Thesis IV

Although the use of marriage is good, nevertheless the state of virginity and celibacy is preferable to it.

I. There is Canon 10 of the Council of Trent, session XXIV: If anyone shall say that the conjugal state is to be preferred to the state of virginity or celibacy, and that it is not better and more blessed to remain in virginity or celibacy than to be joined in marriage: let him be anathema. This is the doctrine to be defended. We suppose not only that marriage is good, but that the use of marriage through carnal copulation is good, that is, an act honorable and holy in itself. For the comparison is not properly instituted between virginity and celibacy on the one side, and marriage simply on the other, since with marriage virginity and the perfection of celibacy can consist; rather, the comparison is with marriage exercising itself through the mingling of flesh, or conjugal copulation. There is no need, beyond the things said in Thesis II, to bring forward other things to prove that this use of marriage is a good act. For from what was said there it is clear that this act was instituted by nature for the best end, which is offspring, and that it is moreover an act of justice in rendering the debt; God himself approved it when he said to the first parents: "Increase and multiply" (Gen. I, 28; IX, 1).

This being supposed, therefore, the comparison is instituted between Marriage exercising itself through carnal mingling and virginity or celibacy. Moreover, it must again be observed that the Tridentine Fathers make a comparison between states, that is, not between the persons who live in these states, or between the perfections with which those persons can be endowed from their own virtue, but between states, that is, between those things which belong to each state from its own nature. But a state is a condition in itself immovable and perpetual of men obligated to certain works or offices. Since the comparison is made between states, hence again it is not made between those things which can be accidental to the account of state, of which sort would be some consecration. Besides, it must be observed that the celibacy of which there is speech is not, so to speak, negative celibacy, namely the mere lack of the conjugal bond, with which an immoral and wicked life can be joined, but positive celibacy, in which, namely, someone alien to nuptials resolves from the soul to lead a life exempt from the pleasures of the flesh. Finally, it must be considered that the comparison is made not by reason of just any goodness, but of moral perfection, which man obtains on account of this or that state; and this moral perfection is the supreme good which man can attain in this life, to which therefore the rest must be subordinated, and on account of which it cannot happen that he is impeded from helping others; indeed, in itself, it is necessary that he exist as more apt for procuring the true good for others. But this moral perfection is that blessedness which man can attain in this life, the beginning and pledge of future blessedness.

II. Therefore for the Tridentine Fathers the question concerned perfection and blessedness, to which state each belongs more. But the Fathers teach, according to the perpetual tradition of the Church, that, when account is taken of perfection and of true blessedness according to God, the state of virginity and celibacy is to be preferred to the state of marriage. That this is true is easily demonstrated. For it is clear, first, from the doctrine of the Apostle, 1 Cor. VII. The Apostle affirms that it is good (καλόν) for a man not to touch a woman (v. 1); that it is good (καλόν) for the unmarried and widows if they remain in that state, that is, without nuptials, as the Apostle himself remained (v. 8). Nevertheless he adds that if they do not contain themselves, that is, if they cannot contain themselves, they should marry, giving the reason that it is better to marry than to burn (v. 9), that is, to be overcome by the temptation of concupiscence, not merely to be tempted; for he who remains chaste when placed in the fire of temptation is not burned, that is, consumed by fire, but purified. Here there is speech of moral goodness. Therefore the unmarried state is called good simply; the married state is called good on account of avoiding incontinence, namely lest one sin; and since this is the least moral goodness, the unmarried state will be good on account of something more. The former state is good in itself and desirable; the other is good on account of a certain native infirmity of soul, lest something worse happen. Therefore comparison by reason of goodness is instituted between each state, and the appellation "good" made of the state of unmarried women or unmarried men has a comparative force, so that it is the same as "better," according to the custom of the Hebrews. But do not infer from those things which the Apostle here says about the state of married women that it is good only on account of the end of avoiding incontinence; for from the Apostle himself it is clear that it is good on account of other ends, for example, on account of the procreation of children (cf. 1 Tim. V, 14). But the very fact that here the Apostle mentions this one end alone, among the several goods which are in marriage, confirms what we say: that the Apostle, having regard to moral goodness or perfection, prefers virginity to marriage. For if the Apostle is said, when he wrote these things, to have had before his eyes only the moral perfection of those whom he was addressing, and to have wished to commend each state to them from this moral perfection which each person can find in it, and therefore to have spoken to them as though answering the question:

As regards the moral perfection which someone can acquire in either state, which excels, virginity or nuptials? If, I say, you conceive the matter thus, you plainly understand why the Apostle mentions this one good alone out of the many which are in marriage: namely the restraining of concupiscence, lest it break out into sins. For the other goods were altogether ἀδιάφορα to this question. For since moral perfection is situated in this, that we live according to the spirit and not according to the flesh (Rom. VIII, 12), it was necessary to compare each state according to this, if the question was which is morally more perfect. But with this question set aside, there was no reason why the other goods of Marriage, not only physical but also moral, should be passed over in silence. Therefore by reason of moral good the Apostle compares virginity with marriage so that he prefers it to marriage. This indeed is openly declared at the end of the discourse (v. 40): "she will be more blessed if she remains thus," that is, unmarried. Hence it is that abstinence from the conjugal act is called by the same Apostle sanctity, which is not asserted of those who use marriage: "The unmarried woman thinks of the things that are the Lord's, that she may be holy in body and spirit; but she who is married thinks of the things that are of the world, how she may please her husband" (v. 34). And on account of this excellence of virginity, it is the object of counsel (v. 25): that is, it is not merely counseled, not commanded, because it is an indifferent thing, not necessary, which is also true of marriage; but because it contains a more eminent perfection than can generally be exacted from all. For this is the account of the evangelical counsels. This moreover is clear when the words of Christ in Matthew XIX, 10-12 are compared, in which Christ, commending the excellence of the gift of virginity, asserts that it is not given to all, but to those to whom God wills. Read Chrysostom on both places. But there is no need for us to observe that in the Apostle's discourse Marriage is considered insofar as it is exercised through copulation; for thus it contributes to the remedy of concupiscence, and thus it is true that the married woman thinks of the things that are of the world.

III. But, they say, marriage is called by the Apostle honorable in all (τίμιον ἐν πᾶσι; Heb. XIII, 4), but virginity never is. Besides, virginity itself is commended by the same Apostle not in itself, but by reason of another: "I think," he says, "that this is good on account of the present necessity" (1 Cor. VII, 26). I answer to the first: those words of the Apostle contain an exhortation rather than praise, that the honor owed to nuptials be shown by spouses in all their acts, and that nothing be done which would dishonor Christian nuptials, as used to happen among the Gentiles. For the rest, even if nuptials are honorable, it does not follow that virginity is not more honorable; and this, although not in as many words, the Apostle nevertheless signified when he preferred it to marriage. I answer to the second: those words of the Apostle do not pertain to giving the reason why virginity is good, but to presenting a certain persuasive reason for his counsel concerning preserving virginity, or to making souls more inclined to embrace that counsel, arguing also from the present necessity or from the present inconveniences of marriage, as he declares below. Therefore it is a commendation of virginity drawn not from the object, but from a certain condition of the subject: that outside it man is liable to more tribulations of the flesh. But this is not the same as saying that this is the only cause why virginity is good.

IV. It is clear, second, from the doctrine of the Fathers against Jovinian: read Jerome against the same, read also Ambrose On Virginity and Augustine On Holy Virginity. The Church professed this doctrine from her cradle; she has always held virgins in the greatest honor and has followed them with a certain singular reverence. Surely there would have been no reason for this special esteem if she had judged virginity equal to nuptials or inferior.

It is clear, third, from intrinsic reason. For that state in which the spirit is preferred to the flesh, in which the goods proper to man insofar as he is rational are procured, in which the virtues most difficult because of the impediment of concupiscence are exercised, in which the most noble end, which is the union of the soul with God, can in itself be more fully obtained, and in which therefore generosity and greatness of soul shine forth, is more perfect and more blessed than that state in which one gives work to animal desires and procures those things which are also common to brute beasts, in which satisfaction is made to concupiscence, although within due limits, and in which it is not permitted in a special way to be free for God alone. But such is the case; therefore. The argument of the Apostle in the cited place, vv. 32-35, returns to this. Augustine brings forward another reason in the book On Holy Virginity, chapter 2, whose force a Christian man cannot fail to feel: "Since the whole Church herself is a virgin betrothed to one man, Christ, as the Apostle says, how worthy of honor are her members, who guard even in the flesh itself what the whole Church guards in faith, who imitate the mother of her husband and Lord? For the Church too is both mother and virgin. For whose integrity do we consult, if she is not a virgin? Or whose offspring do we address, if she is not a mother? Mary corporally bore the Head of this body; the Church spiritually bears the members of that Head. In each, virginity does not impede fecundity; in each, fecundity does not take away virginity. Therefore, since the whole Church is holy both in body and spirit, and yet the whole is not virgin in body, but in spirit, how much holier is she in those members in whom she is virgin in body and spirit?"

V. But that marriage is a sacrament indeed makes it the case that grace is conferred upon spouses ex opere operato, and that the necessary actual graces are given for the operations of their state; but it does not make their operations more perfect than those which are proper to the other state, nor does it prevent sanctifying grace, and the same grace more abundantly, from being acquired by virgins ex opere operantis. But the perfection and blessedness of a state is situated in the perfection of its proper acts and in the very possession of grace, not in the mode by which that grace is acquired.

VI. But those things which Augustine piously and subtly discusses concerning the perfection of married persons in the Old Testament, even of those who spread children among several wives, to whom he does not dare to prefer the continence of Christians (On the Good of Marriage, chapter XIX ff.), these things, first, do not regard all indiscriminately, but those Patriarchs, and those like them if there were any, whose sanctity is commended to us in the Scriptures; for he openly names them, and it easily appears that Augustine always directs his mind to them. Second, according to Augustine, the perfection of the Patriarchs using marriage, not less than the perfection of the continent in the New Law, is nevertheless not the perfection proper to the state, but the perfection of the person (cf. chapter XXIII), which perfection in those men the use of marriage did not impede; because, as he supposes, they applied themselves to children not from any lust but from the sole will of propagating the people, or worshippers of God, and therefore from a will moved by charity, and that indeed in that age in which the people of God, God so disposing, was to be propagated by carnal generation. Therefore, according to the same Augustine, they bore a soul prepared for continence and would actually have embraced it if they had believed that, in that age, it was more expedient for them. Therefore, comparing their continence in preparation of soul and in true desire for it with the actual continence of Christians, Augustine does not dare to prefer these to those. But third, you see that the reason for the excellence of the Patriarchs is finally placed by Augustine in continence, which, as he supposes, they had in vow; and therefore, from this very discussion of Augustine, continence in itself excels the use of marriage.

You will say: abstinence from marriage deprives of the greatest good, that is, the increase of peoples; therefore it is certainly not better than the use of marriage.

I answer: abstinence deprives the man himself who abstains of the greatest good: I deny; for his greatest good is not offspring. It deprives others: I subdistinguish; with injury, I deny (see following, n. 74); apart from injury, I again subdistinguish: namely, when a disposition suitable in itself has even been obtained for procuring for the community goods more excellent than a simple increase, I concede; when the increase of the community is impeded, I again subdistinguish: an increase useful and desirable, I deny, for as long as natural inclination in general exercises its force, that will never be lacking; a possible increase, I again subdistinguish: one that would for the most part be harmful, and can be compensated by better goods through the said abstinence, I concede; otherwise, I deny. Cf. the following thesis.