Previous - Next
Click here to show the links to concordance
13. Christ, therefore, having
renewed marriage to such and so great excellence, commended and entrusted all
the discipline bearing upon these matters to His Church. The Church, always and
everywhere, has so used her power with reference to the marriages of Christians
that men have seen clearly how it belongs to her as of native right; not being
made hers by any human grant, but given divinely to her by the will of her
Founder. Her constant and watchful care in guarding marriage, by the
preservation of its sanctity, is so well understood as to not need proof. That
the judgment of the Council of Jerusalem reprobated licentious and free love,(20)
we all know; as also that the incestuous Corinthian was condemned by the
authority of blessed Paul.(21) Again, in the very beginning of the
Christian Church were repulsed and defeated, with the like unremitting
determination, the efforts of many who aimed at the destruction of Christian
marriage, such as the Gnostics, Manichaeans, and Montanists; and in our own
time Mormons, St. Simonians, phalansterians, and communists.(22)
20. Acts 15:29.
21. 1 Cor. 5:5.
22. Gnostics: common name for several early sects claiming a
Christian knowledge (gnosis) higher than faith. Manichaeans: disciples of the
Persian Mani (or Manes, c.216-276) who taught that everything goes back to two
first principles, light and darkness, or good and evil. Montanises: disciples
of Montanus (in Phrygia, last third of the second century), condemned marriage
as a sinful institution. Mormons: sect founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith, which
favored polygamy. Saint-Simonians: disciples of the French philosopher
Saint-Simon ( 1760-1825) founder of a "new Christianity" based upon
science instead of faith. Phalansterians: members of a phalanstery, that is, of
a socialist community after the principles of Charles Fourier (1772-1837).
Communists: supporters of a regime in which property belongs to the body
politic, each member being supposed to work according to his capacity and to
receive according to his wants; communism is usually associated with the name
of Karl Marx (1818-1893).
Previous - Next
Table of Contents | Words: Alphabetical - Frequency - Inverse - Length - Statistics | Help | IntraText Library
Best viewed with any browser at 800x600 or 768x1024 on Tablet PC
IntraText® (V89) - Some rights reserved by EuloTech SRL - 1996-2007. Content in this page is licensed under a Creative Commons License