Plural marriage/Early Christians on plural marriage

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Early Christians on plural marriage

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• Question: How did early Christians view plural marriage?
• Question: If polygamy was commanded of God in order to "raise seed," then why were Adam and Noah not commanded to practice polygamy?

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Articles about Plural marriage

Doctrinal foundation of plural marriage	Purpose of plural marriage Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation Plural marriage in early Christianity Plural marriage in the Book of Mormon Plural marriage and the Bible
Introduction of plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage 1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Plural marriage and the law
Questions about Joseph Smith and plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Joseph Smith's marriage to young women Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him? Mormon women refusing offers of plural marriage Polyandry Joseph Smith and children through plural marriage Joseph Smith was sealed to other men's wives Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma Emma Smith's reaction to Joseph Smith's plural marriages Emma Smith in Doctrine and Covenants 132 Did Joseph have lustful motives for practicing polygamy? Did Joseph Smith send men on missions in order to steal their wives? Did Joseph Smith practice polygamy for the purpose of monetary gain?
Notable plural wives of Joseph Smith	Fanny Alger Prescindia Lathrop Huntington Buell Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Helen Mar Kimball
Plural marriage in Utah	Difficulties with plural marriage Brigham Young's statements regarding plural marriage John Taylor's statements regarding polygamy Latter-day Saints and divorce in the nineteenth century Prevalence of plural marriage in Utah
End of plural marriage	The First Manifesto Plural marriage practiced after the First Manifesto The Church of Jesus Christ and plural marriage today

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Articles about various topics in plural marriage

Essays on plural marriage	Essays home page Beginnings of plural marriage Fanny Alger: Joseph's first plural wife Early womanizer? Illegal marriages in Ohio? Age of wives Children of polygamous unions Marrying other men's wives? Polyandry John C. Bennett
John C. Bennett and plural marriage	John C. Bennett prior to Nauvoo Bennett's brothel in Nauvoo Rise and Fall of Bennett Sarah Pratt Bennett and Prostitution Nancy Rigdon Sidney Rigdon and Bennett's charges Stealing missionary wives?

Plural marriage/Early Christians on plural marriage

Question: How did early Christians view plural marriage?

The perspectives of early Christians demonstrates the plural marriage was not the absolutely forbidden idea that some modern sectarians might wish it to be

Critics point to New Testament scriptures such as 1 Timothy 3:2; 1 Timothy 3:12; Titus 1:6 to argue that the early Christian Church was opposed to any plural marriages. The Latter-day Saints do not take their doctrine from ancient Christian writers, but from canonized scriptures and the living prophets. However, the perspectives of early Christians demonstrates the plural marriage was not the absolutely forbidden idea that some modern sectarians might wish it to be.

Paul

The listed scriptures do indeed include Paul's instructions to some leaders to be both married and potentially monogamous. The Greek in the New Testament is not as definitive as the critics might wish. The text can "be read as excluding (a) the single, (b) the polygamous, (c) the divorced, [or] (d) those remarried after being widowed. The words can also convey the connotation 'devoted solely to his wife.'" One's attitude toward polygamy will probably influence the interpretation one chooses—but we must not lose sight of the fact that it is an interpretation.

In any case, Latter-day Saints agree that the 'standard' instruction to all believers is monogamy—exceptions can only be commanded by God through His prophet (see Jacob 2꞉30

).

However, critics go too far when they conclude that early Christians believed in an absolute prohibition on plural marriages.

Tertullian

As I think, moreover, each pronouncement and arrangement is (the act) of one and the same God; who did then indeed, in the beginning, send forth a sowing of the race by an indulgent laxity granted to the reins of connubial alliances, until the world should be replenished, until the material of the new discipline should attain to forwardness: now, however, at the extreme boundaries of the times, has checked (the command) which He had sent out, and recalled the indulgence which He had granted; not without a reasonable ground for the extension (of that indulgence) in the beginning, and the limitation of it in the end.

Tertullian's perspective is strikingly similar to Jacob 2꞉30

, in which monogamy is the norm, but God may command exceptions to "raise up seed."

Justin Martyr

Justin Martyr argued that David's sin was only in the matter of Uriah's wife, and echoed a common early Christian idea that marriage was a "mystery," or sacred rite of the type which Latter-day Saints associate with temple worship:

And this one fall of David, in the matter of Uriah's wife, proves, sirs," I said, "that the patriarchs had many wives, not to commit fornication, but that a certain dispensation and all mysteries might be accomplished by them; since, if it were allowable to take any wife, or as many wives as one chooses, and how he chooses, which the men of your nation do over all the earth, wherever they sojourn, or wherever they have been sent, taking women under the name of marriage, much more would David have been permitted to do this.

Justin saw the patriarchs' marriages not as corruptions or something which God 'winked at,' but acts with significant ritual and religious power.

Augustine

Even Augustine, a towering figure in Christian theology, held that polygamy was not something that was a crime before God, but rather a matter that depended more upon cultural biases:

Again, Jacob the son of Isaac is charged with having committed a great crime because he had four wives. But here there is no ground for a criminal accusation: for a plurality of wives was no crime when it was the custom; and it is a crime now, because it is no longer the custom. There are sins against nature, and sins against custom, and sins against the laws. In which, then, of these senses did Jacob sin in having a plurality of wives? As regards nature, he used the women not for sensual gratification, but for the procreation of children. For custom, this was the common practice at that time in those countries. And for the laws, no prohibition existed. The only reason of its being a crime now to do this, is because custom and the [secular] laws forbid it.

Notes

Question: If polygamy was commanded of God in order to "raise seed," then why were Adam and Noah not commanded to practice polygamy?

We do not suspect that many marriage choices were available to Adam or Noah

Oddly enough, one critic of the Church actually asks the question: "If God commands polygamy in situations where a high birth rate is necessary, why is there no mention of God commanding Adam or Noah and/or their immediate male children to have many wives?".

We do not suspect that many marriage choices were available to Adam (descendants from two individuals) and Noah (descendants from eight individuals).

With regard to their immediate children, we simply have no information to indicate whether or not they were commanded to practice plural marriage.

In any case, LDS doctrine in no way anticipates that plural marriage will be universal, or even common. It is, in fact, forbidden save when God specifically commands it.

To see citations to the critical sources for these claims, click here

Notes