On Marriage and Family: Classic and Contemporary Texts

As this engaging survey of twenty centuries of Christian thought shows us, marriage has been a central focus in the thought of Christians from the beginning, enlightening us about all aspects of living a Christian life.

Levering’s book demonstrates the clarity and continuity of Church teaching on sex and marriage, assembling the work of its most eloquent and able defenders from the second century to the present. On Marriage and Family is a timely and authoritative resource that uncovers new riches for scholars while remaining accessible to a general audience.

Much of the nonsense written about Catholic marriage by recent writers will be disspelled by this well-designed anthology. From 2,000 years of Catholic writing on marriage, Matthew Levering has shrewdly selected passages that shed light on what he calls a “radically beautiful” invitation to self-giving on the part of husbands and wives. Levering is particularly good at distinguishing the real thing from the sort of fraudulent substitutes harpooned so well in literary works since at least the time of Chaucer.

There is hardly a more important lesson for Christian families than to see how the ways of Christ with his bride, the ways of God with his adopted children, are written into the relations of the “domestic church,” and Levering’s collection of texts seems calculated to show us how grace both preserves and elevates married and family life. It is remarkable, too, that both ancient and modern, the voices assembled here sound in an astonishingly harmonious chorus.