Discourse on Christian Duty

All Christianity consists of faith, hope and love.

Faith understands all the revealed mysteries in the holy word of God, and reveres them as not false, as having been declared true and faithful in words by God, and so firmly and indestructibly contains them.

Love seeks and tries to do what is pleasing to God's holy will.

The hope of the faithful contains, comprehending the future eternal glory acquired by Christ, and expects nothing else but the glory of the age to come.

The Christian duty requires:

1) To believe unquestionably everything written in the holy Word of God.

2) God, as the Creator, Provider, Father of generosity, mercy and love for mankind alone, to love and revere most of all, and to place all hope in Him, and to seek His help in cases of occasion, to remember His name with all reverence in cases of need, and to thank Him from the heart for His beneficences and to glorify Him.

3) To love one's neighbor as oneself. (See the love of God and neighbor in its place).

4) Only the future age of life and glory is to be sought and expected.

XVIII. Mutual Christian Obligation

WIVES TO HUSBANDS

Wives, obey your husbands as the Lord (Ephesians 5:22).

Wives, obey your husbands as is proper in the Lord (Col. 3:18).

St. Chrysostom on this

A wife who abstains from her bed without her husband's will, not only will she not receive any reward for abstinence, but she will receive a severe punishment if he falls into adultery; for she, having deprived him of his lawful descent, threw him into this pit of fornication (Homily on Virginity).

HUSBANDS TO WIVES

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself up for her (Ephesians 5:25).