33. And, the case being thus,
enough and more than enough answer has been made to the heretics,
whether they be Manichees, or whosoever other that bring false
charges against the Fathers of the Old Testament, on the subject of
their having several wives, thinking this a proof whereby to
convict them of incontinence: provided, that is, that they
perceive, that that is no sin, which is committed neither against
nature, in that they used those women not for wantonness, but for
the begetting of children: nor against custom, forasmuch as such
things were usually done at those times: nor against command,
forasmuch as they were forbidden by no law. But such as used women
unlawfully, either the divine sentence in those Scriptures convicts
them, or the reading sets them forth for us to condemn and shun,
not to approve or imitate.