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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2025
A Great controversy must always leave its aftermath. Hence it is to be feared that recent discussions in and out of Parliament and Convocation will be found to have left in the minds of many the impression that somehow or other there is room for doubt as to what Christ really did teach on the subject of divorce. Indeed this is hardly to be wondered at when even the Archbishop of York declared that while “he personally was of opinion that marriage was dissoluble only by death” he yet acknowledged that others thought that adultery was a legitimate reason for divorce. And who can help feeling like Alice in Wonderland when he hears Lord Phillimore saying that “the Christian Church had taught that marriage was almost indissoluble until death”? The “almost” is piquant and delightful ! One would “almost” prefer the cynical frankness of the Lord Chancellor, who does not mince his words but says out plainly that “the arguments of those who oppose divorce are the whisperings of the abandoned superstitions of the Middle Ages.” One is even tempted to a sneaking admiration of the Archbishop of Canterbury who—when challenged by the same Lord Chancellor to say whether the innocent party in a divorce committed adultery by re-marrying—answered with an emphatic “No !” At least we have here definite and consistent views.
Still from all this a man logically concludes that there must be some reason why some hold that the innocent party should be free to re-marry and that adultery should be regarded by some as a legitimate ground for divorce.
* This is the translation of the Vulagage Latin text “uod si discesserit manere innuptam, auto viro suo reconciliari.” TheGree text, however, reads: “But if, however, she should depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband,” thus making this a parenthetical remark of St. Paul's and not a portion of the Lord's command. We cannot here discuss the relative values of the Greek and Latin text of the New Testmant; suffice it to remark here that whereas we have in the Gospels St. Jerome's revision of the Latin text, it is more than doubtful whether the same can be said of the Latin text of the Epistles, save of this particular Epistle, the First to the Corinthians, of. infra.
* Lectio ii. in Ev: S. Joannis.
†Contra Julivanum, I, 23‐8; Ii, 17; P.L. XLIV, 656‐8, 685.
†Augustine;s treatise on the Sermon on the Mount was composed in A.D. 393; in 401 he wrote De Bono Conjugali; in 419 De Conjugiss Adulterinis; in 418, 419 De Nuptiis et Concupiscentiis. In all these Treatises he discusses the problem of divorce and always with the same result and on the principles of exegesis we have set forth above.
* Adv. Jovin. I, IO; P.L. XXIII, 223. Readers of St. Jerome's Commentaries on Ephesians, Galatians, Philemon and Titus know how constantly he repudiates our present Vulgate text; he nowhere does this so far as we are aware in the case of I Corinthians. See his minute discussion of the text of I Cor. vii. 33, 34 after listening to St. Gregory Nazianzen's explanation of the Greek, adv. Jovin. xx. and Ep. xxii. 21. For a discussion of the whole subject see the Irish Theol. Quarterly Oct., 1914.
†Lectio IIIa. on I Cor. vii.