de of vegetation
might have peopled paradise with a race of innocent and immortal beings.
[91] The use of marriage was permitted only to his fallen posterity, as
a necessary expedient to continue the human species, and as a restraint,
however imperfect, on the natural licentiousness of desire. The
hesitation of the orthodox casuists on this interesting subject, betrays
the perplexity of men, unwilling to approve an institution which they
were compelled to tolerate. [92] The enumeration of the very whimsical
laws, which they most circumstantially imposed on the marriage-bed,
would force a smile from the young and a blush from the fair. It was
their unanimous sentiment, that a first marriage was adequate to all the
purposes of nature and of society. The sensual connection was refined
into a resemblance of the mystic union of Christ with his church, and
was pronounced to be indissoluble either by divorce or by death.
The practice of second nuptials was branded with the name of a egal
adultery; and the persons who were guilty of so scandalous an offence
against Christian purity, were soon excluded from the honors, and even
from the alms, of the church. [93] Since desire was imputed as a crime,
and marriage was tolerated as a defect, it was consistent with the same
principles to consider a state of celibacy as the nearest approach to
the divine perfection. It was with the utmost difficulty that ancient
Rome could support the institution of six vestals; [94] but the primitive
church was filled with a great number of persons of either sex, who had
devoted themselves to the profession of perpetual chastity. [95] A few of
these, among whom we may reckon the learned Origen, judged it the most
prudent to disarm the tempter. [96] Some were insensible and some were
invincible against the assaults of the flesh. Disdaining an ignominious
flight, the virgins of the warm climate of Africa encountered the enemy
in the closest engagement; they permitted priests and deacons to share
their bed, and gloried amidst the flames in their unsullied purity. But
insulted Nature sometimes vindicated her rights, and this new species
of martyrdom served only to introduce a new scandal into the church. [97]
Among the Christian ascetics, however, (a name which they soon acquired
from their painful exercise,) many, as they were less presumptuous, were
probably more successful. The loss of sensual pleasure was supplied
and compensated by spiritual pride. Ev