Thesis IX

The arguments which are brought against the doctrine asserted in the two preceding theses are empty.

I. Against the truth asserted in these two Theses several things are commonly objected. The principal ones are these. 1. The act of marriage is base; but it is not fitting that the act of a sacrament be base. Indeed, 2. the act of marriage is not free from fault, for the Apostle grants it according to indulgence or pardon, 1 Cor. VII. 6; but Augustine says, On Original Sin, c. 38, that when pardon is granted, fault is denoted. And Didymus of Alexandria, Against the Manichaeans, teaches that men before Christ had marriage with sin, which sin Christ took away from nuptials just as he took sin away from other things. 3. Marriage is less noble than Virginity; but Virginity is not a sacrament; therefore much less is marriage. 4. In a sacrament an exterior religious ceremony is required; there is no such ceremony in marriage. 5. It is not enough, in order that something be a sacrament, that it be the sign of a sacred thing and have annexed to it a promise of grace, as is clear in martyrdom. 6. A sacrament of the New Law, taken strictly and properly, is a sign of grace not from its own nature, but from divine institution; but, etc. 7. If marriage confers grace, it follows that one who passes from the state of celibacy or virginity, which is more perfect, to the state of marriage, which is more imperfect and less acceptable to God, acquires grace from God, which seems absurd. 8. In marriage the contracting parties lawfully make an agreement about a dowry, which is not lawful in the sacraments. 9. A sacrament effects what it signifies; but marriage does not effect that which it signifies, for it signifies the union of Christ with the Church, which it does not effect.

II. I respond to the first. The act of marriage is honorable in itself, just as the legitimate procreation of children is honorable, and honorable is the act which nature itself urges. But what is base is that which is joined to it accidentally, that is, the movement of concupiscence rebelling against reason; yet this baseness of concupiscence by itself alone is not moral, and when it is employed for an honorable end, we use an evil well, as Augustine says (see what was said in the Treatise on God the Creator, Th. XLIV). Nor did St. Jerome speak except improperly when, defending virginity against Jovinian, L. I, n. 7, he says: "If it is good not to touch a woman, it is evil to touch her; for nothing is contrary to good except evil"; these last words are Tertullian's in the book On Monogamy. But it cannot be called evil except insofar as it is improperly understood as a lesser good. The same Jerome in the same place denies that he thinks every intercourse filthy, and says that he is not ignorant of honorable nuptials and an immaculate bed... "But we receive nuptials," he says, "in such a way that we prefer virginity." Thus Augustine, On the Good of Marriage, c. 8: "Therefore marriage and fornication are not two evils, of which one is worse; but marriage and continence are two goods, of which one is better." As regards Jerome, his epist. 48 to Pammachius should be read, in which he purposely defends himself from the charge that his praise of virginity was in some way a condemnation of marriage. For Jerome had been ill spoken of at Rome because of the writings against Jovinian. Cf. also his epist. 123 to Ageruchia and Augustine, Retractations, L. II, c. 22. Moreover, it must be observed that when Jerome compares marriage to virginity, he insists especially on the consideration of its use; for by reason of this he places nuptials in the lower place. Wherefore in the census of virgins he also places spouses abstaining from the act of marriage, and he opposes them to those who use it. But, that we may answer the difficulty more fully, copulation is not the act of the sacrament of marriage when it comes to be and confers grace, but an act of the sacrament in facto esse, or as permanent, as we shall explain in the following Thesis.

III. To the second. The indulgence which the Apostle grants regards not marriage itself, but only the use of marriage apart from the direct intention of offspring, for avoiding fornication. But that indulgence or pardon does not denote fault; for pardon or indulgence which supposes fault is that which is remission; but here there is no speech of this sort of pardon. "It is not lawful to doubt that nuptials are not a sin. Therefore the Apostle does not grant nuptials according to pardon; for who would hesitate to say that it would be most absurd to say that those to whom pardon is given have not sinned? But he grants according to pardon that intercourse which takes place through incontinence, not for the sole cause of procreating, and sometimes with no cause of procreating, which nuptials do not compel to happen, but obtain to be pardoned," says Augustine, On the Good of Marriage, n. 11. It is, namely, the due concession of a less perfect act so that a greater evil may be avoided; hence it is opposed to command. The Apostle does not command that act of itself, because of itself it would be more perfect to abstain; but he commands or counsels on account of the danger of incontinence; therefore he counsels not from the motive of the perfection of the act, but from the motive of human frailty, to which indulgence must be granted. But that spouses rightly use marriage on account of this direct end alone of avoiding incontinence, the Apostle here supposes, and above he teaches it, v. 2.

Augustine indeed judged that that intercourse of spouses which takes place on account of incontinence (for the sake of pleasure), and not for the sole cause of procreating, is venial sin. "Conjugal intercourse for the sake of begetting has no fault; but that for satisfying concupiscence, yet with one's spouse, because of the faith of the bed, has venial fault; but adultery or fornication has lethal fault" (l. c., n. 6). St. Thomas partly agrees with him, Suppl., On Marriage, q. XLIX, a. 5. But since marriage was instituted also as a remedy for concupiscence, if spouses come together for the sake of pleasure, intending this likewise, that they avoid incontinence in themselves, since this is a most honorable end, even if they do not intend the generation of offspring, provided they do not positively exclude it, they are to be charged with no fault. Read the approved moral theologians.

IV. To the third. If state is compared with state, the state of continence is more perfect; but nothing prevents a state which of itself is more imperfect from being consecrated by a sacrament, and under this respect from surpassing the other, if there is some special reason for that state. But the special reason for marriage is that it is instituted for the common good, for the propagation of the human race. Therefore it was fitting that by sanctifying grace marriage should be consecrated and should become in the New Law a sacrament, marriage on which the family and the whole of society depends, by which the creative action of God is continued through the propagation of children for his worship, so that thus, under the guardianship and direction of the Church, to which the sacraments have been entrusted, the whole human family might be in its very beginning.

To the fourth. The exterior religious ceremony is that rite (which one it is we shall say in Th. XI) by which marriage comes to be, and by which the union of Christ with the Church and the holy union of spouses is represented.

To the fifth. There is indeed required besides a divine institution, by which something is instituted as sign and cause of sanctification, as a rite actively sanctifying as the instrument of God sanctifying; but this has place in marriage, not in martyrdom.

To the sixth. Marriage from its nature is indeed apt for signifying, but actually, from divine institution, it signifies the union of Christ with the Church and the grace which it confers. But it makes no difference that that which is assumed to be a sign is already something existing in nature and a work of nature.

To the seventh. Bellarmine responds (On Marriage, l. I, c. 5): "It is one thing to compare state with state, another to compare state with sacrament. The state of continence is higher and more perfect than the state of marriage and of greater grace and merit; nevertheless the sacrament always increases grace in whatever state it is received. Wherefore one who is continent, while he contracts marriage, grows in grace; but if that same continent person, for the sake of God, had despised human nuptials, he would have found more grace with God than is that which is given through the sacrament of marriage." Thus, for one to whom it is open to do two works, one more perfect, the other less, he who does that which is less perfect, when he is not bound to the more perfect, obtains an increase of grace; yet he would have obtained a greater increase of grace if he had done the other, more perfect work.

To the eighth. A dowry is not given on account of the sacrament or on account of the sacramental contract, but on account of the burdens to be borne in the undivided society of life, which follow marriage not insofar as it is a sacrament, but insofar as it is a certain contract producing a determinate society.

To the ninth. Enough has already been done. For marriage, when it comes to be, signifies the union of spouses, and that union as holy, which is the representation of the union of Christ with the Church.