Against Marcion; widows, remarriage, and unequally yoked (1 Cor 7)

Those from Marcion also use this saying, and without sense they forbid marriage, saying that chastity is a command of the other god whom they invented beside the Creator. Yet from the saying itself one can prove to them that they forbid marriage badly, and badly divide the Godhead. For if there is a gift to one in this way and to another in that, marriage also is a gift; if marriage is a gift, marriage the gift is badly forbidden; if the one in this way and the other in that are from God, it is clear that one God is the giver of chastity and the giver of marriage, and one is the God of the law and of the gospel, whom the prophets first proclaimed and later Christ Jesus.

But I say to the unmarried and to the widows that it is good for them if they remain as I also am; but if they are not practicing self-control, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn. To the married I give charge—not I but the Lord—that a wife not be separated from a husband—but if she is separated, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to the husband—and that a husband not send away a wife. To the rest I say, I not the Lord (1 Corinthians 7:8–12).

Some among us teach beyond what is written; and thinking they are doing something, when they ought to exhort to single marriage without laying a snare on those who cannot, they do not do this, but impose necessity and wish not to gather the twice-married nor to share with them as with those who have transgressed, not respecting even the apostle’s voices. For the one who says to the unmarried and the widows, if they are not continent let them marry, openly permitted after the first marriage, after a woman has been widowed, to marry—while blaming the one who marries and the one who is married; for he said: If they are not continent, let them marry. See whether not being continent is not already an accusation—as when it is said to Christian people: Better to marry than to burn—he naming as burning the desire of the flesh not quenched by the Word but mastering the sinner’s soul. We therefore, taught by the apostle, do not forbid remarriage; for by comparison with burning, remarriage is more choiceworthy. Yet when something is thought better by comparison with evils, that thing is clearly not good. The second marriage is not temperance; it is not according to the nature of Adam the first-formed; for one cannot say to the second wife: This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh (Genesis 2:23). Abraham had also Hagar, and came to be also with Keturah; yet when he died, none was laid with him except the wife by nature; for Abraham and Sarah were in the tomb. And Jacob too, even if he had been with Rachel and with Leah and also with the maidservants, yet in the tomb only Leah was with him. With the mystical economy of the fathers; yet surely even now the one who takes a second does not say: I am fulfilling a mystical economy. For Paul will come saying: Tell me, you who read the law, do you not hear the law? For it is written: So-and-so had two sons, and so on; it will not also be said over him: These things are allegorized, for these women are two covenants; for these things happened typically to them, but were written for us upon whom the ends of the ages have come (Galatians 4:21–24; 1 Corinthians 10:11).

I say to the widows and to the unmarried that it is good for them if they remain as I also am. This is a second good; for there is another good first before this: it is good for a man not to touch a woman. What second good? It is good for them if they remain as I also am; but if they are not continent, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn. Therefore those in first marriages who have not yet experienced second ones should practice chastity, that if something human happens they may not, caught untrained, behave shamefully. Better, then, to marry a second marriage—for he does not mean the first here, as is clear from the wording “to burn.” From here he passes to another legislation: To the married I give charge, not I but the Lord; the legislation toward the married is not from me but from the Lord. At the same time he keeps a necessary observation: he named “married” when both are believers, both the husband and the wife. That he did not name among the married the others who are unequally yoked is clear from his adding: To the rest I say, I not the Lord. Are the rest then not married? He does not measure them as married; for on these a wife is not fitted to a husband from God; but on the believers, when both share and