The law of procreation applies to all men and women, and the founding of families is a sacred duty that no one may shirk with impunity.  Procreation on Earth is the way by which the fallen spirits must progress through the stages of Nature, in order that they may reach perfection.  It is a manifestation of God's wisdom that those of the fallen spirits, which have progressed to a given terrestrial stage, may, by way of procreation, assist their fellows to rise from the lower to the higher orders of Nature.  If several brothers have fallen into the same pit, the first one to succeed in climbing out of it will lend the others a hand, in order that they too may escape.  That is a duty which brothers owe one another. 

      It is from this viewpoint of God's wisdom and mercy that you should consider the law of a sex life.  God has made the sexual instinct as strong as it is, because procreation is a part of His Plan of Salvation, and in order that His creatures may find it less easy to evade their duty of collaborating with Him in carrying out that Plan. 

      Accordingly, it is clear that the subject of procreation involves a duty from the performance of which only the weightiest of reasons can absolve a man or woman, and that the vow of celibacy is a grave offense against the will of God.  Neither the priests, nor the nuns, nor the members of the monastic orders of the Catholic Church have any adequate grounds in the eyes of God for their attitude toward marriage. 

      I know that celibacy has been defended on grounds derived from the seventh chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians, in which Paul alleges several reasons, because of which the single state is to be preferred, recommending that only those should marry for whom celibacy has perils. 

      This attitude of the Apostle was a mistaken one, neither had he received any authority from Immanuel to preach such a doctrine.  Of this Paul himself was well aware, as you will see if you will read that chapter carefully, for if you do, you will notice something that occurs nowhere else in any of his Epistles, namely, Paul's repeated insistence upon the fact that he is voicing his personal views only as regards celibacy, and that in this respect he is speaking under no mandate from the Lord.  Therefore, the constant reiteration of the words, "I say".  "But I say to the unmarried and to widows . . . "  "But unto the married I give charge, yes, not I, but the Lord . . . "  "But to the rest say I, not the Lord . . . "  "Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord; but I give my judgment . . . "  At the end of the chapter he again says, "But she is happier if she abide as she is, after my judgment . . . "  His judgment was mistaken, even if he closed his last sentence with the remark, "and I think that I also have a spirit of God".  Paul himself was not married, a state which he justified by the fact that his calling required him to make long and frequent journeys.  Had he had a family, these would have been impossible, because he could neither have taken his wife and children with him nor have abandoned them for months and years at a time, Paul's own state of celibacy made him narrow-minded and fanatical upon this subject.  All men have their faults, a fact for which allowance must be made even in the case of the Apostles. 

      Paul was subsequently enlightened by Immanuel as to his misconception on the score of celibacy, and was directed to retract his views in a letter addressed to all of his communities. 

      This letter had afterwards been destroyed because a number of the explanations and amendments that it contained did not accord with the views of the  Catholic Church of the later age. 

      How radically Paul changed his views concerning celibacy, in consequence of the enlightenment he received from his Master, may be gathered from his writings to Timothy and to Titus.  He who had written to the Corinthians that he wished all men were even as he himself now no longer tolerates the appointment of the unmarried to any ecclesiastical office in the community.  Judging from his Epistle to the Corinthians it might have been expected that he would have preferred these for the places in question, but the exact opposite is the case.  "The bishop must be the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, orderly one that rules well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; but if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God ?"  Also, "Let deacons be husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their houses well."  (1^st Timothy 3:2-5,12) 

      Whereas he writes to the Corinthians that a widow is happier to abide as she is, he writes to Timothy, "I desire that the younger widows marry, bear children, rule the household . . . "  (1^st Timothy 5:14 )

      When Paul stresses the point that bishops and deacons must be "husbands of one wife" he is not referring to men who have contracted a second marriage, because if he recommends that widows remarry, as he does in his letter to Titus, then surely he concedes the same right to widowers.  The term "husbands of one wife" is used because several men who became converted from paganism to Christianity had concubines in addition to their wedded wives, a fact which was generally known, and because of the scandal to which it gave rise, Paul would not tolerate their appointment to positions of responsibility in the religious communities.  For such offices he desired only men in good repute among both Christians and non-Christians, as he writes to Timothy, "Moreover he must have good testimony from them that are without, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil."  (1^st Timothy 3:7)

Click Here to Return to Special Articles

Click Here to Order the Book

* click Here to E-mail

To Learn the Truth About the
Aquarian Age click here!