[the Pharisees] say to him: Why then did Moses command to give a bill of divorce, and to put away? He [Jesus] saith to them: Because Moses by reason of the hardness of your heart permitted you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. The Old Testament allowed polygamy, concubines, and divorce with remarriage. Many of the patriarchs including Abraham, Issac, Jacob, King David, and King Solomon practiced polygamy and/or concubinage. Although Scripture suggests these practices to be problematic it never forbid these practices. Noteworthy is the absence of teaching by Christ or any of the New Testament on the question of abortion. Likewise the only reference to abortion in the Old Testament, is against the unwanted ending of a pregnancy. No prohibitions exist against voluntary abortion in the Bible. Though the Didache as early as 100 A.D. does state that abortion is sinful. However, prior to the 19th century abortion was often considered to only apply to late abortions especially after "quickening", while early abortion was taken as contraception. In the New Testament Christ and especially Paul praised the greatness of single life for the kingdom. This is the origin of the Roman Catholic practice of celibate priesthood in the Middle Ages and the creation of the religious life as early as St. Anthony of the Desert in the 3rd century. Patristic theology Augustine of Hippo, considered a saint and church father by the Catholic Church, having lived a hedonistic lifestyle in his early youth, later followed the strictly dualistic religion of Manicheanism, which was deeply hostile to the material world, despising sexual activity. Eventually, under the influence of his Catholic Christian mother Monica, Augustine converted to Christianity, and later wrote movingly of this conversion in his Confessions, including details of the sexually-related aspects. The following passage from his autobiography describes a critical turning point in his change of sexual morality: So quickly I returned to the place where Alypius was sitting; for there had I put down the volume of the apostles, when I rose thence. I grasped, opened, and in silence read that paragraph on which my eyes first fell: "Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof." [Romans 13:13-14] No further would I