Брак

Husbands, love your wives (Eph. 5:25), although you were strangers to each other when you entered into marriage! May this knot of nature, this yoke placed with blessing, be a unity for you who were distant! The echidna, the fiercest of reptiles, meets a moray eel for marriage and, whistling to announce its approach, calls it from the depths for a conjugal embrace. And she obeys and enters into connection with the poisonous echidna. Where is this speech going? Because, even if the cohabitant is harsh and wild in disposition, the spouse must endure this and under no circumstances agree to dissolve the union. Is he rowdy? But husband. Is he a drunk? But connected by nature. Is he rude and bratty? But yours is already a member and even the most precious of members. May the husband also listen to the instruction appropriate to him! The echidna, respecting marriage, first spews out its poison; will you, out of respect for the union, not put aside cruelty and inhumanity? But the example of the echidna, perhaps, will serve us in a different way, because the union of the echidna with the moray eel is a kind of adultery in nature. Let those who encroach on someone else's marriage bed come to their senses. What reptile are they like? I have one goal - to turn everything into the edification of the Church. May the passions of the intemperate be tamed, curbed by examples taken from land and sea! (2) Exercise in pleasing God, according to the Gospel of Christ, is successful when you remove yourself from worldly concerns and when you completely remove yourself from entertainment. Therefore, the apostle, although marriage is permissible and worthy of blessing, contrasted the cares it imposes on a person with the cares of God, as if the two could not be combined with each other, and said: the unmarried cares about the Lord, how to please the Lord; but a married man cares about the things of the world, how to please his wife (1 Cor. 7:32, 33) (5). Asked by someone whether it was permissible for him to marry the sister of his dead wife, he [Diodorus] 19 did not shudder at this question, but listened calmly and even with great courage and ardor helped fulfill this unclean wish. Therefore, if I had the letter, I would send it to you so that you could protect both yourself and the truth. Since the one who showed me the letter took it back and carried it everywhere, as a sign of victory over me, who had forbidden him this at first, and said that he had written permission to do so, I now wrote to you so that we can attack his forged letter with both hands and not leave him with any power; and so that the letter cannot conveniently harm the readers. So, the first thing we can contrast with this and what is especially important in such matters is the custom we observe, which has the force of law, because the statutes were handed down to us by the holy fathers. This custom is this: if someone, possessed by a passion for impurity, falls into an unlawful relationship with two sisters, then do not recognize this as a marriage and generally not accept him into the church congregation until after their mutual separation. Why, even if there was nothing to say other than this, then this custom would be enough to preserve good morals. But since the one who wrote the letters attempted to introduce this evil into the community, then I also need not to refuse the aid of inferences, however, in very clear matters, everyone’s own conviction is more important than the arguments of reason. He says: in the book of Leviticus it is written: do not take a wife along with her sister, to make her a rival, so as to reveal her nakedness in her presence, during her lifetime (Lev. 18:18). From this it is clear, he continues, that it is permissible to take the sister of a deceased wife. To this, first of all, I note: whatever the law says, it says to those who live under the law, for otherwise they will be subject to circumcision, the Sabbath, and abstinence from food. For, of course, not only will we subject ourselves to the yoke of legal slavery when we encounter something conducive to our pleasures, but if there turns out to be something heavy in what is legal, then we will resort to freedom in Christ. We were asked: is it written to take a wife after your sister? And we answer what is safe and fair for us, namely, that this is not written. Through induction from the consequences, concluding what is silent is the job of the legislator, not the interpreter of the law; otherwise, if someone wants, he can dare to take her sister while his wife is alive. For the same false thinking can be applied to this. He will say, it is written: “don’t be misled into becoming a concubine”; Consequently, it is not forbidden to take someone other than a concubine. And whoever indulges passion will claim that the sisters are not of a jealous disposition. When the reason why cohabitation with both is prohibited is destroyed, then will there be any obstacle to taking two sisters? But to this we say: this is not written; and also that is not defined; while the connection of concepts makes both conclusions equally permissible. But in order to get rid of difficulties, it is necessary to delve somewhat into the circumstances that preceded the law. The legislator, apparently, does not cover all types of sins, but prohibits the actual sins of the Egyptians, from where Israel came, and the sins of the Canaanites, to whom he resettled. For it reads like this: do not do the deeds of the land of Egypt, in which you dwelt, and do not do the deeds of the land of Canaan, where I am leading you, and do not walk according to their statutes (Lev. 18:3). Why is it probable that this kind of sin was not then common among those nations; therefore, the Legislator had no need to protect against it, but was content with the unexplored custom of instilling disgust from crime. Why, having prohibited more, kept silent about less? Because for many carnalists, the example of the patriarch was, apparently, to the detriment of cohabitation with sisters who were still alive. What should we do? Should I read what was written or supplement what was left out? For example: in these laws it is not written that a father and son should not have the same concubine; but the prophet considers this a great crime. For he says: even father and son go to the same woman (Amos 2:7). But about how many other kinds of unclean passions, which were invented in the school of demons, has Divine Scripture been silent, so as not to defile its holiness with the names of vile vices, and condemned these impurities with their generic names? So the Apostle Paul says: “But fornication and uncleanness should not even be called among you, as is fitting for saints” (cf. Eph. 5:3), with the name of uncleanness meaning all shameful deeds of both men and women. Therefore, the silence of Scripture does not at all make the sensualist unpunished. And I will say that the Legislator not only did not keep silent about this, but very strictly forbade it. For what is said: “no one should approach in order to reveal nakedness to any relative according to the flesh” (cf. Lev. 18:6), also includes this type of kinship. For what is closer to the husband of his wife, or, better said, to his own flesh, since they no longer constitute two, but one flesh? Therefore, according to the wife, her sister becomes related to her husband. Just as he will not take his wife’s mother or his wife’s daughter into marriage for the same reason that he does not take his mother and daughter, so he will not take his wife’s sister for the same reason that he does not take his sister. Conversely, it is not permissible for a wife to have cohabitation with her husband’s relatives, because the rights of kinship are common to both. And I testify to everyone who consults me about marriage that the image of this world is passing away, and the time is already short, so that those who have wives must be as if they had not (1 Cor. 7:31, 29). If they point out to me the commandment: be fruitful and multiply (Gen. 1:22), then I will laugh at him who does not know how to distinguish the times of laws. The second marriage is abstinence from fornication, and not a resemblance to debauchery. It is said: if they cannot abstain, let them marry (1 Cor. 7:9); but it is not said: when they enter, let them break the law. And these people, blinding the soul with the passion of dishonor, do not pay attention to nature, which has long distinguished the names of kinship. For in what kind of relationship are those born called? Will they be called siblings or cousins? Because both names are appropriate for them due to confusion. O man, do not make your aunt a stepmother to your children, and do not arm the one who should cherish them instead of their mother with irreconcilable jealousy. For some stepmothers extend enmity even after death. It’s better to say that other enemies make peace with the dead, but stepmothers begin hatred only with death. And the main thing in what I said is this: if someone wants marriage according to the law, then the whole universe is open to him; if his desire is passionate, then let the greater portion be reserved for him, so that he may learn to guard his vessel in holiness and honor, and not in the passion of lust (1 Thess. 4:4, 5) (6). With regard to trigamists and polygamists, the same rule applies, subject to proportionality, as for bigamous persons. Those who are bigamous are given a year, others two; trigamists are excommunicated for three, and often for four years. And such a marriage is no longer called marriage, but polygamy, or better yet, condemned fornication, because the Lord also says to the Samaritan woman, who had five husbands one after another: the one you now have is not your husband (John 4:18), showing that those who have transgressed the measure of bigamy are no longer worthy to be called the name of husband or wife. But we, following not the rule, but the example of our predecessors, have adopted a five-year excommunication as a custom for trigamists. One should not at all not allow them into the church, but for two or three years deign to hear the church readings, and after that allow them to stand with the faithful, but keep them from partaking of the Good, and thus, when they show some fruit of repentance, elevate them to the place of communion (6). One who, out of ignorance, entered into marriage with someone who was left for a while by his wife, and then was released by him due to the return of his former wife, although she fell into fornication, however, out of ignorance. Therefore, marriage is not forbidden to her, but it is better if she remains so (6). There is no law against trigamy, so a third marriage is not allowed by law. We look at such deeds as desecration of the Church, but we do not subject them to popular condemnation as more tolerable than obvious debauchery (6). Someone on behalf of Diodorus issued a letter in which he discussed the permissibility of marriage with the sister of his deceased wife, contrary to the prohibition of St. Basil, made by him at the beginning of his bishopric. On this occasion St. Basil in this letter confirms his prohibition by the custom of the Church; resolves an objection based on one passage from the book of Leviticus; shows that Moses also had this prohibition; finally, he notes that such marriages mix up carnal kinship. You might be interested in: