[70] Dhammika-Sutta, 21, quoted by Monier-Williams, Buddhism, p. 88.
[71] Rhys Davids, Hibbert Lectures on Buddhism, p. 148.
[72] Oldenberg, Buddha, p. 350 sq.
[73] Wilson, Abode of Snow, p. 213.
[74] Percival, Account of the Island of Ceylon, p. 202.
[75] Ta Tsing Leu Lee, sec. cxiv. p. 118. Medhurst, ‘Marriage in China,’ in Trans. Roy. Asiatic Soc. China Branch, iv. 18. Davis, China, ii. 53.
[76] Réville, La Religion Chinoise, p. 451 sq.
A small class of Hebrews held the idea that marriage is impure. The Essenes, says Josephus, “reject pleasure as an evil, but esteem continence and the conquest over our passions to be virtue. They neglect wedlock.”[77] This doctrine exercised no influence on Judaism, but probably much upon Christianity. St. Paul considered celibacy to be preferable to marriage. “He that giveth her (his virgin) in marriage doeth well; but he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better.”[78] “It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.”[79] If the unmarried and widows cannot contain let them marry, “for it is better to marry than to burn.”[80] These and other passages[81] in the New Testament inspired a general enthusiasm for virginity. Commenting on the words of the Apostle, Tertullian points out that what is better is not necessarily good. It is better to lose one eye than two, but neither is good; so also, though it is better to marry than to burn, it is far better neither to marry nor to burn.[82] Marriage “consists of that which is the essence of fornication”;[83] whereas continence “is a means whereby a man will traffic in a mighty substance of sanctity.”[84] The body which our Lord wore and in which He carried on the conflict of life in this world He put on from a holy virgin; and John the Baptist, Paul, and all the others “whose names are in the book of life”[85] cherished and loved virginity.[86] Virginity works miracles: Mary, the sister of Moses, leading the female band, passed on foot over the straits of the sea, and by the same grace Thecla was reverenced even by lions, so that the unfed beasts, lying at the feet of their prey, underwent a holy fast, neither with wanton look nor sharp claw venturing to harm the virgin.[87] Virginity is like a spring flower, always softly exhaling immortality from its white petals.[88] The Lord himself opens the kingdoms of the heavens to eunuchs.[89] If Adam had preserved his obedience to the Creator he would have lived for ever in a state of virgin purity, and some harmless mode of vegetation would have peopled paradise with a race of innocent and immortal beings.[90] It is true that, though virginity is the shortest way to the camp of the faithful, the way of matrimony also arrives there, by a longer circuit.[91] Tertullian himself opposed the Marcionites, who prohibited marriage among themselves and compelled those who were married to separate before they were received by baptism into the community.[92] And in the earlier part of the fourth century the Council of Gangra expressly condemned anyone who maintained that marriage prevented a Christian from entering the kingdom of God.[93] But, at the end of the same century, a council also excommunicated the monk Jovinian because he denied that virginity was more meritorious than marriage.[94] The use of marriage was permitted to man only as a necessary expedient for the continuance of the human species, and as a restraint, however imperfect, on the natural licentiousness of desire.[95] The procreation of children is the measure of a Christian’s indulgence in appetite, just as the husbandman throwing the seed into the ground awaits the harvest, not sowing more upon it.[96]
[77] Josephus, De bello Judaico, ii. 8. 2. See also Solinus, Collectanea rerum memorabilium, xxxv. 9 sq.
[78] 1 Corinthians, vii. 38.