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| Moses, Allowing Divorce, and Christ Prohibiting It, Explained. John Baptist and Herod. Marcion's Attempt to Discover an Antithesis in the Parable of the Rich Man and the Poor Man in Hades Confuted. The Creator's Appointment Manifested in Both States.
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Chapter XXXIV.—Moses,
Allowing Divorce, and Christ Prohibiting It, Explained. John Baptist
and Herod. Marcion’s Attempt to Discover an Antithesis in the
Parable of the Rich Man and the Poor Man in Hades Confuted. The
Creator’s Appointment Manifested in Both States.
But Christ prohibits divorce, saying,
“Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another,
committeth adultery; and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from
her husband, also committeth adultery.”4803
In
order to forbid divorce, He makes it unlawful to marry a woman that has
been put away. Moses, however, permitted repudiation in Deuteronomy:
“When a man hath taken a wife, and hath lived with her, and it
come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found
unchastity in her; then let him write her a bill of divorcement and
give it in her hand, and send her away out of his
house.”4804
You see, therefore,
that there is a difference between the law and the gospel—between
Moses and Christ?4805
| 4805 A Marcionite
challenge. | To be sure there
is!4806
But then you have rejected that other gospel
which witnesses to the same verity and the same Christ.4807
There, while prohibiting divorce, He has
given us a solution of this special question respecting it:
“Moses,” says He, “because of the hardness of your
hearts, suffered you to give a bill of divorcement; but from the
beginning it was not so”4808
—for this
reason, indeed, because He who had “made them male and
female” had likewise said, “They twain shall become one
flesh; what therefore God hath joined together, let not man put
asunder.”4809
Now, by this answer
of His (to the Pharisees), He both sanctioned the provision of Moses,
who was His own (servant), and restored to its primitive
purpose4810
the institution of
the Creator, whose Christ He was. Since, however, you are to be refuted
out of the Scriptures which you have received, I will meet you on your
own ground, as if your Christ were mine. When, therefore, He prohibited
divorce, and yet at the same time represented4811
the Father, even Him who united male and female, must He not have
rather exculpated4812
than abolished the
enactment of Moses? But, observe, if this Christ be yours when he
teaches contrary to Moses and the Creator, on the same principle must
He be mine if I can show that His teaching is not contrary to them. I
maintain, then, that there was a condition in the prohibition which He
now made of divorce; the case supposed being, that a man put away his
wife for the express purpose of4813
marrying
another. His words are: “Whosoever putteth away his wife, and
marrieth another, committeth adultery; and whosoever marrieth her that
is put away from her husband, also committeth adultery,”4814
—“put away,” that is, for
the reason wherefore a woman ought not to be dismissed, that another
wife may be obtained. For he who marries a woman who is unlawfully put
away is as much of an adulterer as the man who marries one who is
un-divorced. Permanent is the marriage which is not rightly
dissolved; to marry,4815
| 4815 Nubere. This verb is
here used of both sexes, in a general sense. | therefore, whilst
matrimony is undissolved, is to commit adultery. Since, therefore, His
prohibition of divorce was a conditional one, He did not prohibit
absolutely; and what He did not absolutely forbid, that He permitted on
some occasions,4816
when there is an
absence of the cause why He gave His prohibition. In very deed4817
| 4817 Etiam:
first word of the sentence. | His teaching is not contrary to Moses, whose
precept He partially4818
defends, I will
not4819
say confirms. If, however, you deny that
divorce is in any way permitted by Christ, how is it that you on your
side4820
destroy marriage, not uniting man and woman,
nor admitting to the sacrament of baptism and of the eucharist those
who have been united in marriage anywhere else,4821
| 4821 Alibi: i.e., than in
the Marcionite connection. |
unless they should agree together to repudiate the fruit of their
marriage, and so the very Creator Himself? Well, then, what is a
husband to do in your sect,4822
if his wife commit
adultery? Shall he keep her? But your own apostle, you know,4823
does not permit “the members of Christ
to be joined to a harlot.”4824
Divorce,
therefore, when justly deserved,4825
has even in
Christ a defender. So that Moses for the future must be considered as
being confirmed by Him, since he prohibits divorce in the same sense as
Christ does, if any unchastity should occur in the wife. For in the
Gospel of Matthew he says, “Whosoever shall put away his wife,
saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit
adultery.”4826
He also is deemed
equally guilty of adultery, who marries a woman put away by her
husband. The Creator, however, except on account of adultery,
does not put asunder what He Himself joined together, the same Moses in
another passage enacting that he who had married after violence to a
damsel, should thenceforth not have it in his power to put away his
wife.4827
Now, if a compulsory marriage contracted
after violence shall be permanent, how much rather shall a voluntary
one, the result of agreement! This has the sanction of the prophet:
“Thou shalt not forsake the wife of thy youth.”4828
Thus you have Christ following spontaneously
the tracks of the Creator everywhere, both in permitting divorce and in
forbidding it. You find Him also protecting marriage, in whatever
direction you try to escape. He prohibits divorce when He will have the
marriage inviolable; He permits divorce when the marriage is spotted
with unfaithfulness. You should blush when you refuse to unite those
whom even your Christ has united; and repeat the blush when you
disunite them without the good reason why your Christ would have them
separated. I have4829
now to show whence
the Lord derived this decision4830
of His, and to what
end He directed it. It will thus become more fully evident that
His object was not the abolition of the Mosaic ordinance4831
by any suddenly devised proposal of divorce;
because it was not suddenly proposed, but had its root in the
previously mentioned John. For John reproved Herod, because he had
illegally married the wife of his deceased brother, who had a daughter
by her (a union which the law permitted only on the one occasion of the
brother dying childless,4832
| 4832 Illiberis. [N.B.
He supposes Philip to have been dead.] | when it even
prescribed such a marriage, in order that by his own brother, and from
his own wife,4833
| 4833 Costa: literally,
“rib” or “side.” | seed might be
reckoned to the deceased husband),4834
and was in
consequence cast into prison, and finally, by the same Herod, was even
put to death. The Lord having therefore made mention of John, and of
course of the occurrence of his death, hurled His censure4835
against Herod in the form of unlawful
marriages and of adultery, pronouncing as an adulterer even the man who
married a woman that had been put away from her husband. This he said
in order the more severely to load Herod with guilt, who had taken his
brother’s wife, after she had been loosed from her husband not
less by death than by divorce; who had been impelled
thereto by his lust, not by
the prescription of the (Levirate) law—for, as his brother had
left a daughter, the marriage with the widow could not be lawful on
that very account;4836
and who, when the
prophet asserted against him the law, had therefore put him to death.
The remarks I have advanced on this case will be also of use to me in
illustrating the subsequent parable of the rich man4837
| 4837 Ad subsequens
argumentum divitis. | tormented in hell, and the poor man resting
in Abraham’s bosom.4838
For this passage,
so far as its letter goes, comes before us abruptly; but if we regard
its sense and purport, it naturally4839
fits in with
the mention of John wickedly slain, and of Herod, who had been
condemned by him for his impious marriage.4840
| 4840 Suggillati Herodis
male maritati. | It
sets forth in bold outline4841
the end of both of
them, the “torments” of Herod and the “comfort”
of John, that even now Herod might hear that warning: “They
have there Moses and the prophets, let them hear them.”4842
Marcion, however, violently turns the
passage to another end, and decides that both the torment and the
comfort are retributions of the Creator reserved in the next
life4843
| 4843 Apud inferos. [Note
the origin of this doctrine.] | for those who have obeyed the law and the
prophets; whilst he defines the heavenly bosom and harbour to belong to
Christ and his own god. Our answer to this is, that the Scripture
itself which dazzles4844
| 4844 Revincente:
perhaps “reproves his eyesight,” in the sense of
refutation. | his sight expressly
distinguishes between Abraham’s bosom, where the poor man dwells,
and the infernal place of torment. “Hell” (I take it)
means one thing, and “Abraham’s bosom” another.
“A great gulf” is said to separate those regions, and to
hinder a passage from one to the other. Besides, the rich man could not
have “lifted up his eyes,”4845
and from a distance too, except to a superior height, and from the said
distance all up through the vast immensity of height and depth. It must
therefore be evident to every man of intelligence who has ever heard of
the Elysian fields, that there is some determinate place called
Abraham’s bosom, and that it is designed for the reception of the
souls of Abraham’s children, even from among the Gentiles (since
he is “the father of many nations,” which must be classed
amongst his family), and of the same faith as that wherewithal he
himself believed God, without the yoke of the law and the sign of
circumcision. This region, therefore, I call Abraham’s bosom.
Although it is not in heaven, it is yet higher than hell,4846
| 4846 Sublimiorem inferis.
[Elucidation VIII.] | and is appointed to afford an interval of
rest to the souls of the righteous, until the consummation of all
things shall complete the resurrection of all men with the “full
recompense of their reward.”4847
| 4847 Compare Heb. ii. 2 with x. 35 and xi. 26. | This
consummation will then be manifested in heavenly promises, which
Marcion, however, claims for his own god, just as if the Creator had
never announced them. Amos, however, tells us of “those
stories towards heaven”4848
| 4848 Ascensum in
cœlum: Sept. ἀνάβασιν
εἰς τὸν
οὐρανόν, Amos ix. 6. See on this passage the article
Heaven in Kitto’s Cyclopædia
(3d edit.), vol. ii. p. 245, where the present writer has discussed the
probable meaning of the verse. | which Christ
“builds”—of course for His people. There also
is that everlasting abode of which Isaiah asks, “Who shall
declare unto you the eternal place, but He (that is, of course,
Christ) who walketh in righteousness, speaketh of the straight path,
hateth injustice and iniquity?”4849
| 4849 Isa. xxxiii. 14–16, according to the Septuagint, which has
but slight resemblance to the Hebrew. |
Now, although this everlasting abode is promised, and the ascending
stories (or steps) to heaven are built by the Creator, who further
promises that the seed of Abraham shall be even as the stars of heaven,
by virtue certainly of the heavenly promise, why may it not be
possible,4850
without any injury
to that promise, that by Abraham’s bosom is meant some temporary
receptacle of faithful souls, wherein is even now delineated an image
of the future, and where is given some foresight of the glory4851
| 4851 Candida quædam
prospiciatur: where candida is a noun substantive (see above,
chap. vii. p. 353). | of both judgments? If so, you have here, O
heretics, during your present lifetime, a warning that Moses and the
prophets declare one only God, the Creator, and His only Christ, and
how that both awards of everlasting punishment and eternal salvation
rest with Him, the one only God, who kills and who makes alive.
Well, but the admonition, says Marcion, of our God from heaven
has commanded us not to hear Moses and the prophets, but Christ; Hear
Him is the command.4852
| 4852 There seems to be here
an allusion to Luke ix.
35. | This is true
enough. For the apostles had by that time sufficiently heard Moses and
the prophets, for they had followed Christ, being persuaded by Moses
and the prophets. For even Peter would not have been able4853
to say, “Thou art the
Christ,”4854
unless he had
beforehand heard and believed Moses and the prophets, by whom alone
Christ had been hitherto announced. Their faith, indeed, had
deserved this confirmation by such a voice from heaven as should bid
them hear Him, whom they had recognized as
preaching peace, announcing glad tidings, promising an everlasting
abode, building for them steps upwards into heaven.4855
| 4855 See Isa. lii. 7, xxxiii. 14 (Sept.), and Amos ix.
6. | Down in hell, however, it was said
concerning them: “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear
them!”—even those who did not believe them or at least did
not sincerely4856
believe that after
death there were punishments for the arrogance of wealth and the glory
of luxury, announced indeed by Moses and the prophets, but decreed by
that God, who deposes princes from their thrones, and raiseth up the
poor from dunghills.4857
| 4857 See 1 Sam. ii. 6–8, Ps. cxiii. 7, and Luke i.
52. | Since, therefore,
it is quite consistent in the Creator to pronounce different sentences
in the two directions of reward and punishment, we shall have to
conclude that there is here no diversity of gods,4858
| 4858 Divinitatum;
“divine powers.” | but only a difference in the actual
matters4859
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