Second Marriages

Quid igitur? Damnamus secunda matrimonia? Minime; sed prima laudamus. Abjicimus de Ecclesia digamos? Absit: sed monogamos ad continentiam provocamus. In Arca Noe non solum munda, sed et immunda fuerunt animalia. Habuit homines, habuit et serpentes. In domo quoque magna, vasa diversa sunt; alia in honorem, alia in contumeliam. Est crater ad bibendum; est matual ad secretiorae naturae. Nam cum in semente terrae bonae, centesimum, et sexagesimum et trigesimum fructrum Evangelia doceant; et centenarius pro virginitais corona, primum gradum teneat; sexagenarius pro labore viduarum, in secundo sit numero; tricenarius foedera nuptiarum, ipsa digitorum conjunctione testetur, digamia in quo erit numero? Imo extra numerum. Certe in bona terra non oritur, sed in vepribus, et spinetis vulpium, quae Herodi impiissimo comparantur, ut in eo se putet esse laudabilem, si scortis melior sit: si publicarum libidinum victimas superet, si uni sit prostituta, non pluribus.  Sanctus Hieronymus, ex Epistola CXXIII, Ad Ageruchiam Source: Migne PL 22 1052

What then? Do I condemn second marriages? Not at all; but I praise first ones. Do I expel the twice-married from the church? May it not be so; but I exhort to continence those who have once been married. In The Ark of Noah there were not only clean but unclean animals. It bore men and serpents. In a great house there are diverse vessels; some to honour, some to dishonour. There is bowl from which one drinks and a bowl for the excretions of nature. 1 The seed sown in good ground brings forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold, the Gospel teaches. 2 The hundredfold is the crown of chastity and holds first place; the sixtyfold is the labour of widows and is numbered second; while the thirtyfold is the bond of marriage, indicated by the joining together of fingers. Where are second marriages numbered? They are not counted. They do not grow from good ground but among thorns and the bramble bushes of foxes, that creature to which the most impious Herod was compared. 3 A woman who marries more than once thinks herself praiseworthy if she is better than a whore, if she surpasses the victims of public lust by prostituting herself only to one, not to many. St Jerome, from Letter 123, To Ageruchia 1 2 Tim 2.20 2 Mt 13.8 3 Lk 13.32