uttered by our Lord? It seems to be a tenable view that they are a gloss by the Evangelist, or by his authority — that Jesus gave the general principle of non-divorce without explicitly naming any ex- ceptions ; and that the first disciples understood adultery to be such an exception, and therefore the exceptive words were added as a true interpre- tation. If so, it does not follow that the Church in later times could add other exceptions for which the Evangelist gives no warrant. On the other hand, it is a tenable, and perhaps more probable view, that our Lord gave the exception Himself, on some other occasion than that described in Mt 19^ and II Mk. St. Luke (16") gives the injunction as to divorce as an i.solated fragment, without the context of the Pharisees' question. The fact that the First Evangelist gives the injunction twice leads us to suppose that in an authority other than Mk. he found the record of a second occasion on which our Lord taught about divorce, for otherwise why should he repeat the words? It may well be that he found there an exceptive clause. Thus the silence of the other authorities (always a doubtful argument) does not prohibit the supposi- tion that Jesus spoke tlie exceptive words Himself (so Edersheim).
What then does Topvela mean in the two Matthsean passages? It is distinguished from fimxda in Mt 15", Mk 7'"-, and in inferior MSS of Gal 5" ; cf. 1 Co 6' and He IS* (Trdpwi and fioLxoi). Lyttelton {op. cit. p. 174 ff.) makes Topvda the sin of the flesh, and>oixf 'a the breaking of the marriage bond by iropvela or otherwise. According to some, iropvela denotes pre-nuptial sin, and the meaning is that a man who finds himself deceived in the woman he marries may repudiate her. But as Swete points out {St. Mark-, London, 1902, p. 218), while TTopvela and fioix^la, when named in the same context, are to be distinguished, iropfela in the exceptive clauses can hardly have the meaning assigned ; in Hos 2^ Am 7" LXX, -ropveioi is used of post-nuptial sin (see also Gore, Sermon on the Mount, p. 73). The fact that in Mt 5=* our Lord teaches that /iOix^la can be committed by intention somewhat militates against Lyttelton's view, and shows that there is not always a very sharp distinc- tion in the NT between the two words. We may, then, probably take iropvela in the exceptive clauses to signify adultery of any kind.
If these clauses are authentic, or are true glosses, do they allow re-marriage to either party, and if so to both husband and wife ? Here it is instructive to note two 2nd cent, interpretations of our Lord's words, {a) Hernias (Mand. iv. 1) says that a husband must put away an adulterous wife if she continue in sin ; he must divorce her, but he may not himself marry again — for, if he does, he com- mits adultery himself ; he must receive lier back if she repent, and the forbidding of re-marriage is expressly said to be for this reason. So a wife should not live with an adulterous husband who does not repent ; yet she may not marry again. (b) Justin Martyr in his Second Apology (§ 2) tells of a woman who after becoming a Christian divorced her lieathen, intemperate, and unchaste husband ; but he implies that she did not, and could not, marry again.
Light is thrown on the matter by the further question whether a wife could divorce her husband or only a husband his wife. Greeks and Romans allowed divorce by a wife (see Swete on Mk lO'-^) ; but this was not in accord with Jewish custom (so expressly Josephus, Ant. XV. vii. 10, speaking of Salome, wife of Costobarus, to whom she ' sent a bill of divorce and dissolved her marriage with him'). Among the Parthians the custom obtained {Ant. xvili. ix. 6, where Mithridates' wife threatens to divorce him). In the NT appar-
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ently a difference was maiie between the marriage of two non-Christians one of whom was afterwards converted, and that of two Cliristians. In the former case St. Paul recognizes the legal right of a Christian woman to leave an unbelieving husband, though he urges her not to do so if he he content to keep her (1 Co 7'* ; see above, 6 (6)). And in that case the wife may re-marry ; the same ai)|)lie3 to the parallel case of a Christian husuand and an unbelieving wife — the ' brother ' or the ' sister ' [see Family] is ' not under bondage in such cases' (v.''). But the general rule for married Christians is that the wife is not to depart from her husband or remarry (v."). In Mk 10" there is a clause, not found in the parallels, which forbids a wife to put away her husband and marry another. Here the scribe of Codex Bezoe (D), scandalized at the very idea of the possibility of a woman divorcing her husband, alters the phrase to ' if a woman leave ' (f{A9j) d7r6), etc.
On the whole question of re-marriage after divorce, and the interpretation of the NT teaching, there has long been a divergence of opinion between the more logical West and the less logical East. The former considers the question from the point of view of the possibility of adultery dissolving marriage ; the latter from that of punishing an oli'ence. While, then, for many centuries the West did not allow re-marriage in any case (other than in that of nullity of marriage), the East has always allowed the re-marriage of the 'innocent party.' Here we note that the Jewish law absolutely for- bade the marriage of the adulterer with the adulter- ess (Edersheim, ii. 335) ; this was with a view to punishing the guilty, rather than for any theoretical cause. And the Christian East follows the same line of reasoning. Again, there is a great difference be- tween ' blessing ' a marriage, and so giving the Church's sanction to an act which she perhaps dis- approves, and recognizing the existence of a valid marriage. For the Church's benediction, accord- ing to the once universal view — modified by the Council of Trent for those who receive its decrees —is not of the essence of marriage, as the consent of the parties is, but is only a solemn and edifying addition. The Church may therefore, if it sees fit, refuse to solemnize a marriage without thereby asserting that the marriage is non-existent.