Marriage and Virginity
as the adultery of those who divorce their wives for reasons other than adultery and then remarry. In the same way as it was said, If someone knows the right thing to do but does not do it, that person commits a sin (Jas 4:17), it can also be said, "If someone divorces his wife, but not for adultery, and marries someone else, that person commits adultery."
So then, if we say, "Anyone who marries a woman who has been divorced by her husband, though not for committing adultery, commits adultery," undoubtedly what we say is true; but we do not thereby absolve from similar guilt the one who marries a woman who has been divorced for committing adultery. We have no doubt at all that both are guilty of adultery. In a similar way, we declare that the man who divorces his wife, though not for committing adultery, and marries someone else, is an adulterer; and we do not thereby defend as untainted by this sin the one who divorces his wife and then marries someone else, when it is because she has committed adultery. Although one is worse than the other, we know that both are adulterers. No one would be so absurd as to say that someone who marries the woman cast aside by her husband because of adultery is not an adulterer, while someone who marries the one cast aside when it is not for adultery is an adulterer. So both are adulterers. Hence, when we say that anyone who marries a woman divorced by her husband for reasons other than adultery commits adultery, we are speaking of one of them, but we are not thereby denying that the other (the one who marries a woman rejected by her husband for committing adultery) also commits adultery. Accordingly, both commit adultery, both the one who divorces his wife when she has not committed adultery and then marries someone else, and the one who marries someone else after divorcing his wife because of her adultery. Therefore, when we read something about one of these, we certainly must not infer that if one is explicitly said to be guilty of adultery, the other is thereby said not to be.
10. If, by being explicit about one case and saying nothing about the other, Matthew made this difficult to understand, did not the other evangelists summarize the same material in a more general way, so that it can be understood to refer to both cases? In Mark it is stated like this: Anyone who divorces his wife and marries someone else, commits adultery by her, and if a wife divorces her husband and marries someone else, she commits adultery (Mk 10:11-12). In Luke it is like this: Everyone who divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery, and everyone who marries a woman divorced by her husband commits adultery (Lk 16:18). Who are we to say that one person who marries again after divorcing his wife commits adultery, but someone else who does this does not commit adultery, when the gospel says that everyone who does it commits adultery? Hence, if anyone, that is everyone, who does this—divorces his wife and marries someone else—commits adultery, then without doubt this includes the two, both the one who divorces his wife when it is not for adultery and the one who does so on account of adultery. This is what Whoever divorces means; this is what Everyone who divorces means.
Textual Variants in Matthew's Gospel
10, 11. In quoting from the gospel as written by Matthew, I did not leave out the phrase and marries someone else, and just say he commits adultery (and I do not know why it seemed to you that I did). I quoted the words as we read them in that longer sermon that the Lord preached on the mount. It was this that I set out to discuss, and the words we read there are, as I quoted them: Anyone who divorces his wife except in the case of adultery causes her to commit adultery; and anyone who marries a woman divorced by her husband commits adultery (Mt 5:32). At this point some manuscripts say the same thing in different words, but there is no difference in the meaning of what is said. Some have Anyone who divorces; others everyone who divorces. Some have except in the case of adultery; others apart from the case of adultery; others unless it is for adultery. Some have the one who marries a woman separated from her husband commits adultery; others the one who marries a woman divorced by her husband commits adultery. I think you can see that nothing there makes any difference to the single, identical doctrine. It may well be that some of the manuscripts, both Greek and Latin, do not have those last words, namely, the one who marries a woman divorced by her husband commits adultery, as part of the Lord's sermon on the mount. I think this is because what this says is implied by the earlier statement, he causes her to commit adultery. How can the divorced woman become an adulteress without the man who marries her becoming an adulterer?
Matthew's Ambiguity Must Be Interpreted by the Other Gospels
11, 12. The words you yourself quoted, in support of your view that the man who divorces his wife for adultery and marries someone else does not commit adultery, are in fact rather obscure. Hence I am not surprised that a reader has difficulty in understanding them. Those words, however, are not there in the sermon of the Lord that I was commenting on when I wrote the things that aroused your interest when you read them. Matthew himself tells of the Lord saying those words in another place, not when he was preaching the sermon on the mount, but when the Pharisees asked him whether it was right to divorce one's wife for any reason. What is not so easy to understand in Matthew is made clear by the other evangelists. Consequently, when we read in Matthew's account of the gospel, If anyone divorces his wife except in the case of adultery (or, in the better reading of the Greek, apart from the case of adultery), and marries someone else, he commits adultery (Mt 19:9), we should not think straight off that someone who divorces his wife for committing adultery and marries someone else does not commit adultery. We should still leave it an open question until we consult what the other evangelists say in their account of the same incident. Why is this? What if in his account Matthew did not relate the whole of what was said on the matter, but related a part of it in such a way that the whole is implicit in that part, whereas Mark and Luke, to make this evident, preferred to state it fully, so that the whole doctrine would be clear? We had no doubt to begin with that what we read in Matthew is true, If anyone divorces his wife apart from the case of adultery, and marries someone else, he commits adultery; but we wanted to find out whether it is only the one who divorces his wife when it is not for adultery who commits adultery by marrying someone else, or whether everyone who marries someone else after divorcing his wife commits adultery, including the one who divorces his wife for committing adultery. Do we not have our answer in Mark: "Why do you want to know whether or not that man commits adultery? Anyone who divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery" (Mk
10:11). Are we not also told in Luke: "Why are you uncertain whether someone who divorces his wife on the grounds of adultery and remarries is guilty of adultery? Everyone who divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery" (Lk 16:18). So, because we may not say that when the evangelists use different words to speak about the same matter, they disagree in their understanding of the same doctrine, the only alternative is to understand that Matthew intended the part to stand for the whole. The view he held, however, was the same. Hence there cannot be the slightest doubt that it is not true that one man who divorces his wife and remarries is an adulterer, namely the one who does not divorce her because of adultery, while another, the one who divorces because of adultery, is not an adulterer; but everyone who divorces his wife and marries again is guilty of adultery.
A Woman Divorced Because of Adultery Is Still a Wife
12, 13. How can those next words in Luke be true: Anyone who marries a woman who has been divorced by her husband commits adultery (Lk 16:18)? How is he guilty of adultery, if it is not because the woman he has married is still someone else's wife, as long as the man who divorced her is still living? It clearly would not be adultery if the woman he is sleeping with now were his own wife. But it is adultery; therefore the woman he is sleeping with is someone else's wife. So if she is someone else's wife, namely the wife of the man who divorced her, then she has not yet ceased to be the wife of the man who divorced her, even if she was divorced on the grounds of adultery. On the other hand, if she has ceased to be his wife, then she is now the wife of this man she then married; and if she is his wife, then he cannot be considered an adulterer, but her husband. But since scripture does not call him her husband, but an adulterer, she is still the wife of the man who divorced her, even though it was because of adultery. It follows also that anyone he himself takes as a wife after divorcing her is also an adulteress, because she is sleeping with someone else's husband. If it is agreed, then, that he makes that woman he marries an adulteress, how can it be that he too is not an adulterer?
A New Question: Marriages Between Christians and Pagans
13, 14. Now let us look at what the apostle said when speaking on the question of mixed marriages, those namely where the partners are not both Christians.†5 He said, To the rest, however, I say, not the Lord (1 Cor 7:12). It seems to me that when he said this, he was giving advice. Because it was not wrong for the partner with the faith to leave the partner without the faith, it follows that it is not the Lord but the apostle who says not to do this. Anything the Lord forbids, it is entirely wrong to do. The apostle, therefore, advises the believing partners not to make use of their right to leave the unbelievers, because this can be an opportunity to win over many of them. You take the view that, because the apostle says not to do it, it is also wrong for the believers to divorce the unbelievers, whereas I would say that it is not wrong, because the Lord does not forbid it, but it is not good, because the apostle advises against it.
The apostle also explains why it is not good to do this, even though it is not wrong. He says, How do you know, wife, if you will bring salvation to your husband? Or how do you know, husband, if you will bring salvation to your wife? (1 Cor 7:16). Before this he had also said, The unbelieving husband is made holy in his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy in the brother, that is, in the Christian. Otherwise, he says, your children would be unclean; but they are holy now (1 Cor 7:14). From this, and from the examples he had already given, it is apparent that he was urging them to win over their partners and their children for Christ. So the reason why it is not good for the faithful to divorce even unbelieving partners is clearly stated. When the apostle says not to separate from unbelieving partners, it is not for the sake of maintaining a marriage bond with partners like that, but it is to win them for Christ.
Some Things Should Be Done Out of Love, Not Law
14, 15. There are many things that we should do freely from love and not because they are commanded by the law; and among our duties those we undertake by choice, when it would not be wrong not to commit ourselves to them, are the more pleasing ones. That is why earlier the Lord himself paid the tax, although he had shown that he was not obliged to pay it, so as not to scandalize those whose eternal salvation was his concern in becoming man.†6 Now the apostle extols this way of acting, as his words bear witness, when he says: Although I am not a slave to anyone, I have made myself the slave of everyone, in order to win as many as I can (1 Cor 9:19). Just before this he had said, Do we not have the right to eat and drink? Are we not allowed to take a Christian woman around with us, like the other apostles and the Lord's brothers and Cephas? Am I and Barnabas the only ones who do not have the right to do this?
Does anyone ever pay for his own military service? Does anyone plant a vineyard and not eat the fruit from it? Does anyone give pasture to a flock and not drink milk from the flock? (1
Cor 9:4-7). And a little further on he says, If others have this right with you, are we not more entitled to it? But we do not act on this right, but we put up with everything in order not to put any obstacle in the way of Christ's gospel (1 Cor 9:12). Then after a few other things he says, What then will be my reward? It will be to present the gospel without payment for preaching the gospel, and not misuse the right the gospel gives me (1 Cor 9:18). Immediately he adds the words I quoted a little earlier: Although I am not a slave to anyone, I have made myself the slave of everyone, in order to win as many as I can (1 Cor 9:19). Likewise, in another passage about certain questions relating to food and drink, he says: Everything is lawful for me, but not everything is beneficial; everything is lawful for me, but I am a slave to none of them. Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both one and the other (1 Cor 6:12-13). Elsewhere again, on the same topic, he says: Everything is lawful for me, but not everything is beneficial; everything is allowed, but not everything is constructive. No one should be looking for his or her own advantage, but for that of others (1
Cor 10:23-24). Also, to make clear what he was talking about, he said, Eat whatever the butcher has, and do not ask questions because of your conscience (1 Cor 10:25), although he also said in another place, I shall not eat meat ever again, to avoid giving scandal to my brother or sister (1 Cor 8:13). In another place too: Everything indeed is clean, but it is bad for a person who does harm to others by eating it (Rom 14:20). In this way he shows that those things that are allowed (that is to say, not forbidden by any commandment of the Lord) should be dealt with in the way that does most good, following the guidance of charity rather than the commands of the law. This is what the Samaritan did when he spent extra for the stricken man whom in his compassion he had carried to the inn to be looked after.†7 Although the Lord advises us to make offerings like this, they are not said to be commanded by the Lord, so that the more clearly it is shown they are not something we have to do, the better we will understand that they are something more pleasing.
What Is Permissible Is Not Always Good
15, 16. About things like this, that are licit but not good, one cannot say, "This is good, but that is better," in the way it was said, Someone who marries does well; and someone who does not marry does better (1 Cor 7:38). In that case both things are permissible, but sometimes one is good, and sometimes the other is. For women who cannot live celibately it is certainly good to marry, and what is permissible is also good; but for those who have made a vow of chastity marriage is neither permissible nor good. On the other hand, separating from a husband or wife who is not a believer is permissible, but it is not good, while staying with that partner, if he or she agrees to continue living together, is both permissible and good. If it were not permissible, it could not be good. Therefore it is possible for something to be permissible but not good, but it is not possible for something not permissible to be good.
Hence things that are lawful are not all good, but everything unlawful is not good. Just as everyone redeemed by Christ's blood is a human being, but human beings are not all redeemed by Christ's blood, so too everything that is unlawful is not good, but things that are not good are not all unlawful. As we learn from the testimony of the apostle, there are some things that are lawful but are not good.