And He said to them, ‘Whoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, commits adultery against her. And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she commits adultery.’
We find the same teaching in the gospel according to St. Matthew 19:4-8.
In the epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, 7:1-12, the statement that depravity may be prevented by husbands and wives never forsaking each other, nor defrauding each other for their rights, is enlarged upon; and it is distinctly said that neither shall the husband in any case forsake his wife for another woman, nor the wife leave her husband for another man.
Thus we see that, according to the gospels of Mark and Luke and the epistle of Paul, divorce is wholly forbidden.
According to the interpretation that husband and wife are one flesh, joined together by God, which we find repeated in two of the gospels, divorce is forbidden. According to the sense of the whole doctrine of Christ, who exhorts us to forgive all, not excluding the wife who has gone astray, it is forbidden. According to the sense of the whole text, which clearly points out that a man’s leaving his wife brings depravity into the world, it is forbidden.
From where, then, is the conclusion drawn that a wife who has committed adultery may be divorced, and on what is it grounded? It is grounded on the very words of Matthew 5:32, which had so strangely struck me. It is alleged that these words prove that Christ permits divorce if the wife has committed adultery; and they are also repeated in the nineteenth chapter in numerous transcripts of the gospel, and by many of the Fathers of the Church, instead of the words, ‘except it be for fornication.’
I read the words over and over again, and it was long before I could understand them. I saw that there was probably something incorrect in the translation and interpretation, but could not for some time make out what it was. That there was a mistake was obvious. Placing his commandment in opposition to that of the Mosaic Law, which says that if a man hates his wife he may put her away, giving her a writing of divorcement, Christ says, ‘But I say to you, that whoever puts away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causes her to commit adultery.’ There is no opposition in these words, and no mention made of the possibility or impossibility of divorce. We are only told that he who puts away his wife causes her to commit adultery.
And then comes a clause that excepts the wife guilty of adultery. This exception is altogether strange and unexpected; it is indeed absurd, as it destroys even the dubious sense of the words. It is stated that the putting away of a wife causes her to commit adultery, and then the husband is exhorted to put away his wife if she is guilty of adultery; as if the wife who was guilty of adultery would not commit adultery!
Moreover, on a closer examination of the text, I saw that it was even grammatically incorrect. It is said, ‘Whoever puts away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causes her to commit adultery,’ or, if we translate the word παρεψτοςliterally, ‘besides fornication, causes her to commit adultery.’ The words refer to the husband who causes his wife to commit adultery by putting her away.
Then why is the clause ‘cause of fornication’ inserted? If it were said that the husband who puts away his wife, besides being guilty of fornication, commits adultery, the sentence would be grammatically correct. But as the text stands, the noun ‘husband’ has one predicate – ‘causes her,’ etc. – and how does the phrase ‘saving for the cause of fornication’ refer to it? ‘Cannot cause her to commit adultery, saving for the cause of adultery?’ Even if the words ‘wife’ or ‘her’ were added, which is not the case, the words could have no reference to the predicate ‘causes her.’ According to the accepted interpretation, these words are considered as referring to the predicate ‘puts away,’ but the verb ‘puts away’ is not the predicate of the principal sentence, for that is ‘causes her to commit adultery.’ Therefore, for what purpose are the words ‘saving for (or besides) the cause of fornication’ inserted? Whether the wife is guilty of adultery or not, by putting her away the husband causes her to commit that sin.
The sentence would have a meaning if in the place of the word ‘fornication’ we found the words ‘lasciviousness,’ ‘debauchery,’ or some similar word expressing, not an action, but a quality or a state.
‘Doesn’t it mean,’ I said to myself, ‘that he who divorces his wife causes her to commit adultery, and is besides guilty of debauchery himself?’ (For if a man divorces his wife, it is in order to take to himself some other woman.) If the word used in the text is found to mean ‘debauchery,’ then the sense will be clear.
And again, as in the preceding instances, the text confirmed my surmise in a manner that left no room for doubt. What first struck me on reading the text was that the word πορνεια, which is, in all translations except the English, rendered as ‘adultery’ in the same way as μοιχασϑαι, is, in reality, quite another word. Perhaps the two words are synonymous, or are used in the gospel in the same sense, I thought. So I referred both to the common dictionary and to the evangelical glossaries, and found that the word πορνεια, which is equivalent to the Hebrew ‘zono’ the Latin ‘fornicatio,’ the German ‘Hurerei,’ the Russian ‘распугсгво’ (lewdness), has its own definite meaning, and in no dictionary is it considered as signifying adultery; ‘adultère,’ ‘Ehebruch,’ as it has been translated by Luther. It properly implies a depraved state or disposition, and not an action, and cannot therefore be translated by the word ‘adultery.’ Moreover, I saw that the word ‘adultery’ is always expressed in the gospel, and even in the above-named verses, by another word, μοιχεω. And no sooner had I corrected this evidently intentional perversion of the text than I saw that the sense given to the context of the nineteenth chapter, and by our commentators, was altogether impossible; I saw that there could be no doubt about the word πορνεια referring only to the husband.
Every Greek scholar will construe the passage thus: Παρεχτος(besides) λογου(the matter) πορνειας (of lewdness) ποιει (causes) αυτην (her) μοιχασϑαι (to commit adultery). Therefore, the text stands word for word thus: ‘He who divorces his wife, besides the sin of lewdness, causes her to commit adultery.’
We find exactly the same in the nineteenth chapter. No sooner is the incorrect translation of the word πορνειαamended, as well as that of the preposition επι, which has been translated ‘for’; no sooner is the word ‘lewdness’ placed instead of ‘adultery,’ and the preposition ‘by’ instead of ‘for’; than it grows perfectly clear that the words ει μη επι πορνεια can have no reference to the wife. And as the words παρεχτος λογου πορνειας can have no other meaning that ‘besides the sin of lewdness of the husband,’ so the words ειμηεπιπορνεια, which we find in the nineteenth chapter, can have no reference to anything except the lewdness of the husband. It is said, ει μη επι πορνεια, which, being translated literally, is, ‘if not by lewdness,’ ‘if not out of lewdness.’
And thus the meaning is clear that Christ in this passage refutes the notion of the Pharisees that a man who put away his wife, not out of lewdness, but in order to live matrimonially with another woman, did not commit adultery; Christ says that the repudiation of a wife, even if it is not done out of lewdness, but in order to be joined in bonds of matrimony to another woman, is adultery. And thus the sense is simple, clear, perfectly consistent with the whole doctrine, and both logically and grammatically correct.
It was with the greatest difficulty that I at last discovered this clear and simple meaning of the words themselves, and their harmony with the whole doctrine of Christ. And, in truth, read the words in the German or French versions, where it is said, ‘pour cause d’infidélité,’ or ‘à moins que cela ne soit pour cause d’infidélité,’ and you will hardly be able to guess that the text has quite another meaning. The word παρεχτος, which according to all dictionaries means ‘excepté,’ ‘ausgenommen,’ is translated in the French by a whole sentence, ‘à moins que cela ne soit.’ The word πορνεια is translated ‘infidélité,’ ‘Ehebruch,’ ‘adultery.’ And on this intentional perversion of the text is based an interpretation that destroys the moral, religious, grammatical, and logical sense of Christ’s words.
And once more I received a confirmation of the truth that the meaning of Christ’s doctrine is simple and clear. His commandments are definite, and of the highest practical importance; but the interpretations given to us, based on a desire to justify existing evils, have so obscured His doctrine that we can with difficulty fathom its meaning. I felt convinced that had the gospel been found half
