Marriage in the Early Church (review)

Short, readable and on a subject of perennial interest, this soft-cover book Marriage in the Early Church is the kind that disappears from library shelves. It is a welcome addition to the literature now available for the general reader, as well as the specialist, and indispensable for classroom use.

The volume was edited by David G. Hunter and is the latest English translation in the Sources of Early Christian Thought Series, edited by William G. Rusch. And it is an important book. So much has recently been written and argued about the alleged misogyny of the early Church writers and their anti-sexual, anti-marriage views that it is good to have a first-hand look at fuller selections on the subject from some of the leading figures of this period, and to read for oneself what is actually said, and how it is said: all in one handy volume. This collection could help clarify this discussion.

The selections include twelve mainline writings in different literary forms with differing audiences in mind: Hermas, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Acts of Thomas, Methodius, Lactantius, John Chrysostom, Pelagius, Augustine, Paulinus of Nola, Canons of the Synod of Elvira, Basil of Caesarea, and two nuptial blessings.

The material has been available in English translation, but was scattered in a variety of series’ volumes. Here, it is brought together in a brushed-up contemporary translation with a good literary sense that most readers will find agree- able. Hunter’s introduction lives up to his usual lucidity and gives a fair and even- handed assessment of the development of views from the pro-marriage Pauline perspective of the New Testament period through post-Constantinian times. Footnotes to other translations and to related works would have added to the presentation and been especially useful to interested but uninformed readers who might want to read more by a particular writer.

Hunter notes the wide range of views on marriage during this period of roughly four hundred years, as well as the continuities of thinking with the preceding Greco-Roman period. Apparently in agreement with Grubbs’ recent work postulating the continuity of Christian thinking with earlier Greco-Roman marriage morality as represented in such pagan writers as Musonius and Plutarch, Hunter takes an affirmative position on this much-discussed issue. Many feminist writers have postulated a radical disjuncture between pagan and Christian perspectives and ideas about women and marriage, finding in the early church an extension of the patriarchal views of the Jews.

The Greco-Roman view of marriage as an institution of love, harmony, friendship and affection as well as procreation is indeed reflected in the writings as diverse as those of Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Lactantius, John Chrysostom and Augustine of Hippo, Paulinus of Nola and in the canonical works and liturgical blessings. Missing in Hunter’s introduction is adequate mention of the Proverbs 31 perspective on marriage and the marriage typology or allegory which featured the Old Testament Patriarchs and their wives, particularly Abraham and Sarah, as model couples of devotion to be emulated. This was melded with Greco- Roman ideals in the writings of Chrysostom, the Cappadocians and many others. Jovinian was certainly not unique in using the Patriarchs and their wives as paradigms proving that marriage and sexual intercourse were not barriers to living a life of Christian virtue.

For the most part, the writers in this volume gave the life of physical virginity a comparative salvific edge over marriage, unlike Jovinian who advocated the equality of marriage and virginity, or the Acts of Thomas which rejected marriage. But nuance is important in theological writing. Chrysostom’s work, for one, shows that he was not simply espousing physical asceticism, that is, renunciation of sexuality, as the ideal practice of virtue. Rather, he described the virtuous life of spiritual virginity as one lived in renunciation of wealth and devotion to the needs of others, as Hunter points out. Marriage and sexual intercourse within it were...