with their brothers. Therefore, let one who is born from good seed be secure; only let him not imitate the female slave. If you are born from a female slave, do not imitate the evil, proud female slave. For why did the sons of Jacob born from female slaves possess the land of promise with their brothers, while Ishmael, born from a female slave, was expelled from the inheritance? Why, unless because he was proud and they humble? He raised his neck and wished to seduce his brother, playing with him. A great sacrament is there. Ishmael and Isaac were playing together; Sarah saw them playing.

§ 3. She who bore Abel, Enoch, Noah, and Abraham herself bore Moses and the Prophets who came later in time before the Lord’s advent; and she who bore them herself bore the Apostles, our martyrs, and all good Christians. For she bore all who appeared born at different times but are contained in the fellowship of one people, and who, as citizens of the same city, experienced the labors of this pilgrimage; some of them experience them now, and the rest will experience them until the end. Likewise she who bore Cain, Ham, Ishmael, and Esau herself bore Dathan and others like them among the same people; and she who bore them herself bore Judas the false apostle, Simon Magus, and all other false Christians down to these times, obstinately hardened in an animal affection, whether they are mingled within unity or dissent by open separation.

§ 4. But when such persons are evangelized by spiritual persons and imbued with the sacraments, Rebecca, as it were, bears them through herself, as she did Esau. But when such persons are begotten among the same people through those who do not proclaim the Gospel chastely, Sarah does not indeed bear through herself, but through Hagar. Likewise, when good spiritual persons are begotten by carnal persons who evangelize or baptize, Leah or Rachel indeed bears them by marital right, but through the womb of the female slaves.

§ 5. But when through spiritual persons good believers are begotten in the Gospel—who either advance into a spiritual affection of piety, or do not cease striving toward it, or do not do so for this reason, because they cannot—they are born into the new life and New Testament as Isaac from Sarah’s womb or Jacob from Rebecca’s. Therefore, whether they appear to dwell within or are openly outside, what is flesh is flesh. Whether they persevere on the threshing floor in their sterility or are carried outside on the occasion of temptation as though by the wind, what is chaff is chaff. And even one who in carnal obduracy is mingled with the congregation of the saints is always divided from the unity of that Church which is without spot or wrinkle. Nevertheless, one must despair of no one, whether such a person appears within or more manifestly opposes from without.

PART II. GRATIAN. To these things it is answered thus: According to the diversity of times, a diverse dispensation of the Creator is found. It had been promised to Abraham that all nations would be blessed in his seed; he had also promised that he would give to his seed the land of his sojourn. Therefore, since, with the others left in idolatry, the Lord had chosen Abraham and his sons as a peculiar people for himself, the multiplication of God’s people was rightly sought through the fertility of many women, because in succession of blood there was succession of faith. Hence it was said in the law: “Cursed is the sterile woman who has not left her seed upon the earth.” Hence marriages were also decreed for priests, because in the succession of the family the succession of office was established. But because through the incarnation of Christ the grace of faith has been spread everywhere, and it is no longer said, “Speak to the house of Judah and the house of Israel,” but “Go, teach all nations,” and “In every nation, whoever fears God and works justice is acceptable to him,” the choice for an office is not sought in succession of lineage, but in perfection of life and sincerity of knowledge; virginity is preferred to fertility, and the chastity of continence is commanded to priests. Therefore, neither Abraham nor Jacob sinned because he sought children from a female slave in addition to his wife, nor by their example is it lawful for anyone to seek fertility in some woman in addition to the marital due, since their marriages are equated with or preferred to our virginity, and the immoderate use of marriage in our time almost imitates the shamefulness of fornication in that time. Hence Ambrose writes in the book On the Patriarchs, [Book I, On Abraham, c. 4]:

Sarah said to Abraham: “Behold, the Lord has closed me up so that I do not bear; therefore, go in to my female slave so that you may make a son from her.” And so it was done. But consider first that Abraham lived before the law of Moses and before the Gospel; adultery did not yet appear to be prohibited. The penalty for a crime exists from the time of the law that prohibited the crime; before the law there is no condemnation of a guilty person, but it comes from the law. Abraham therefore did not commit against the law, but preceded the law. God had praised marriage in paradise; he had not condemned adultery.

§ 1. You have Abraham’s first defense. The second is this: not inflamed by any ardor of wandering lust, not captivated by the beauty of an alluring form, did he place the marital bed after union with a female slave, but from zeal for seeking posterity and propagating offspring. There was still, after the flood, a scarcity of the human race; there was also a scarcity of religion, lest anyone appear not to have rendered the debt owed to nature. Finally, the daughters of holy Lot had this cause of seeking posterity, lest the human race fail; and therefore the grace of a public duty covered over a private fault.

The same, in the same work, [in the chapter of the book]. Let no one flatter himself concerning human laws. Every illicit intercourse is adultery, nor is that lawful for a man which is not lawful for a woman. The same chastity is owed by a husband as by a wife. Whatever is committed with a woman who is not a lawful wife is condemned as the crime of adultery.

In the same work, [Book I, c. 7]. § 1. It is lawful for no one to know a woman except his wife. Therefore, the right of marriage has been given to you lest you fall into a snare and sin with another woman.

§ 2. A fault is more tolerable if it lies hidden than if authority is usurped for the fault. Nor is adultery only to sin with another man’s wife, but everything that does not have the authority of marriage. Nevertheless, this passage teaches that the crime is more grave where the rights of a celebrated marriage are violated and the wife’s modesty is undone. Therefore, when Abimelech claimed that he had not known her to be another man’s wife, since the husband himself had said that she was his sister, the Lord answered him: “And I knew that you did this with a pure heart, and I spared you so that you would not sin against me; for this reason I did not permit you to touch her.” We recognize God to be, as it were, the protector and guardian of marriage, who does not permit another’s bed to be polluted; and if anyone does this, he sins against God, whose law he violates and whose grace he dissolves. And because he sins against God, he loses fellowship in the heavenly sacrament.

Likewise Jerome, [Book I Against Jovinian]. PART III. The origin of the love was indeed honorable, but its magnitude was deformed.

§ 1. It makes no difference from what honorable cause someone goes mad. Hence Sextus also says in his Sentences: “A man who is too ardent a lover of his own wife is an adulterer toward her.” Indeed, all love for another man’s wife is shameful; excessive love for one’s own wife is shameful. A wise man ought to love his spouse by judgment, not by passion. The impulse of pleasure does not reign in him, nor is he carried headlong toward intercourse. Nothing is more shameful than to love one’s wife as though she were an adulteress.

§ 2. Certainly, those who say that they are joined to wives for the sake of the commonwealth and the human race and to procreate children should at least imitate the beasts; and after the belly of the wife has swollen, let them not destroy the children, nor present themselves to their wives as lovers, but as husbands.

The same, [Book II]. Who does not know that, under a different dispensation of God in former times, all his saints were of the same merit as Christians now are? Just as Abraham then pleased in marriage, so now virgins please in chastity. He served the law and his own time; let us also serve the law and our own time, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

Likewise Augustine, [Book XXII Against Faustus, cc. 47 and 48]. Jacob’s four wives are objected against him, although what was customary at that time was not a crime. Just as the Patriarchs mingled with their spouses, who received their seed, not from a desire to perfect pleasure but from providence for propagating succession, so the Apostles took delight together with hearers who admired their teaching, not from a greed to obtain praise but from charity for sowing truth.

Likewise Augustine, On the Good of Marriage, [c. 16]. PART IV. Just as it is better to die from hunger than to eat things sacrificed to idols, so it is better to die without children than to seek offspring from unlawful intercourse. But from wherever human beings are born, if they do not follow the vices of their parents and worship God rightly, they will be honorable and saved. For the seed of a human being, from whatever human being it comes, is God’s creature; it will go badly for those who use it badly, but it will never itself be evil.

Likewise a sermon of Saint Ambrose concerning Saint John which begins, “We said on the preceding Lord’s Day,” [no. LXV]. Someone may say: I do not have a wife, and therefore I have associated a female slave with myself. Hear what Scripture says to Abraham: “Cast out the female slave and her son; for the son of the female slave will not be heir with the son of the free woman.” Therefore, if the son of the female slave is not an heir, neither, then, is he a son. But why is such a union sought, from which the son received can be heir neither by succession nor by blood? For one who does not have the privilege of origin cannot have fellowship in the inheritance. Why, I ask, is such an informal union sought, from which the children born are witnesses not of marriage but of adultery? Why are adulterous children of this kind received, who are a shame to the father, not an honor? Scripture says: “The children of adulterers, etc.” Therefore, if your woman is furnished with such morals that she deserves fellowship, let her also deserve the name of wife. Grant your concubine freedom and the name of wife, lest you be her adulterer rather than her husband.

Likewise Augustine to Claudius, Book V Against Julian. Adulteries are not to be committed even with the will of begetting children, just as thefts are not to be committed even with the will of feeding the holy poor. The latter is nevertheless to be done not by perpetrating thefts, but by making good use of the mammon of iniquity.

PART V. GRATIAN. Behold, it is in no way lawful for someone, while his wife is living, to seek children either from a female slave or from any other woman; those received are even judged unworthy of the name of children. Simple fornication is also prohibited by sacred Scripture. Hence Augustine in Questions on Deuteronomy, [question XXXVII on c. 23]:

The Lord prohibits there being prostitutes and approaching prostitutes, whose shamefulness is publicly for sale. But in the Decalogue he does not appear openly to have prohibited this under the name of adultery, since adultery is customarily understood only as a violation of marriage.

The same, on Exodus, [question 71]. § 1. Every adultery is also called fornication in the Scriptures. But whether every fornication can also be called adultery, no example of this manner of speaking occurs to me in the same Scriptures for the present. But if every fornication cannot also be called adultery, I do not know whether it can be found where in the Decalogue that fornication is prohibited which men who do not have wives commit with women who do not have husbands. But if under the name of theft every unlawful usurpation of another’s property is rightly understood—for he who prohibited theft did not permit robbery, but certainly wished the whole to be understood from a part: whatever of a neighbor’s property is unlawfully taken—assuredly under the name of adultery every unlawful intercourse and illegitimate use of those members ought to be understood as prohibited.

Likewise Jerome, [on Galatians c. 5, at “But manifest”]. In this the fornicator is guilty of a greater crime: he takes the members of Christ and makes them members of a prostitute, “for the two shall be in one flesh.” One who is not faithful and does not believe in Christ makes his own members the members of a prostitute. To the contrary, whether an unbeliever in his fornication violates or builds a temple for an idol, I do not know. For demons are especially worshiped through vices. This one thing I know: one who fornicates after receiving the faith of Christ violates the temple of God. The second work of the flesh is called uncleanness, and wantonness follows it as its companion. For just as in the old law Scripture comprehended generally the unspeakable crimes that are done in secret, which it is most shameful even to name, lest both the speaker’s mouth and the hearers’ ears be polluted, saying: “Make the children of Israel modest or fearful of every uncleanness,” so in this passage he called the other extraordinary pleasures—and also the acts of marriage themselves, if they are not done modestly and honorably, as though under God’s eyes, so that service is rendered only to children—uncleanness and wantonness.

Likewise Gregory, [Morals, Book XII, c. 12]. Solomon indeed was brought by the immoderate use and constant company of women to such a point that he built a temple for idols; and he who had formerly constructed a temple for God, prostrated beneath constant lust and unbelief, did not fear to construct temples for idols.

Likewise Jerome, [on Ephesians c. 5, at “Husbands, love”]. Therefore, as we have said, acts for the sake of children have been conceded in marriage; but pleasures taken from the embraces of prostitutes are condemned even with a wife.

PART VI. GRATIAN. But why such persons are not called children, or which of their parents those who are born from a free man and a female slave follow, Isidore determines in Book IX of the Etymologies, [c. 5]:

Those are called free children who were born of a free marriage. For children of a free man and a female slave are of servile condition. For one who is born always takes the worse part. But natural children are said to be the children of freeborn concubines, whom nature alone, not the honorable state of marriage, begot.

§ 1. But those who are not from a lawful marriage follow the mother rather than the father.