II. To the Initial Arguments

35. To the arguments

I reply to the first two authorities [nn.3-4]: this positive law delegitimizing believer with respect to unbeliever did not then exist.

36. If you argue that nevertheless the natural reason then existed that is now the reason for delegitimizing - I reply: in the cases that the argument is about [n.34], it was perhaps probable that the believer would win over the unbeliever, or there was a necessity to flee something more unacceptable, with sure confidence in divine aid that the believer would not be subverted by the unbeliever; and so would it be licit today had not delegitimization by the Church been added on. Hence it is not necessary for an ordinance of the Church to be founded on necessary natural reason, but enough that it is founded on probable natural reason.

37. To the next [n.5]: union with foreign women was not prohibited in the time of the Mosaic Law save with the Canaanites, because God wanted that people to be totally exterminated, and therefore Esther did not illicitly marry Ahasuerus.

38. To the point about Solomon [n.6], I concede that he, as very bad and very ungrateful to God, not only sinned in that he accepted foreign women against the Law, even from peoples specifically prohibited in the Law, but also in the multitude of women he accepted; since indeed he had according to one text [III Kings (I Kings) 11.3] seventy wives as queens [other texts have seven hundred], and three hundred concubines, although however the Law specifically said about the king in Deuteronomy 17.17, “He will not have many wives who may seduce his mind;” which Moses perhaps specifically said because of the king’s [?or Solomon’s] foreseen malice so that, if he not be held in check, he would at least be confounded, so that others not imitate him. And what is worse, Solomon was joined with them in most ardent love, to such an extent that he made idols or temples for them for worshipping their own gods. Hence not without cause did Moses add there, “who may seduce his mind.” And all these things are made worse by Solomon’s singular ingratitude for the eminent wisdom at once conceded to him by God, so that this authority [n.6] requires no response save detestation. For I believe that if all his wives had been Jews he would have sinned mortally.

39. To the final one [n.7] the answer is plain from the second article of the solution [nn.26-34], how it is licit to keep a matrimony contracted with an unbeliever, not however to contract one, because there is not the same reason on both sides.