Then all the men of Judah and Benjamin gathered themselves together unto Jerusalem within three days. It was the ninth month, on the twentieth day of the month; and all the people sat in the open square before the house of God, trembling because of this matter, and because of the heavy rain.
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Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
If this is the Lord's commandment, in both the Old Testament and the New, and this is what the Lord commands, and this is what the apostle teaches, namely, that only spouses of the same religions and faith may remain joined. [De coniugiis adulterinis, PL 40.25.465]
Ninth. Casleu, (Zacharias vii. 1.) which corresponds with our November and December. (Menochius)
Street. Court, which afforded as yet no shelter from the rain. (Calmet)
This would tend to punish them for their sin, and to make them more sensible of it. (Worthington)
I will say what the Apostle has taught me, that they are not on the side of righteousness, but of iniquity: not of light, but of darkness: that they do not belong to Christ, but to Belial: that they are not temples of the living God, but shrines and idols of the dead. And, if you wish to see more clearly how utterly unlawful it is for a Christian woman to marry a Gentile, consider what the same Apostle says, (1 Cor. 7:39) “A wife is bound for so long time as her husband lives: but if the husband be dead, she is free to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord,” that is, to a Christian. He who allows second and third marriages in the Lord, forbids first marriages with a Gentile. Whence Abraham also makes his servant swear upon his thigh, that is, on Christ, Who was to spring from his seed, that he would not bring an alien-born as a wife for his son Isaac. And Ezra checked an offense of this kind against God by making his countrymen put away their wives. [Against Jovinianus 1.19 NPN...
If these things are so, it is certain that believers contracting marriages with Gentiles are guilty of fornication, and are to be excluded from all communication with the brotherhood, in accordance with the letter of the apostle, who says that “with persons of that kind there is to be no taking of food even.” [To His Wife 2.3 ANF v.4]
