If we contemplate deeply the first chapters of Genesis, we find that man came into existence by divine love. In this existence, everything was for man, not for God. God is not subject to necessity, nor does he need it. As for man, his need for the world is urgent, indeed absolutely necessary. He cannot live and grow without a framework. The world is the framework for our upbringing and advancement. (28).
This statement means two things: 1- We, as God’s creatures, must reflect His beauty in this universe, 2- We must elevate the world to God.
However, the matter does not end here, and achieving it is not a simple matter at all. God wanted us to achieve this through our participation in creation. (29)So we are like him, creative engineers, engineering the universe and engineering ourselves, and beautifying them. God wanted us to be a source of blessing for the universe, and this is self-evident if we want our continuity and the continuity of the universe with us.
In our reading of the Book of Genesis, we notice that the wonderful divine creation, especially the creation of man, has undergone some change and modification. (30)In Paradise, man did not have children. However, after the expulsion, (31) من الجنة التي هي ليست إلا حضرة الله، عرف الإنجاب. ويقول الكتاب: “وعرف آدم حواء امرأته فحبلت وولدت قايين وقالت : اقتنيت (32) رجلاً من عند الرب. ثم عادت فولدت أخاه هاييل …” (تكوين 4: 1).
من الكتاب المقدس نتعلم أن آدم لم يعرف حواء قبل الطرد من الفردوس، لآن هذه المعرفة دخلت حياة الإنسان بعد سقوطه وتفكك وحدة قواه الداخلية وذلك بنتيجة ابتعاده الإرادي عن الله. الجنس بهذا المعنى لم يكن رفيق الوجود منذ أن كنا، ومن الأكيد أنه لن يصاحبنا إلى الحياة الأبدية، وهذا ما يؤكده الرب اذ يقول: “لأنهم في القيامة لا يتزوجون ولا يزوجون بل يكونون كملائكة الله في السماء” (متى 22: 30).
في الحقيقة كتب الكثير عن مواضيع تتصل بآدم وحواء، بالزواج، بالبتولية ومعناها. والأدب المسيحي العام توسّع في الكلام عن الزواج والإنجاب. الآباء القديسون تكلموا عن حياة الإنسان ودعوته منذ أن كان في الفردوس مروراً بالسقوط والموت ودخول المؤسسة الزوجية إلى حياة الإنسان، وبالتالي دخول الإنجاب من أجل البقاء. مثلاً القديس مثوديوس أسقف اولمبوس وضع كتاباً اسمه “الندوة” (33) أو في البتولية. كذلك وضع القديس غريغوريوس النيصصي رسالته الشهيرة “في البتولية” (34)As for Gregory of Nazianzus, he wrote in praise of virginity: (35)Then came Eusebius, who wrote a number of articles under the same title, all of which are preserved in Latin. (36)Saint Athanasius the Great also wrote a book with the same title. (37). ثم وضع اللاهوتي الفاضل ثيوذورزيسي، وبأسلوب علمي، رائعته “فن البتولية” (38)This is just the tip of the iceberg. What are these and other writings about?
It becomes clear to anyone who reads these works that the Holy Fathers agree on the following matters:
1- The beginning of the activation of procreation was outside paradise.
2- The Holy Bible presents to us virginity as a lifestyle higher than marriage, which man knew before the fall.
3- Virginity is the state that one will be in in eternal life (Matthew 22:30).
4- Life in the world cannot deny the virginity of the heart, even if the talk is about marriage.
We conclude from patristic literature that marriage, despite its sanctity and sacramentality in Christianity, is an incidental part of life and will not remain in the coming age in its current form, as stated in (Matthew 22:30).
We also conclude that mating or procreation began after the fall, after the expulsion from Paradise. That is, there was no mating in Paradise, nor children in Paradise. Hence, we can say that marriage is a divine invention of the highest degree of wisdom. Subsequently, sex is also a divine invention. When God created us sexually organically, He willed, in His incomprehensible wisdom, to make us equal to Him in creation. He wanted us to enjoy complete freedom and independence. However, there was no need for sex before the fall. However, God thus willed that our life should continue with procreation in the event of the fall. Our fall was possible, and it happened. Hence, the whole sexual issue is without shame or disgrace, for it is a divine, holy invention that is part of God’s plan for the salvation of man. Subsequently, marriage itself before the fall was merely a possibility that had no reason to be activated. It was possible, as St. Basil says, for our life to be like the life of the angels who neither marry nor are given in marriage.
Here some may think that marriage, which was not in paradise, should be despised. Perhaps these same people will even ask why sexual life did not exist in paradise, because in their view this means that this issue is despised in Christianity, and thus the Christian position does not take into account the sanctity of marriage, but rather calls indirectly for despising marriage.
In fact, the Lord’s words in Matthew 22:30 are clear: there is no marriage or mating in heaven, only marriage on earth. Marriage is an institution that exists as long as man is on earth. The Lord himself blessed the wedding at Cana in Galilee, and he had previously said in the Old Testament: Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And the Apostle Paul himself teaches us that marriage is holy and the bed undefiled. However, marriage before the fall was only a possibility, because God could, if He so willed, grant us continuity, not by procreation, but in another way, perhaps similar to the multiplication of spiritual angels. On the one hand, man can live this angelic state, by voluntarily abstaining from marriage, and thus he can, by pure will and complete conviction, not be the father of children, not live in a family by joining a monastery where he becomes a monk and lives divine love with his brothers who live in obedience to the spiritual father and practice the evangelical virtues so that they may all rise to the full stature of Christ. This possibility was seen by the divine Paul as a foundation, as he called those he preached to be as he was (without marriage), but he saw that because of the burning desire it was better for a person to marry.
In the divine book, Eve was so that man would not be alone, and thus marriage was so that man would not be a prisoner of isolation. What does this mean?
I am not calling for marginalizing sex, because the harms of repression are dire, because he who represses his instincts does not mature, and he who rejects family simply because he wants to live as he pleases does not mature. And he who looks down on women under the pretext of being chaste does not understand man, but deep down he denies God’s creation and rejects God’s sovereignty over his life, and this also does not mature. Whether we marry or not, we will always remain in obedience to God, who is all in all, now and in eternal life. Hence, those who marry do not sin, and those who remain chaste do not sin either, if each group knows the requirements of its calling, realizes its capacity and knows what it really wants. Those who marry will die one day, and monks will die one day. Sex or procreation is a mode of propagation, not a means of immortality. Sex is a weapon against annihilation, not a path to eternity. The Bible speaks explicitly about people who have castrated themselves for the sake of the Kingdom of God. That is, the absence of reproduction does not necessarily mean the absence of the Kingdom of God. How many married people reside in Hell? And how many single people have been consumed by the fires of lust and instincts.
Thus, premarital sex is based on contempt for the role of sex and the message of sex that God has determined, because sex is not a game or a tool for entertainment, as is the case today. (39)Sex is part of God’s plan for the salvation of man. But this does not mean that linking sex to marriage, or rather confining it to the framework of marriage, is a call to legitimize sexual freedom in marriage. Sex is not released from its bottle, nor is it given the green light, nor is it freed from its shackles, even in a responsible love lived in marriage. The most dangerous thing about this time is that it has lifted the cover from sex and put it on television in front of the eyes of adults and children. The mistake of this gendered time is that it has lifted the taboo on sex, as if licentiousness is a service to freedom. I wonder what someone would say if they heard me say once: Sexual life is for children and adults? I would certainly be accused of stupidity. This is exactly what is said in this generation that gives sex to adults and children in the same row, without differentiating between age and age and without taking into account perceptions and needs.
Now we come to another level: Has not man, since he was in existence, been sexual from the organic point of view, and existed in the form of male and female? If man is sexual from the organic point of view, then he is reproductive by nature (Gen. 1:28), that is, man had a reproductive nature in Paradise. Man, created in the image and likeness of God, is reproductive from the physiological point of view. But how can this reproductive being be in the image of God? Is it reasonable to say that God, our example, our Creator, and our reference, is a sexual being, or rather a sexual prototype? But is it reasonable to say that God is sexual simply because his image, that is, man, is a sexual creature? Is there maleness and femaleness in God? Is it reasonable to speak of divine sexuality? And if the questions are correct, why sexuality in God? What is its purpose and justification? Does God need sex in order to survive and continue? (God forbid). And how can He remain a creator if He needs a means for survival? If sexuality is a property of the divine essence, then we must say that God is contingent, not necessary. He, then, needs sex to survive. This means that he cannot be called the god of machines, the lord of lords, and the king of kings. So how do we explain that we are created in the image of God, and that God is not sexual like us?
Sexuality in creation is a divine creation implanted in our nature in order for life to continue in the event of a break with God, of course on the part of man. As for God, He is not sexual because He does not need masculinity and femininity, nor marriage, in order to survive. Masculinity and femininity, procreation and childbearing, marriage itself, are all matters that per se belong to the realm of creation, not to the realm of the Creator. This means that sexuality in man is added to creation in the divine image. It is taken from dumb, irrational creatures.
أي أننا على صورة الله لا من جهة الجنس، بل من جهة الكنوز الإلهية المغروسة في آنيتنا الخزفية كما يقول بولس الرسول. الإنسان على صورة الله من جهة مواهب الخير والجمال، لا من جهة التناسل. الجنسية في الإنسان لا تعفيه من الموت، فهي من أجل البقاء، لا شكلاً من أشكلا الخلود: “لأن من لم يولد من الماء والروح لا يدخل ملكوت السموات” (يوحنا 3: 5). الولادة الجسدية لا تكفي كي يولد المرء من فوق. الزواج في حد ذاته لا يشتري بطاقة العبور إلى الحياة الأبدية، وإلا كان يجب على الجميع أن يتزوجوا، الأمر الذي لا يجري على الجميع. كذلك فإن من يترهبن لا يدخل الحياة الأبدية، لمجرد دخوله الدير. الحياة الأبدية ليست حكراً على فئة دون الأخرى.
Eternal life is not for the unmarried, nor for the one who knows a woman. It is not the case in this way. It is a question of quality, not of position. And in the Church we have saints who are both single and married. What is important is that the heart of man be for God wherever he is, and whatever his condition. Immortality is not the fruit of marriage. (40)Nor is it the fruit of hollow, irresponsible celibacy. Immortality is from the graces of the Holy Spirit descending upon pure hearts thirsting for eternal life in Jesus Christ, the Lord, Creator, and Savior.
(28) See Theodorzis, The Art of Virginity, p. 21, Thessaloniki 1973. (Greek).
(29) co-workers
(30) This modification is not due to a deficiency in the divine plan, but is understood through the human will that has become sick and has been struck by blindness and blackness.
(31) Expulsion is not an arbitrary and unjust step, but rather a movement of missing and loving. Its goal is to restore us to the parental fold from which we have expelled ourselves of our own free will.
(32) لفظة “قايين” تعني قنية، ومنها فعل اقتنى acquire.
(33) Symposium، F. cavallera. “La virgintie de Basile d’angre also: P.G. 12، 9-408.”
(34) On virginity
(35) pG – 37, 522-632
(36) In Latin, Louvain 1953 volume I p: 777-820
(37) pG 28, 252-281
(38) The Art of virginity (Greek) Th.Zisi, Thessalonika 1973, the partriachal in statute for patrisitic studies.
(39) His Eminence Bishop George Khodr says in one of his sermons: Childbirth is a game for entertainment for the peoples of the Third World.
(40) on th creation of Man, pG 44. 188 C.
see also Introduction “From glory to glory” by J. Danieloi (S.V.S) N.York 1979.