The question raised by the Sadducees has yielded to the Lord's sentence. There will at that day be no resumption of voluptuous disgrace between us. But whether to you, or to any other woman whatever who pertains to God, the advice which we are giving shall be profitable, we take leave to treat of at large. I may say, What is permitted is not goad. But he nowhere permits marriage in such a way as not rather to wish us to do our utmost in imitation of his own example.
Flesh is an earthly, spirit a heavenly, material.
If the spirit is stronger than the flesh, because it is withal of nobler origin, it is our own fault if we follow the weaker. But by us, who are servants of God, who renounce both voluptuousness and ambition, each is to be repudiated. Fleshly concupiscence claims the functions of adult age, craves after beauty's harvest, rejoices in its own shame, pleads the necessity of a husband to the female sex, as a source of authority and of comfort, or to render it safe from evil rumours. They prefer to be wedded to God. To widowhood signed and sealed before the Lord nought is necessary but perseverance.