373
32. τὸ "μυστήριον τοῦτο 5 Matt. xix. reff.
εἰς 1 τὴν ἐκκλησίαν. t=Rom. xi.
25; 1 Cor.
u=<Acts ii. 25; Heb. vii. 14 only.
u
lomit εἰς BK 4, 51, 72, 73, etc., Iren. (Greek-Lat.), Tert., al. ; insert ¥KADEFGLP,
Orig,
al. pler., Vulg., Syr., Orig.o, exegetes expounded it as referring in one way or other to Christ’s present connec- tion with the Church (Grot., Beng., etc.) ; some understanding Christ’s separation from His nation (Mich.), or from the synagogue, to be indicated by the phrase “leave His Father,’ and others even ex- plaining it of the Lord’s Supper (Harl., Olsh.). Alford applies it mystically to “that past, present, and future which constitutes Christ’s Union to His Bride, the Church—His leaving the Father’s bosom, which is past—His gradual pre- paration of the Union, which is present— His full consummation of it, which is future”. Even Meyer puts a forced, allegorical sense upon it, taking it to be used typically of the perfect union which takes place between Christ and the Church only at His Second Coming, before which time He is not Husband, but Bridegroom. So the ἄνθρωπος becomes Christ, at the Parousia ; the leaving father and mother becomes mystically Christ’s leaving His seat at the right hand of God; the two becoming one flesh is the descending, returning Christ making one ethical per- son with the Church, etc. But all thisis in the highest degree unnatural. When Paul allegorises he gives intimation of the fact (ἅτινά ἐστιν ἀλληγορούμενα, Gal. iv. 24), and certainly there is no such allegory as this would be anywhere else in the Pauline writings. Its incongruities con- demn it. What is to be made, e.g., of the leaving of the mother, which Jerome, e.g., is driven to say means the leaving of the heavenly Jerusalem? We take the verse, therefore, in its simple and obvious sense, as referring to the direct and ruling idea of the paragraph, viz., the natural marriage relation and the duty of hus- bands to wives; and we read it as an enforcement of that duty based upon the natural identity of the wife with the husband, as stated in the narrative of Creation and illustrated in its highest ideal in the Church’s relation to Christ. - καὶ προσκολληθήσεται πρὸς τὴν γυ- ναῖκα αὐτοῦ καὶ οἱ δύο ἔσονται εἰς σάρκα μίαν: and shall cleave unto his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. ‘Cleave to” represents very
Meth., Tit., Chr., Thdrt., Hil., etc.
well the force of the verb προσκολλάω, the Sept. representative of (JIT, to glue
to, stick to. For πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα, the reading of TR, with ΒΝΟΡΚΙ,, Orig., etc., τῇ γυναικί is given in ΝΑΡ, etc., and is preferred by LTTr, while WH place it in the margin. The αὐτοῦ is omitted by T with ἐδ], etc. For προσ- κολληθήσεται there is also the variant κολληθήσεται in $Q°D'F, etc.
Ver. 32. TO μυστήριον τοῦτο μέγα ἐστίν : this mystery is great. Not “ this is a great mystery,” as it is rendered by the AV and Rhem. ; nor “this is a great secret,” Tynd., Cran., gen. The term μυστήριον (on which see under i. 9 above) cannot mean allegory or dark-saying, but must have its usual sense of something once hidden and now revealed, a secret disclosed. It cannot refer, therefore, as Mey. makes it do, to the quotation from Gen. ii. 24 as a passage with a hidden typical or mystical meaning, one deep (μέγα) and difficult to reach. Nor can it well refer to the spiritual union of Christ and the Church by itself (Beng.), or to the comparison between the union of husband and wife and that of Christ and the Church (Est.), as the ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω would then lose its point. It is simplest to take it as referring to Christian truth touching the relation between husband and wife as set forth in these verses. That truth is described by μέγα as great, i.¢., in the sense of grandeur and impor- tance. The Vulg.rendering sacramentum (followed by Wicl. and the Rhem.) has induced many Roman Catholic theolo- gians to found on this as a passage pre- senting marriage in the character of a sacrament —a perverted interpretation which was disavowed indeed by distin- guished scholars like Cajetan and Estius in the Roman Catholic Church itself. It may be added that Alford understands by the μυστήριον ‘the matter mystically alluded to in the Apostle’s application of the text just quoted; the mystery of the spiritual union of Christ with our human- ity, typified by the close conjunction of the marriage state”. And Von Soden, taking the τοῦτο, as in 1 Cor, xv. 51, to refer to