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The 1917 Code of Canon Law also accurately describes the nature of the Sacrament of Marriage: “Marital consent is an act of the will whereby each party grants and accepts a permanent and exclusive right over the body regarding its acts which are of themselves apt for the generation of offspring.” (Codex Iuris Cononici, 1081.2) Thus, marriage is understood as a lawful contract in which the two parties handed over to each other the right to use one another for acts suitable for the generation of children. If two persons were to use the vocabulary of the Church’s canonical definition in their wedding vows, the bride and groom might say to each other, “I understand our marrying as an act in which I hand over to you the right to use my body for acts that are apt for generating children. I want to do this in a contractual context before these gathered witnesses.” Canon 1013 fittingly combined the teachings of both St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, teaching that: “The primary end of marriage is the procreation and education of children; its secondary end is mutual help and the remedying of concupiscence.” (Codex Iuris Cononici, 1013)

St. Augustine, On the Good of Marriage, Section 1, A.D. 401: “The first natural bond of human society is man and wife. Nor did God create these each by himself, and join them together as alien by birth: but He created the one out of the other, setting a sign also of the power of the union in the side, whence she was drawn, was formed. For they are joined one to another side by side, who walk together, and look together whither they walk. Then follows the connexion of fellowship in children, which is the one alone worthy fruit, not of the union of male and female, but of the sexual intercourse. For it were possible that there should exist in either sex, even without such intercourse, a certain friendly and true union of the one ruling, and the other obeying.”

Pope Gregory XVI in his encyclical Mirari Vos, which exposed liberalism and religious indifferentism explains that those marriages that are devoid of the “thought of the sacrament and of the mysteries signified by it [that is, the procreation and education of children, faithfulness, and mutual love and help]” or that was entered into because of “concupiscence alone,” will have “an unhappy ending” since these kinds of selfish, lustful and impious “marriages” in effect are nothing but fornication in disguise of a marriage, thus firmly contradicting and exposing the modernistic and heretical teachings of certain impious men and women who dared to assert that one could marry for mere selfish, lustful or worldly motives, rather than for pious and good motives that a true and honorable marriage always is based on.

Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos (# 12), Aug. 15, 1832: “Now the honorable marriage of Christians, which Paul calls "a great sacrament in Christ and the Church,"[Heb. 13:4, Eph. 5:32] demands our shared concern lest anything contrary to its sanctity and indissolubility is proposed. Our predecessor Pius VIII would recommend to you his own letters on the subject. However, troublesome efforts against this sacrament still continue to be made. The people therefore must be zealously taught that a marriage rightly entered upon cannot be dissolved; for those joined in matrimony God has ordained a perpetual companionship for life and a knot of necessity which cannot be loosed except by death. Recalling that matrimony is a sacrament and therefore subject to the Church, let them consider and observe the laws of the Church concerning it. Let them take care lest for any reason they permit that which is an obstruction to the teachings of the canons and the decrees of the councils. They should be aware that those marriages will have an unhappy end which are entered upon contrary to the discipline of the Church or without God’s favor or because of concupiscence alone, with no thought of the sacrament and of the mysteries signified by it.”

In truth, Pope Gregory IX (1145-1241) also affirms the Church’s teaching on the sacrament of marriage, saying that: “As much as the contract of marriage is favored, it lacks effect if conditions are stipulated against the substance of marriage. For example, if one says to the other, “I contract with you if you will prevent the conception of children,” or, “until I find another woman more worthy in honor or riches,” or, “if you will sell yourself in adultery for money.”” (Gratian, Marriage Canons From The Decretum, Case Thirty-Two, Question IV, Conditions Set in Betrothals or Other Contracts)

Pope Gregory IX’s three examples here shows us the three goods of marriage: proles (offspring), sacramentum (indissolubility), and fides (fidelity) without which a marriage contract is invalid. “It seems evident that a woman taken merely to have sex is not a wife, because God instituted marriage for propagation, not merely for satisfying lust. For the nuptial blessing is [Gen. 1:28], “Increase and multiply.”… It is shameful for a woman when her marriage bears no fruit, for this alone is the reason for marrying. … bearing children is the fruit of marriage and the blessing of matrimony is without doubt the reason that [the Blessed Virgin] Mary’s virginity defeated the Prince of this World [the Devil]. Thus anyone who joins himself to another, not for the sake of procreating offspring, but rather to satisfy lust is less a spouse than a fornicator. … As no congregation of heretics can be called a Church of Christ because they do not have Christ as their head, so no matrimony, where one has not joined her husband according to Christ’s precept, can properly be called marriage, but is better called adultery.” (Gratian, Marriage Canons From The Decretum, Case Thirty-Two, Question II)

St. Augustine, Against Julian, A.D. 421: “Nevertheless, because human soundness agrees that the motive in taking a wife is the procreation of offspring, regardless of how weakness yields to lust, I note, in addition to the faithfulness which the married owe to each other so that there be no adultery, and the offspring, for whose generation the two sexes are to be united, that a third good, which seems to me to be a sacrament, should exist in the married, above all in those who belong to the people of God, so that there be no divorce from a wife who cannot bear, and that a man not wishing to beget more children give not his wife to another for begetting, as Cato is said to have done [Plutarch, In vita Catonis; Lucan 2]. … I say that there is another way in which marriage is good when offspring can be procreated only through intercourse. If there were another way to procreate, yet the spouses had intercourse, then they evidently must have yielded to lust, and made evil use of evil. But, since the two sexes were purposely instituted, man can be born only from their union, and thus spouses by their union for this purpose [of procreation] make good use of that evil [of lust]...” (Book V, Chapter 12, Section 46)

Thus, Pope St. Gregory the Great (c. 540-604), in his work “Pastoral Rule”, which deals with sexual sins from a biblical perspective, could rightly admonish Christians to never marry or perform the marital act for carnal or lustful motives: “The married must be admonished to bear in mind that they are united in wedlock for the purpose of procreation, and when they abandon themselves to immoderate intercourse, they transfer the occasion of procreation to the service of pleasure. Let them realize that though they do not then pass beyond the bonds of wedlock, yet in wedlock they exceed its rights. Wherefore, it is necessary that they efface by frequent prayer what they befoul in the fair form of conjugal union by the admixture of pleasure. For hence it is that the Apostle, skilled in heavenly medicine, did not so much lay down a course of life for the whole [of humanity] as point out remedies to the weak when he said, "It is good for a man not to touch a woman: but on account of fornication let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband" (1 Cor. 7:1-2). For in that he premised the fear of fornication, he surely did not give a precept to such as were standing [in the greater and more blessed life of chastity], but pointed out the bed to such as were falling, lest haply they should tumble to the ground. Whence to such as were still weak he added, "Let the husband render unto the wife her due; and likewise also the wife unto the husband" (1 Cor. 7:3). And, while in the most honorable estate of matrimony allowing to them something of pleasure, he added, "But this I say by way of indulgence, not by way of command" (1 Cor. 7:6). Now where indulgence is spoken of, a fault is implied; but one that is the more readily remitted in that it consists, not in doing what is unlawful, but in not keeping what is lawful under control.

“Which thing Lot expresses well in his own person, when he flies from burning Sodom, and yet, finding Zoar, does not still ascend the mountain heights. For to fly from burning Sodom is to avoid the unlawful fires of the flesh. But the height of the mountains is the purity of the continent. Or, at any rate, they are as it were upon the mountain, who, though cleaving to carnal intercourse, still, beyond the due association for the production of offspring, are not loosely lost in pleasure of the flesh. For to stand on the mountain is to seek nothing in the flesh except the fruit of procreation. To stand on the mountain is not to cleave to the flesh in a fleshly way. But, since there are many who relinquish indeed the sins of the flesh, and yet, when placed in the state of wedlock, do not observe solely the claims of due intercourse, Lot went indeed out of Sodom, but yet did not at once reach the mountain heights; because a damnable life is already relinquished, but still the loftiness of conjugal continence is not thoroughly attained... married life is neither far separated from the world, nor yet alien from the joy of safety... They are therefore to be admonished that, if they suffer from the storms of temptation with risk to their safety, they should seek the port of wedlock. For it is written, "It is better to marry than to burn" (1 Cor. 7:9). They come, in fact, to marriage without blame, if only they have not vowed better things [chastity].” (Pope St. Gregory the Great, Pastoral Rule, Book III, Chapter XXVII.--How The Married And The Single Are To Be Admonished.)

In A.D. 191 St. Clement of Alexandria (a Greek theologian of considerable influence in the early Church) referred to Onan’s evil act in these words: “He broke the law of coitus.” (St. Clement of Alexandria, Comments on Genesis 6, PG 69:309) He went on to explain that “Because of its divine institution for the propagation of man, the seed is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be wasted.” (St. Clement of Alexandria, Pedagogus, "The Educator", 2.10.91.2)

St. Clement of Alexandria agrees with the Popes and Saints of the Church in this regard concerning the procreation and education of children, teaching us that: “it remains for us now to consider the restriction of sexual intercourse to those who are joined in wedlock. Begetting children is the goal of those who wed, and the fulfillment of that goal is a large family, just as hope of a crop drives the farmer to sow his seed, while the fulfillment of his hope is the actual harvesting of the crop. But he who sows in a living soil is far superior, for the one tills the land to provide food only for a season, the other to secure the preservation of the whole human race; the one tends his crop for himself, the other, for God. We have received the command: "Be fruitful" [Gen. 1:28], and we must obey. In this role man becomes like God, because he co-operates, in his human way, in the birth of another man.” (The Paedagogus or The Instructor, Book II, Chapter X) And so, it should be absolutely clear to all pure servants of Christ that “Marriage is the first conjunction of man and woman for the procreation of legitimate children. Accordingly Menander the comic poet says: "For the begetting of legitimate children, I give thee my daughter."” (St. Clement of Alexandria, "On Marriage", The Stromata or Miscellanies, Book II, Chapter XXIII)

Origen (a theologian of the early 3rd century Alexandrian Church) considered by many to be the most accomplished biblical scholar of the early church — refuted the teachings of the pagan philosopher Celsus by reference to God’s people in the Old Testament: “nor were there among them women who sold their beauty to anyone who wished to have sexual intercourse without offspring, and to cast contempt upon the nature of human generation.” (Origen, Contra Celsum, Book 5, Chapter 42) In the early Church it was clear that to have sexual intercourse without wishing to beget offspring was to commit an evil act.

7. SAINT AUGUSTINE CONDEMNS ALL SPOUSES THAT ARE AGAINST PROCREATION AND THAT PRACTICE A TIME-BASED METHOD OF CONTRACEPTION SIMILAR TO NFP AS ADULTERERS, CALLING THEIR BED-CHAMBER A “BROTHEL”

Arguing against the Manicheans on contraception, St. Augustine appears to refer to a timing-based method as practiced by the Manicheans. His view on the matter is clear.

St. Augustine, On the Morals of the Manichaeans 18:65, A.D. 388: “Is it not you who used to counsel us to observe as much as possible the time when a woman, after her purification, is most likely to conceive, and to abstain from cohabitation at that time, lest the soul should be entangled in flesh? This proves that you [Manicheans] approve of having a wife, not for the procreation of children, but for the gratification of passion. In marriage, as the marriage law declares, the man and woman come together for the procreation of children. Therefore, whoever makes the procreation of children a greater sin than copulation, forbids marriage and makes the woman not a wife but a mistress, who for some gifts presented to her is joined to the man to gratify his passion. Where there is a wife there must be marriage. But there is no marriage where motherhood is not in view; therefore neither is there a wife.”

Here, the exact Manichean method is unknown, though it sounds like a rhythm method similar to NFP. Manicheans disdained any procreation, which is the point of Augustine’s argument. He condemns marriage with permanent or temporary contraceptive intent.

St. Augustine, Against Faustus 15:7, A.D. 400: “… [the Manichean heretics] directly opposes the next precept, "Thou shalt not commit adultery"; for those who believe this doctrine, in order that their wives may not conceive, are led to commit adultery even in marriage. They take wives, as the law declares, for the procreation of children; but… their wives is not of a lawful character; and the production of children, which is the proper end of marriage, they seek to avoid. As the apostle long ago predicted of thee [the heretic Faustus], thou dost indeed forbid to marry, for thou seekest to destroy the purpose of marriage. Thy doctrine [against childbearing] turns marriage into an adulterous connection, and the bed-chamber into a brothel.”

Here we see that the true teaching of the Church and the Holy Saints condemns those who perform sexual acts where conception is hindered, calling their marriage “an adulterous connection” and their bed-chamber a “brothel”. In truth, “For what gratification is there (except perhaps for lascivious persons, and those who, as the apostle says with prohibition, possess their vessel in the lust of concupiscence [1 Thess. 4:5]) in the mere shedding of seed as the ultimate pleasure of sexual union, unless it is followed by the true and proper fruit of marriage—conception and birth?” (St. Augustine, On Marriage and Concupiscence, Book II, Chapter 19)

The Manicheans and the other gnostic heretics of the early Church that St. Augustine fought against and refuted was one of the greatest haters and rejecters of the goodness of procreation. The Fathers and Saints of the Church, however, fought fearlessly against them in debates and writings and condemned their impious doctrine which turns family life, society and her laws upside down, and that is why this unnatural doctrine was almost completely obliterated until our time—the last days—when this practice again was adopted by the worldly and sensual people of our time. St. Augustine, in his work Against Faustus, (A.D. 400) could rightly condemn these unnatural heretics for hating offspring, which is a true blessing of the Lord: “Moreover, the only honorable kind of marriage, or marriage entered into for its proper and legitimate purpose [that is, for the procreation of children], is precisely that you hate most [since procreation of children is regarded as one of the greatest of evils by the Manichean heretics]. So, though you may not forbid sexual intercourse, you forbid marriage; for the peculiarity of marriage is, that it is not merely for the gratification of passion, but, as is written in the contract, for the procreation of children.” (Against Faustus, Book XXIX, Section 6)

Confirming that only the normal, natural and procreative marital sexual act is allowed to be performed in a marriage, St. Thomas Aquinas, who quotes St. Augustine in his Summa Theologica, speaks about chastity, and he explains that the right, proper and pure use of the sexual organs is when one uses them for the sake of procreation, which of course refutes all those lustful perverts of our own day and age that defend non-procreative or unnecessary forms of sexual acts, such as foreplay and sensual kisses and touches, as well as all acts where the spouses deliberately try to hinder the procreation of children. Thus, in contrast to these lustful and impure spouses: “Augustine says (De Perseverantia xx): "We must give praise to purity, that he who has ears to hear, may put to none but a lawful use the organs intended for procreation." Now the use of these organs is the proper matter of chastity. Therefore purity belongs properly to chastity.” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Second Part of the Second Part, Q. 151, Art. 4.--Whether purity belongs especially to chastity?)

As we have seen from all the Fathers and Saints of the Catholic Church, contraceptive practices are nothing new. St. Hippolytus, in his book “Refutation of All Heresies,” (A.D. 225) describes how wicked people and so-called faithful committed this mortal sin even in the beginning of the third century: “… the so-called faithful want no children… [so] they use drugs of sterility or bind themselves tightly in order to expel a fetus which has already been engendered.” (Book IX, Chapter 12) Heretics and mortal sinners of this kind have always existed, “For they forbid chaste wedlock and procreation, but are seared in their consciences since they have sex and pollute themselves, and yet hinder procreation.” (St. Epiphanius, Panarion or Medicine Chest Against Heresies, Book I, Chapter 26:5:16:4.--Against the Gnostics, or Borborites, A.D. 375)

It should now be clear that marriage was created for chastity, procreation, and partnership. “Thou marriest a wife for chastity and procreation” (Chrysostom, Hom. XII. in Col.; PG 62.386; NPNF. p 318). Chrysostom explains that it was in response to Adam’s new fallen condition that the Lord God established marriage as we know it. The establishment of marriage was designed by God for a redemptive purpose: to tame man’s wild and out-of-control nature. “The profit of marriage is to preserve the body pure, and if this be not so, there is no advantage of marriage” (Chrysostom, Hom. LIX in Mt.; PG 58.583; NPNF, p. 371). This is contrary to the opinions of many modern scholars who labor in vain to “discover” modern and romantic notions in St. John Chrysostom’s theology of marriage.

St. Augustine, Adulterous Marriages, Book II, Chapter 12, A.D. 396: “It is that weakness, namely, incontinence, that the Apostle wished to remedy by the divinity of marriage. He did not say: If he does not have sons, let him marry, but: "If he does not have self-control, let him marry." Indeed, the concessions to incontinence in marriage are compensated for by the procreation of children. Incontinence surely is a vice, while marriage is not. So, through this good [procreation], that evil [concupiscence or sexual pleasure] is rendered pardonable. Since, therefore, the institution of marriage exists for the sake of generation, for this reason did our forebears [ancestors] enter into the union of wedlock and lawfully take to themselves their wives, only because of the duty to beget children. There then was a certain necessity for having children which does not exist now, because "the time to embrace," [Esdras 3:5] as it is written, was in those days, but now is "the time to refrain from embracing." Alluding to the present age, the Apostle says: "But this I say, brethren, the time is short; it remains that those who have wives be as if they had none." [1 Cor. 7:29] Whence, with perfect conviction, the following can be said: "Let him accept it who can," [Matt. 19:12] but "let her marry who cannot control herself." [1 Cor. 7:9] In former times, therefore, even continence was made subordinate to marriage for the sake of propagating children. Now, the marriage bond is a remedy for the vice of incontinence, so that children are begotten by those who do not practice continence, not with a disgraceful display of unbridled lust, but through the sanctioned act of lawfully wedded spouses. Then why did the Apostle not say: If he does not have sons let him marry? Evidently, because in this time of refraining from embrace it is not necessary to beget children. And why has he said: "If he cannot control himself, let him marry"? Surely, to prevent incontinence from constraining him to adultery. If, then, he practices continence, neither let him marry nor beget children. However, if he does not control himself, let him enter into lawful wedlock, so that he may not beget children in disgrace or avoid having offspring by a more degraded form of intercourse. There are some lawfully wedded couples who resort to this last, for intercourse, even with one’s lawfully wedded spouse, can take place in an unlawful and shameful manner, whenever the conception of offspring is avoided. Onan, the son of Juda, did this very thing, and the Lord slew him on that account. [Cf. Gen. 38:8-10] Therefore, the procreation of children is itself the primary, natural, legitimate purpose of marriage. Whence it follows that those who marry because of their inability to remain continent ought not to so temper their vice that they preclude the good of marriage, which is the procreation of children.

“The Apostle was certainly speaking of the incontinent where he said: "I desire, therefore, that younger widows marry, bear children, rule their households, and give the adversary no occasion for abusing us. For already some have turned aside after Satan." [1 Tim. 5:14,15] So, when he said: "I desire that the younger widows marry," [1 Cor. 7:29] he surely gave the advice to bolster their collapsing self-control. Then, lest thought be given only to this weakness of carnal desire, which would only be strengthened by the marital act, while the good of marriage would be either despised or overlooked, he immediately added: "to bear children, rule their households." [1 Tim. 5:14] In fact, those who choose to remain continent certainly choose something better than the good of marriage, which is the procreation of children. Whence, if the choice is continence, so that something better than the good of marriage is embraced, how much more closely is it to be guarded so that adultery may be avoided! For, when the Apostle said: "But if they do not have self-control, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn," [1 Cor. 7:9] he did not say that it is better to commit adultery than to burn.”

8. THE SECOND COUNCIL OF BRAGA

EXCOMMUNICATES ALL SPOUSES WHO PRACTICE NFP

AND ANY FORM OF BIRTH CONTROL

One of the earliest extant documents of formal Church legislation (that we know of) on the use of contraceptives comes in the sixth century. Its originator in canonical form was St. Martin, Archbishop of Braga in Spain (520-580). Drawing on previous episcopal synods of the East and West, he simplified the existing laws and codified them for the people of Portugal and Spain.

Martin’s condemnation of contraception and the contraceptive intent first occurred in the famous collection Capitula Martini. It was later incorporated in the laws of the Second Council of Braga (June, 572), at which he presided as the head of twelve bishops.

His reference to earlier more severe penalties implies that ecclesiastical authority had condemned the practice long before the sixth century.

St. Martin, Archbishop of Braga, Second Council of Braga, Canon 77, June, 572: “If any woman has fornicated and has killed the infant who was born of her; or if she has tried to commit abortion and then slain what she conceived; or if she contrives to make sure she does not conceive, either in adultery or in legitimate intercourse—regarding such women the earlier canons decreed that they should not receive communion even at death. However, we mercifully judge that both such women and their accomplices in these crimes shall do penance for ten years.” (Mansi IX, 858)

In truth, “she (the wife) is the only one with whom it is lawful to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh for the purpose of begetting lawful heirs. This is to share in God’s own work of procreation, and in such a work the seed ought not to be wasted nor scattered thoughtlessly nor sown in a way it cannot grow.” (St. Clement of Alexandria, The Paedagogus or The Instructor, Book II, Chapter X.--On the Procreation and Education of Children, A.D. 198)

9. THE FIRST COUNCIL OF NICAEA EXCOMMUNICATED

ALL PRIESTS THAT DELIBERATELY CASTRATED THEMSELVES