1 Corinthians 7:5

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Deprive not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your lack of self-control.

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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430

According to this, if he had wished to practice continence but you had not, he would have been obliged to give in to you, and God would have given him credit for continence for not refusing intercourse out of consideration for your weakness, not his own, in order to prevent you from committing adultery. How much better would it have been for you, for whom subjection was more appropriate, to yield to his will in rendering him the debt, since God would have taken account of your intention to observe continence, which you gave up in order to save your husband from destruction. Letter , To Eudicia.

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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430

It is not arduous and difficult for faithful married people to do for a few days what holy widows have undertaken and which holy virgins do throughout their lives. So let devotion be kindled and selfgratification be checked.

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Clement Of Alexandria

AD 215

Quod autem "ex consensu ad tempus orationi vacat "conjugium, doctrina est continentiae. Adjecit enim illud quidem, "ex consensu "ne quis dissolve ret matrimonium; "ad tempus autem". Ac proinde "episcopos "inquit, oportet constitui, qui ex domo propria toti quoque Ecclesiae prae esse sint meditati. "Unusquisque "ergo, "in quo vocatus est ". Et rursus de lege disserens, utens allegoria: "Nam quae sub viro est mulier "inquit, "viventi viro alligata est lege". Admodum certe circumspecte arcet per concessionem. Nam cum rursus permisit"simul convernire propter Satan am et intemperantiam". dicens, significavit eum, qui est omnipotens. Quod ab Apostolo autem subjungitur: "Etrursus simul convenite propter Satan am". id veluti exponens, rursus dicit: "Ne vos tentet Satan as.". An meretricem quis dicet virginem, priusquam nub at? "Et ne fraudetis "inquit, "vos invicem, nisi ex consensu ad tempus: "

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Cornelius a Lapide

AD 1637

Defraud ye not one the other. By denying the marriage debt. The words and to fasting, though in the Greek, are wanting in the Latin. Hence Nicholas I, in his answers to the questions if the Bulgarians (c50), writes to them that, throughout the forty days of Lent, they should not come at their wives. But this is a matter of counsel. And come together again. From this Peter Martyr and the Magdeburgians conclude that it is not lawful for married persons to vow perpetual continence by mutual consent. But the answer to this is that the Apostle is not prescribing but permitting the marriage act.

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Irenaeus of Lyons

AD 202

But further, in another place he says: "That Satan tempt you not for your incontinence."

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John Chrysostom

AD 407

3. Defraud ye not one the other, except it be by consent. What then can this mean? Let not the wife, says he, exercise continence, if the husband be unwilling; nor yet the husband without the wife's consent. Why so? Because great evils spring from this sort of continence. For adulteries and fornications and the ruin of families have often arisen from hence. For if when men have their own wives they commit fornication, much more if you defraud them of this consolation. And well says he, Defraud not; fraud here, and debt above, that he might show the strictness of the right of dominion in question. For that one should practice continence against the will of the other is defrauding; but not so, with the other's consent: any more than I count myself defrauded, if after persuading me you take away any thing of mine. Since only he defrauds who takes against another's will and by force. A thing which many women do, working sin rather than righteousness, and thereby becoming accountable for... Read More

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John Chrysostom

AD 407

Great evils spring from this sort of continence, if it is overdone. Adulteries, fornications and the destruction of families have often resulted from this. If a married man commits fornication, how much more will he do so if his wife denies herself to him? Unless there is mutual consent, continence in this case is really a form of theft.

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Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

AD 550

For that it is proper to abstain from each other by consent, in order that they may be free for a season to give themselves to prayer, and then come together again, they have heard from Paul in his epistle.

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Tertullian of Carthage

AD 220

, or of those who, by consent, have already renounced the common disgrace (which matrimony involves)?. , virginity from one's birth, that is, from the font; which (second virginity) either in the marriage state keeps (its subject) pure by mutual compact. Accordingly, the apostle added (the recommendation of) a temporary abstinence for the sake of adding an efficacy to prayers,

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Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation - 2 Peter 1:20