The Instructor 2.10.94

Whether, in general, one should marry or keep entirely pure of marriage (for this too is a subject of inquiry) we have explained in our work On Self-Control. But if even the question whether one should marry needed consideration, how could it be permitted to use intercourse freely on every occasion, like food, as a necessity? One can see from it the sinews being worn out like the threads of a warp and broken in the strain of the act; it also spreads a mist over the senses and cuts down the strength. This is plain in irrational animals and in bodies in training: those who abstain overcome their opponents in contests, while the animals are led away from mating dragged about, all but drawn along, completely emptied of all strength and vigor. The sophist of Abdera called intercourse “a minor epilepsy,” thinking it an incurable disease. Do not faintings follow, attributed to the greatness of the loss? “For a human being grows from a human being and is torn from him.” See the greatness of the harm: a whole human being is torn away in the loss of intercourse; for it says, “This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” A man is emptied by the seed as much as is seen in the body; for what departs is the beginning of generation. And the agitation of matter too disturbs and jars the harmony of the body.