Original Douay–Rheims AnnotationsGenesis 16
English College of Douai–Rheims
Read Genesis 16 in the BibleOriginal Douay–Rheims Annotations — English College of Douai–Rheims. CC0 1.0
English College of Douai–Rheims
Read Genesis 16 in the BibleOriginal Douay–Rheims Annotations — English College of Douai–Rheims. CC0 1.0
Genesis 16:3
To wife.
[1] [2] The Manichees did calumniate holy Abraham and other Patriarchs for having many wives, condemning them of incontinency and adultery for the same. Luther [3] [4] in the contrary extreme held it not unlawful, but indifferent now in the law of grace, for a man to have more wives than one at once. [5] And some English Protestants hold, that for adultery the innocent party may marry another, the first living But the Catholic doctrine distinguishing times and causes, sheweth how plurality of wives was lawful sometimes, and at other times, especially since Christ, altogether unlawful and undispensable. The sum of which verity is this. By the first institution of Marriage in the state of innocency, and law of nature, and by the law of Christ, it is unlawful for any man to have more wives, and for any woman to have more husbands than one. In the one part of which Law notwithstanding God sometimes dispensed. For there be two kinds of precepts pertaining to the law of nature [6] [7]. One sort are as first principles of the law of nature, in which God never dispenseth, much less any man. As that one woman may not have more husbands than one, because the same would rather hinder procreation, and so were directly against the fruit of marriage. The other sort are as conclusions drawn from the first principles, in which God sometimes dispenseth, but never any man. As in this present example: seeing it is against natural procreation that one woman should have many husbands, it is convenient also, there being ordinarily as many men as women in the world, that every man likewise should be restrained to one wife, for so procreation may rather be increased, than if some men have many wives, and others by that occasion have none at all, except in some special case. As after the flood, when there was scarcity of people, God dispensed with such men as indeed were like to make greater procreation by plurality of wives [8]. Which appeareth sufficiently by that Sarai persuaded her own husband to marry another wife, and he a true servant of God agreed thereto, not as a new thing, but as a lawful practice of those times. And Moyses [9] here and in other places still speaketh of it, as of a custom known to the people for lawful. If a man (saith he) have two wives, one beloved and the other hated, and they have children by him, and the son of the hated be first-born, he cannot prefer the son of the beloved. Whereby is clear that two wives were then lawful, and the children of both legitimate, and that the first-born must be preferred, without respect of first of last Marriage. Yet this dispensation either ceased before Christ's time, the cause ceasing when the world was replenished; or at least our Saviour took it away, restoring Matrimony to the first institution of two in one flesh [10] [11]. Who pleaseth to see the Doctors that understand and expound the Scriptures to this effect, may read S. Augustine li. 22. c. 30. & 47. con. Faust. Manich. li. 16. c. 25. & 38. civit. & li. 1. de adulter. coniugiis. S. Chrysostom. ho. 56. in Gen. S. Amb. li. de Abraham. c. 4. Also S. Chrysost. S. Hierom. and S. Bede in 19. Matthei.