53. 8. This is what happens in the case of people who come into heaven. It is different, however, with those who go to hell. When we say that after death a man is given a suitable wife, and a woman, likewise, a suitable husband, and that they enjoy delightful and blessed relations, but without any procreation other than a spiritual procreation, it should be understood that we are referring to people who are received into heaven and become angels. That is because these people are spiritual, and marriages are in themselves spiritual, and therefore sacred.
In contrast, however, those people who go to hell are all natural people, and merely natural marriages are not marriages, but pairings that result from unchaste lust. What these pairings are like will be told later, in the chapter on chastity and its absence, 1 and further in the chapters on licentious love. 2
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