Usually Luther represents virginity as not indeed superior but quite equal to the married state: “To be a virgin or a spouse is a different gift; both are equally well pleasing to God.”[787] As we might expect, we find the warmest appreciation of celibacy expressed before Luther himself began to think of marriage, whereas, subsequent to 1525, his strictures on celibacy become more frequent. In 1518, without any restriction, he has it that virginity is held to be the highest ornament and “an incomparable jewel”; in the case of religious, chastity was all the more precious because “they had of their own free will given themselves to the Lord.”[788] In the following year, comparing the married state with virginity, he says that “virginity is better,” when bestowed by the grace of God.[789] “The breach with the past caused by his marriage,” says M. Rade, was “greater and more serious” than any change effected in later years in matrimonial relationship.[790] By his advocacy of marriage, as against celibacy and his glorification of family life, Luther brought about “a reversal of all accepted standards.”[791] Rade, not without sarcasm, remarks: “There is something humorous in the way in which Luther in his exposition of 1 Corinthians vii., which we have repeatedly had occasion to quote, after praising virginity ever passes on to the praise of the married state.”[792] It is quite true that his interpretation seems forced, when he makes St. Paul, in this passage, extol continency, not on account of its “merit and value in God’s sight,” but merely for the “tranquillity and comfort it insures in this life.”[793] To Luther it is of much greater interest, that St. Paul should be “so outspoken in his praise of the married state and should allude to it as a Divine gift.” He at once proceeds to prove from this, that “the married state is the holiest state of all, and that certain states had been falsely termed ‘religious’ and others ‘secular’; for the reverse ought to be the case, the married state being truly religious and spiritual.”[794] Luther’s animus against celibacy became manifest everywhere. He refused to give sufficient weight to the Bible passages, to the self-sacrifice so pleasing to God involved in the unmarried state, or to its merits for time and for eternity. It is this animus which leads him into exaggeration when he speaks of the necessity of marriage for all men, and to utter words which contradict what he himself had said in praise of celibacy.