On Monogamy
Tertullian
Chapter 6
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Chapter VI.—The Case of Abraham, and Its Bearing on the Present Question.
But let us proceed with our inquiry into some eminent chief fathers
Opening the library…
Opening the library…
On Monogamy
Tertullian
But let us proceed with our inquiry into some eminent chief fathers
Thenceforward let matters see to themselves. Figures are one thing; laws another. Images are one thing; statutes another. Images pass away when fulfilled: statutes remain permanently to be fulfilled. Images prophesy: statutes govern. What that digamy of Abraham portends, the same apostle fully teaches, the interpreter of each testament, just as he likewise lays it down that our “seed” is called in Isaac. If you are “of the free woman,” and belong to Isaac, he, at all events, maintained unity of marriage to the last.
These accordingly, I suppose, are they in whom my origin is counted. All others I ignore. And if I glance around at their examples—(examples) of some David heaping up marriages for himself even through sanguinary means, of some Solomon rich in wives as well as in other riches—you are bidden to “follow the better things;” and you have withal Joseph but once wedded, and on this score I venture to say better than his father; you have Moses, the intimate eye-witness of God; you have Aaron the chief priest. The second Moses, also, of the second People, who led our representatives into the (possession of) the promise of God, in whom the Name (of Jesus) was first inaugurated, was no digamist.
See Matt. xxiii. 9.
1 Cor. iv. 15, where it is διὰ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου.
Gal. iii. 7.
This is an error. Comp. Gen. xvi. with Gen. xvii.
See Gal. iii. iv. and comp. Rom. iv.
See Gen. xvii. 5.
See Rom. iv. 11, 12, Gal. iii. 7; and comp. Matt. iii. 9; John viii. 39.
See Gal. iv. 21–31.
See vers. 28, 31.
See Ps. xxxvii. 27 (in LXX. xxxvi. 27); 1 Pet. iii. 11; 3 John 11.
Dei de proximo arbitrum. See Num. xii. 6–8; Deut. xxxiv. 10.