I happened to come across an article "Early Christians on plural marriage" from FAIR. I decided to provide a fuller context to the three theologians they cite (Justin; Tertullian; Augustine):
Justin Martyr:
1. “Now, to forestall any pretext
you may offer by saying it was necessary for Christ to be crucified, and that
it was necessary that the transgressors belong to your race, and that it could
not have been otherwise, I wish to observe that, although God wanted men and
angels to follow his will, he nevertheless was pleased to create them with free
will to practice virtue, with the faculty of reasoning in order to know him who
created them (that is, through whom they passed from the state of non-existence
to that of existence), and with a law that they should be judged by him, if
they do anything contrary to sound reason. Thus, unless we quickly repent, we,
both men and angels, shall be found guilty of our sins.
2. “But if the Word of God
predicts that some creatures, men and angels, will assuredly be punished, it is
because God foreknew that they would be incorrigibly sinful, not, however, because
God created them so. Therefore, everyone who repents can, if he desires, obtain
the mercy of God, and he is called blessed by the Scripture that says, Blessed
is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. In other words,
when one repents of his sins, he receives the pardon of them from God. And not,
as you and others like you, declare, that, even though they commit sin and yet
know God, the Lord will not impute sin to them.
3. “By way of an example,
Scripture tells us of David’s one sin, committed through his self-conceit, but
forgiven through his tearful repentance. Now, if pardon were not granted to
such a person before repentance, but only when the great king and anointed one
and prophet wept and lamented as he did, how can impure wretches ever hope that
the Lord will not impute sin to them, unless they repent with tears and
lamentations?
4. “Indeed, gentlemen, this one
deed of transgression of David with the wife of Uriah shows that the patriarchs
took many wives, not to commit adultery, but that certain mysteries might thus
be indicated by them. For, had it been permissible to take any wife whomever,
or as many as one desired (as women are taken under the name of marriage by
your countrymen all over the world, wherever they live or are sent), David certainly
would have been permitted this by much greater right.”
5. With that said, my dearest
Marcus Pompeius, I concluded my discourse. (Dialogue with Trypho, 141, in
St. Justin Martyr: Dialogue with Trypho [trans. Thomas B. Falls; Selections
from the Fathers of the Church 13; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of
America Press, 2003], 210-11)
FAIR: 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 . . . Justin saw the
patriarchs' marriages not as corruptions or something which God 'winked at,'
but acts with significant ritual and religious power.
Tertullian:
“But withal the blessed
patriarchs,” you say, “made mingled alliances not only with more wives (than
one), but with concubines likewise.”
Shall that, then, make it lawful for us also to marry without limit? I grant that it will, if there still remain
types—sacraments of something future—for your nuptials to figure; or if even
now there is room for that command, “Grow and multiply;” that is, if no other
command has yet supervened: “The time is
already wound up; it remains that both they who have wives act as if they had
not:” for, of course, by enjoining
continence, and restraining concubitance, the seminary of our race, (this
latter command) has abolished that “Grow and multiply.” 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. Laxity is
always allowed to the beginning (of things).
The reason why any one plants a wood and lets it grow, is that at his
own time he may cut it. The wood was the
old order, which is being pruned down by the new Gospel, in which withal “the
axe has been laid at the roots.” So, too, “Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth,”
has now grown old, ever since “Let none render evil for evil” grew young. I think, moreover, that even with a view to
human institutions and decrees, things later prevail over things primitive. (On
Exhortation to Chastity, 6 [ANF 4:53-54])
FAIR: 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."
Augustine:
46. Faustus' effrontery appears
notably in his accusing Isaac also, the son of Abraham of pretending that his
wife Rebecca was his sister. For as regards the family of Rebecca Scripture is
not silent, and it appears that she was his sister in the well-known sense of
the word. His concealing that she was his wife is not surprising, nor is it
insignificant, if he did it in imitation of his father, so that he can be
justified on the same grounds. We need only refer to the answer already given
to Faustus' charge against Abraham, as being equally applicable to Isaac.
Perhaps, however some inquirer will ask what typical significance there is in
the foreign king discovering Rebecca to be the wife of Isaac by seeing him
playing with her; for he would not have known, had he not seen Isaac playing
with Rebecca as it would have been improper to do with a woman not his wife.
When holy men act thus as husbands, they do it not foolishly, but designedly:
for they accommodate themselves to the nature of the weaker sex in words and
actions of gentle playfulness; not in effeminacy, but in subdued manliness. But
such behavior towards any woman except a wife would be disgraceful. This is a
question in good manners, which is referred to only in case some stern advocate
of insensibility should find fault with the holy man even for playing with his
wife. For if these men without humanity see a sedate man chatting playfully
with children that he may adapt himself to the childish understanding with kindly
sympathy, they think that he is insane; forgetting that they themselves were
once children, or unthankful for their maturity. The typical meaning, as
regards Christ and His Church, which is to be found in this great patriarch
playing with his wife, and in the conjugal relation being thus discovered, will
be seen by every one who, to avoid offending the Church by erroneous doctrine,
carefully studies in Scripture the secret of the Church's Bridegroom. He will
find that the Husband of the Church concealed for a time in the form of a
servant the majesty in which He was equal to the Father, as being in the form
of God, that feeble humanity might be capable of union with Him, and that so He
might accommodate Himself to His spouse. So far from being absurd, it has a
symbolic suitableness that the prophet of God should use a playfulness which is
of the flesh to meet the affection of his wife, as the Word of God Himself
became flesh that He might dwell among us.
47. 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 laws forbid it. Whoever despises these restraints, even
though he uses his wives only to get children, still commits sin, and does an
injury to human society itself, for the sake of which it is that the
procreation of children is required. In the present altered state of customs
and laws, men can have no pleasure in a plurality of wives, except from an
excess of lust; and so the mistake arises of supposing that no one could ever
have had many
wives but from sensuality and the
vehemence of sinful desires. Unable to form an idea of men whose force of mind
is beyond their conception, they compare themselves with themselves, as the
apostle says,1 and so make mistakes. Conscious that, in their intercourse
though with one wife only, they are often influenced by mere animal passion
instead of an intelligent motive, they think it an obvious inference that, if
the limits of moderation are not observed where there is only one wife, the
infirmity must be aggravated where there are more than one.
48. But those who have not the
virtues of temperance must not be allowed to judge of the conduct of holy men,
any more than those in fever of the sweetness and wholesomeness of food.
Nourishment must be provided not by the dictates of the sickly taste, but
rather by the judgment and direction of health, so as to cure the sickness. If
our critics, then, wish to attain not a spurious and affected, but a genuine
and sound moral health, let them find a cure in believing the Scripture record,
that the honorable name of saint is given not without reason to men who had
several wives; and that the reason is this, that the mind can exercise such
control over the flesh as not to allow the appetite implanted in our nature by Providence
to go beyond the limits of deliberate intention. By a similar misunderstanding,
this criticism, which consists rather in dishonest slander than in honest
judgment, might accuse the holy apostles too of preaching the gospel to so many
people, not from the desire of begetting children to eternal life, but from the
love of human praise. There was no lack of renown to these our fathers in the
gospel, for their praise was spread in numerous tongues through the churches of
Christ. In fact, no greater honor and glory could have been paid by men to
their fellow-creatures. It was the sinful desire for this glory in the Church
which led the reprobate Simon in his blindness to wish to purchase for money
what was freely bestowed on the apostles by divine grace. There must have been
this desire of glory in the man whom the Lord in the Gospel checks in his
desire to follow Him, saying, "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the
air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay His Head." The
Lord saw that his mind was darkened by false appearances and elated by sudden
emotion, and that there was no ground of faith to afford a lodging to the
Teacher of humility; for in Christ's discipleship the man sought not Christ's
grace, but his own glory. By this love of glory those were led away whom the
Apostle Paul characterizes as preaching Christ not sincerely, but of contention
and envy; and yet the apostle rejoices in their preaching, knowing that it
might happen that, while the preachers gratified their desire for human praise,
believers might be born among their hearers,--not as the result of the envious
feeling which made them wish to rival or surpass the fame of the apostles, but
by means of the gospel which they preached, though not sincerely; so that God might
bring good out of their evil. So a man may be induced to marry by sensual
desire, and not to beget children; and yet a child may be born, a good work of
God, due to the natural power, not to the misconduct of the parent. As,
therefore, the holy apostles were gratified when their doctrine met with
acceptance from their hearers, not because they were greedy for praise, but
because they desired to spread the truth; so the holy patriarchs in their
conjugal intercourse were actuated not by the love of pleasure, but by the
intelligent desire for the continuance of their family. Thus the number of
their hearers did not make the apostles ambitious; nor did the number of their
wives make the patriarchs licentious. But why defend the husbands, to whose
character the divine word bears the highest testimony, when it appears that the
wives themselves looked upon their connection with their husbands only as a
means of getting sons? So, when they found themselves barren, they gave their
handmaids to their husbands; so that while the handmaids had the fleshly
motherhood, the wives were mothers in intention. (Reply to Faustus the
Manichaean, Book 22 [NPNF1 4:289-90])
FAIR: 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