ivorces the wife of his youth,’ said R. Eleazar, ‘even the altar of God sheds tears’ (Amram, Jewish Law of Divorce, p. 37). That ‘the unseemly thing’ was not a euphemism for unchastity may be confidently assumed in view of the fact that Dt pre- scribes the capital punishment for adultery. But recent scholar- ship at least agrees with Shammai in confining it to the region of immodest or indecent behaviour (Driver, in doc.).
Upon this vexed question of the schools the judgment of Jesus was eagerly sought (Mt 19%, Mk 10"), and in view of the great practical im- portance of the subject it was even spontaneously given (Mt 5%-*, Lk 168). Our Lord decreed in favour of the rigorous view, and indeed disallowed any ground of divorce, with the probable excep- tion of adultery. He does not, it is true, base this on His interpretation of ‘the unseemly thing’; on the contrary, He grants that the Mosaic law gave some latitude in the matter of divorce, and goes on to reform the law so as to bring it into con- formity with the older ideal (Gn 2%), or the original purpose of God. But did Jesus allow even adultery to be a valid ground of divorce? A negative answer is given from opposite quarters. The Rom. Cath. Church, as is well known, is committed to the position that adultery does not justify the total dissolution of a marriage (quoad vinculum) between two Christians, but only separation from ‘bed and board,’* and some modern German critics have supported this contention as at least corre- sponding to the teaching and intention of Christ.
his view, it must be admitted, is not without foundation, while yet regard for the accepted canons of NT criticism precludes the claim that it has been established.
A presumption that Jesus intended to prohibit divorce in all cases is created by the following considerations :—{1) In two pias. bd of the Gospels it is stated without reservation that
he who putteth away his wifeand marrieth another committeth adultery ‘(Lk 1615, cf. Mk 1011), and the Pauline report of our Lord's teaching on the subject (1 Co 710.11) is similarly un- qualified ; (2) it is in harmony with the spirit of Christ’s general teaching to suppose that He inculcated towards the erring one utter constancy in love and forgiveness unto seventy times seven. The Book of Hosea, it may be added, shows the possi- bility of a love which feels that the bond which binds a husband to even a faithless wife is indissoluble. But the force of this seems to be dissipated by the fact that Jesus actually admitted the exception in the proviso, ‘saving for the cause of fornica- tion’ ¢ (Mt 582199), 6 objection is met in two ways. (1) The Rom. Cath. theologians deny that the punishment contemplated was more than a separation, and urge in proof that the woman who is put away commits adultery if she marries another. I. the union was really dissolved, it is argued, there could be n> allegation of adultery. But these statements rest on erro-
* ‘If any one saith that the Church has erred in that she bath taught and doth teach, in accordance with the evangelical and apostolical doctrine, that the bond of matrimony cannot be dissolved on account of the adultery of one of the married parties; and that both, or even the innocent one who gave not occasion to the adultery, can not contract another marriage during the lifetime of the other; and that he is guilty of adultery who, having put away the adulteress, shall take another wife, as also she who, A put away the adulterer, shall take another husband, let him be anathema’ (Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, De Sacr. Matri., Can. vu.).
t It has been held by some critics that as the word used is πορνεία, the justification of divorce here admitted was ante- nuptial fornication ; but cf. Weiss-Meyer, in loc.
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neous exegesis. The verb ἀπολύεμν was a recognized Hellenistic term for divorce, and could not convey to the early Christians the modified conception of a separation. Further, it is not cer tain that according to this passage Christ taught that a man committed adultery by marrying a divorced guilty wife, and con- sequently it may be held that in her case at least the marriage was regarded as annulled bydivorce.* (2) Instead of explaining away the exception, Bleek, Keim, and others have denied the genuineness of the clause specifying it, and this on the ground that the original unqualified statement of Jesus was felt to be a stumbling-block, and that the exception (‘saving for the cause of fornication ’) crept into the traditional report as a concession to the realities of social life. In support of the genuineness it is pointed out that the MSS indicate no uncertainty as to the reliability of the text in Mt; while the absence of the exception from the parallel passages in Mk and Lk is explained either by saying that it was taken for granted (Meyer), or by recalling that the law already provided for the punishment of adultery (Schegg). Yet another suggestion is that the teaching of Jesus, which was originally comparatively lenient, eventually withdrew the single concession which had been made (Hug, quoted in Weiss-Meyer, in loc.). The question at issue must eventually be settled in the light of a general theory as to the trustworthi- ness of the ee tee report of our Lord’s sayings, and the ex- planation of the Synoptic divergencies; and it must be added that this particular instance does not materially strengthen the evidence that the oral tradition ey modified the sayings of es ata (on this subject cf. Bruce, Kingdom of God, Crit. ntrod.).