Marriage and Virginity (continued)
be regarded as having died, and therefore after adultery the other partner, husband or wife, is allowed to marry again, in the same way as after the partner's death.
The Error of Pollentius' Interpretation
3, 3. After considering these views of yours, I should like to ask you whether anyone who marries a woman after she ceases to be bound to her husband should be considered an adulterer. I do not think this is how you see it. In fact, the reason why a woman will be called an adulteress if she is with another man while her husband is still living (Rom 7:3) is that A woman is bound to her husband, as long as he lives (1 Cor 7:39); but if she did not have this bond with her husband while he was alive, she could marry someone else without being accused of adultery. Hence if she is bound as long as her husband is alive, she cannot be said to be freed from this bond in any way except by the death of her husband. Then, if this bond between husband and wife is broken by the death of either of them, and adultery, as you say, is also to be considered the same as death, without a doubt a woman will also be freed from this bond by committing adultery. You cannot say she is bound to her husband, when the husband is no longer tied to her. It follows from this that after she ceases to be bound to her husband by committing adultery, no one commits adultery by marrying her.
Adultery Does Not Dissolve the Marriage Bond
4. See how absurd this is, to say that he avoids being an adulterer by marrying an adulteress.
Moreover, even more outrageous, the woman herself is not an adulteress, because with the second husband she is not someone else's wife but his own. If the first marriage bond is broken by her adultery, she may marry anyone else who is not already married, and they will not be adulterer and adulteress, but husband and wife. How then can it be true that A woman is bound to her husband, as long as he lives (1 Cor 7:39)? Note that her husband is still living, because he has neither departed this life nor committed adultery, which you want to be counted as death. Yet the woman is no longer tied to him. Do you not notice how this contradicts what the apostle says, A woman is bound to her husband, as long as he lives.
Perhaps you will say, "Yes, he is alive, but he is no longer her husband, since he ceased to be that when she broke the marriage bond with her adultery"? How then can it be that, If she goes with another man while her husband is alive,