8 The words which follow, “that you may give yourselves unto prayer, and may be together again,” might lead one to suppose that the Apostle was expressing a wish and not making a concession because of the danger of a greater fall. He therefore at once adds, “lest Satan tempt you for your incontinency.” It is a fine permission which is conveyed in the words “be together again.” What it was that he blushed to call by its own name, and thought only better than a temptation of Satan and the effect of incontinence, we take trouble to discuss as if it were obscure, although he has explained his meaning by saying, “this I say by way of permission, not by way of command.”
And do we still hesitate to speak of marriage as a concession to weakness, not a thing commanded, as though second and third marriages were not allowed on the same ground, as though the doors of the Church were not opened by repentance even to fornicators, and what is more, to the incestuous? Take the case of the man who outraged his step-mother. Does not the Apostle, after delivering him, in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that his spirit might be saved, in the second Epistle take the offender back and strive to prevent a brother from being swallowed up by overmuch grief.
The Apostle's wish is one thing, his pardon another. If a wish be expressed, it confers a right; if a thing is only called pardonable, we are wrong in using it. If you wish to know the Apostle's real mind, you must take in what follows: “but I would that all men were as I am.” Happy is the man who is like Paul! Fortunate is he who attends to the Apostle's command, not to his concession. This, says he, I wish, this I desire that you be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ, who was a Virgin born of a Virgin, uncorrupt of her who was uncorrupt.
We, because we are men, cannot imitate our Lord's nativity; but we may at least imitate His life. The former was the blessed prerogative of divinity, the latter belongs to our human condition and is part of human effort. I would that all men were like me, that while they are like me, they may also become like Christ, to whom I am like. For “he that believes in Christ ought himself also to walk even as He walked.” “Howbeit each man has his own gift from God, one after this manner, and another after that.”
What I wish, he says, is clear. But since in the Church there is a diversity of gifts, I acquiesce in marriage, lest I should seem to condemn nature. At the same time consider, that the gift of virginity is one, that of marriage, another. For were the reward the same for the married and for virgins, he would never after enjoining continence have said: “Each man has his own gift from God, one after this manner, and another after that.” Where there is a distinction in one particular, there is a diversity also in other points.
I grant that even marriage is a gift of God, but between gift and gift there is great diversity. In fact the Apostle himself speaking of the same person who had repented of his incestuous conduct, says: “so that contrariwise ye should rather forgive him and comfort him, and to whom you forgive anything, I forgive also.” And that we might not think a man's gift contemptible, he added, “for what I also have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, for your sakes have I forgiven it, in the presence of Christ.”
There is diversity in the gifts of Christ. Hence it is that by way of type Joseph has a coat of many colours. And in the forty-fifth psalm we read, “at your right hand does stand the queen in a vesture of gold wrought about with various colours.” And the Apostle Peter says, “as heirs together of the manifold grace of God,” where the more expressive Greek word ποικίλης, i.e., varied, is used.
Source: Against Jovinianus (New Advent)