from fear of domestic quarrels on the part of the wife, whereby the quiet of their lives may be disturbed; some from fear of revenge on the part of the husband or relations; some from fear of chastisement from the servants of the family; some also abstain from motives of poverty, avarice, or imbecility, arising either from disease, from abuse, from age, or from impotence. Of these there are some also, who, because they cannot or dare not commit adultery in the body, condemn adulteries in the spirit; and thus they speak morally against adulteries, and in favor of marriages; but such person, unless in spirit they call adulteries accursed, and this from a religious principle in the spirit, are still adulterers; for although they do not commit them in the body, yet they do in the spirit; wherefore after death, when they become spirits, they speak openly in favor of them. From these considerations it is manifest, that even a wicked person may shun adulteries as hurtful; but that none but a Christian can shun them as sins. Hence then the truth of the proposition is evident, that chastity cannot be predicated of those who abstain from adulteries merely for various external reasons. 154. XII. CHASTITY CANNOT BE PREDICATED OF THOSE WHO BELIEVE MARRIAGES TO BE UNCHASTE. These, like the persons spoken of just above, n. 152, do not know either what chastity is, or even that it exists; and in this respect they are like those who make chastity to consist merely in celibacy, of whom we shall speak presently.