Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. III:
Moral Treatises of St. Augustin: Section 30

30. Ye also who have not yet made this vow, who are able to receive it, receive it. 2093 Run with perseverance, that ye may obtain. 2094 Take ye each his sacrifices, and enter ye into the courts 2095 of the Lord, not of necessity, having power over your own will. 2096 For not as, “Thou shall not commit adultery, Thou shall not kill,” 2097 can it so be said, Thou shalt not wed. The former are demanded, the latter are offered. If the latter are done, they are praised: unless the former are done, they are condemned. In the former the Lord commands us what is due; but in the latter, if ye shall have spent any thing more, on His return He will repay you. 2098 Think of (whatever that be) within His wall “a place named, much better than of sons and of daughters.” 2099 Think of “an eternal name” there. 2100 Who unfolds of what kind that name shall be? Yet, whatever it shall be, it shall be eternal. By believing and hoping and loving this, ye have been able, not to shun marriage, as forbidden, but to fly past it, as allowed.

Footnotes

Matt. 19.12

1 Cor. 9.241 Cor. ix. 24

Ps. 96.8Ps. xcvi. 8

1 Cor. 7.371 Cor. vii. 37

Exod. 20:14, 13Exod. 20:14, 13

“Supererogaveritis.”

Luke 10.35Luke x. 35. See § 48.

Isa. 56.5Is. lvi. 5