Thesis XVII

It is established by Catholic tradition that Christian matrimony, not only consummated but also ratified only, is intrinsically indissoluble even in the case of adultery.

I. Now specifically concerning the indissolubility of Christian matrimony. Note that several Theologians (cf. Sanchez, L. II, D. 13) in this question do not use this distinction of indissolubility into intrinsic and extrinsic, and regard this one thing for affirming or denying indissolubility: whether matrimony can be dissolved. But when they deny that every matrimony is altogether indissoluble and affirm that only consummated matrimony of Christians is such, they in reality regard that indissolubility which we have called extrinsic, which ratified matrimony of the faithful, and consummated matrimony also of unbelievers, can lack. Nevertheless, all agree that consummated matrimony of the faithful is altogether indissoluble; but they do not agree in assigning the intrinsic reason of this matter, namely, whether it is by the law of nature, or by the positive law of God, or by ecclesiastical law, or by reason of the sacrament, or by reason of a certain signification. First it will be necessary to demonstrate the truth, then to investigate its reason. We say, therefore, that Christian matrimony, whether ratified or consummated, is intrinsically indissoluble even in the case of adultery of either spouse. The difficulty is from the words of Matthew XIX, and from the practice of the Greeks and the opinions of certain Fathers, namely, whether to Christians, on account of fornication or adultery of the spouse, there was made a power, which also belonged to the Jews on account of other causes, of dissolving the conjugal bond.

II. The doctrine is asserted by the Council of Trent, Sess. XXIV, de Reform. Matrim., cn. 5: If anyone shall say that on account of heresy, or troublesome cohabitation, or affected absence from a spouse, the bond of matrimony can be dissolved: A.S.; and cn. 7: If anyone shall say that the Church errs when she has taught and teaches, according to the evangelical and apostolic doctrine, that on account of adultery of one of the spouses the bond of matrimony cannot be dissolved, and that neither spouse, or even the innocent one who did not give cause for the adultery, can contract another matrimony while the other spouse is living, and that he commits adultery who, having dismissed an adulteress, marries another, and she who, having dismissed an adulterer, marries another: A.S. In these canons there is speech simply of matrimony, which at least is the matrimony of Christians, to whom these canons pertain, no distinction being made between ratified and consummated. The power which is denied is certainly the power which belongs to the spouses themselves; for if this were present, the canons would be false per se and simply. And concerning this the question was when these canons were issued. There are enumerated the causes which might have the greatest force for dissolving the bond and which were brought forward by the heretics for the dissolution of the same. From the second canon we have: 1. that the Church, not this or that Church, but simply the Church, that is, the Catholic Church, has taught and teaches that the bond of matrimony cannot be dissolved on account of adultery of one of the spouses; 2. that she has taught and teaches this according to evangelical and apostolic doctrine; 3. that he is anathema who shall say that the Church errs in this doctrine. Pallavicini reports, L. XXII, c. 4, that a simpler decree had previously been proposed, by which he was said to be anathema who would say that consummated marriages can be dissolved on account of adultery. If you look to the sentence, almost the same doctrine is handed down in both decrees. For the Church cannot fail to err when she teaches that matrimony cannot be dissolved, unless this is true, and indeed true according to evangelical and apostolic doctrine; for the Church testifies that she teaches it according to this doctrine. Therefore by this very fact the Tridentine Fathers signify that it is a revealed truth. And certainly he who would affirm that marriage can be dissolved in that case would also have to affirm that the Church errs, which denies this. And the Protestants were doing this. But the Greeks, less logical, content with their practice of dissolving those marriages, abstained from this calumny against the Latin Church. Moreover, from this special manner of thinking of the Greeks, it happened that they would not be struck by the anathema if the anathema were said only against those who would say that the Church errs in this matter. Therefore, so that the Council might comply with the Venetian orators, who demanded that an anathema not be brought against the Greeks, it admitted that other formula proposed by the same orators. Therefore the doctrine was not changed, but the manner of inflicting the anathema was changed, and the condition on account of which the anathema would be incurred. Moreover, no one can deny that the canon is doctrinal. For the indissolubility of matrimony is asserted to be doctrine of the Church, doctrine according to evangelical and apostolic doctrine, that is, revealed doctrine; that the Church is infallible in handing down this doctrine; and that those who deny this are heretics. Moreover, a canon proposing revealed doctrine and doctrine infallibly asserted by the Church is certainly doctrinal. Indeed it is also dogmatic, namely, establishing a dogma of faith to be believed by all; but its direct object is the inerrancy of the Church in teaching that matter, while its indirect object is the matter itself, or the indissolubility of marriage. "What Catholic," says Pius VI in the epistle to the Bishop of Eger, "does not recognize as a head of doctrine that which the Church has taught and teaches according to the Gospel and apostolic doctrine, and in teaching which it is certain, indeed expressly defined, that she does not err?"

In order that we may vindicate the doctrine of the Council, it is necessary to demonstrate that it is really evangelical and apostolic. This can be proved both from the words of Christ and of the Apostle, to which the Council of Trent certainly alludes, and from the constant consent of Tradition. Since the question especially is whether, in the case of adultery, the spouses have the power of dissolving marriage, which being denied, it follows of itself that that power must be denied in the other cases, we shall chiefly treat this question; although the things which we shall bring forward will have force, both implicitly and explicitly, universally for any case whatever. Note, moreover, that although now in treating we are dealing only with intrinsic indissolubility, we do not wish to say that this alone belongs to, and this alone is asserted by the testimonies to be brought forward concerning, the matrimony of which we speak; but whether another also belongs will be discussed expressly afterwards.

III. Let the first argument be from Tradition. The constant sense of the Church that this is a divinely revealed doctrine, if we ascend from the age of the Council of Florence to the beginning, is clear in this way. 1. In that Florentine Synod the Latins and the Roman Pontiff openly signified that they disapproved the method of the Greeks of dissolving the bond of nuptials on account of fornication. The same Pontiff, in the Instruction for the Armenians, taught that "although for the cause of fornication it is lawful to make separation of bed, nevertheless it is not lawful to contract another matrimony, since the bond of a legitimately contracted matrimony is perpetual." Thus it has been sanctioned in canon law, and indeed as an evangelical law, the words of Christ and the Apostle having been brought forward: c. Ex parte, de Sponsalibus et Matrimonio, and c. Gaudemus, de Divortiis, which rescripts are indeed, the one of Alexander III, the other of Innocent III. Before these, John VIII had written in these words to Ederetus, Archbishop of the Angles, in the year 877: "But as to these whom you assert to leave their own wives against the precept of the Lord, we command that neither the man depart from the wife nor the wife from the man except on account of fornication; but if on this account he or she shall depart, let him or her remain unmarried, or be mutually reconciled, since the Lord says, what God has joined let not man separate. And therefore, since each person cannot desert the former woman joined to himself in lawful matrimony, by no reason whatsoever is it granted to him to lead in another while the former lives." Before him Nicholas I, in an epistle to Ado, Archbishop of Vienne, in the year 862: "You ask whether, a wife having been dismissed whom someone has taken after legitimately betrothing her, because afterwards he imposed an evil name upon her, without the decree of a general Synod, it is lawful for him either to receive another against evangelical authority, or, while she survives, to have a concubine in place of a wife. Supported by apostolic authority, we wholly resist these things according to the evangelical sanction, and we grant neither the union of another wife to those who do such things while the dismissed woman survives, nor do we bestow license of having a concubine." Photius, in the Syntagma Canonum, Tit. XIII, c. 4, recites the canon of the Milevitan Council which will soon be brought forward. The same is established in the Capitularies from the Collection of Benedict, L. II, n. 87 and 235, by which this is decreed: "those who, after dismissing their wives on account of fornication, marry others, are marked by the sentence of the Lord as adulterers." The same was established in the preceding century in the Council of Friuli, with this reason added: "For although it is read in the sacred evangelical pages that the Lord said that a man may dismiss his wife for the cause of fornication alone, nevertheless it is not read that He conceded that he may join another to himself in marriage while she lives; indeed, there is no doubt that He prohibited this in every way. For He says: whosoever, etc." The same was established in the same century by Stephen II in the responses given to the Bishops of the Gauls, renewing the decrees of Innocent I and Leo the Great. The same had been decreed in the preceding century in the Council of Herudford in England under Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, c. 10: "Let no one leave his own spouse except, as the holy Gospel teaches, for the cause of fornication. But if anyone has expelled his own spouse joined to himself in lawful matrimony, if he wishes to be a Christian rightly, let him be joined to no other; but let him remain so, or be reconciled to his own wife." In the fifth century, moreover, the Second Milevitan Council issued a canon, which is also attributed to the Carthaginian Council of the year 407. The canon is 8: "It has pleased that, according to evangelical and apostolic discipline, neither a man dismissed by his wife, nor a woman dismissed by her husband, be joined to another; but let them remain so, or be reconciled to each other. But if they shall contemn this, let them be brought to penance. In this cause, an imperial law ought to be requested to be promulgated." Likewise Innocent I to Exuperius, Bishop of Toulouse: "Your love also inquired concerning those who, after a repudiation has intervened, have coupled themselves to another marriage. It is manifest that these are adulterers on each side; but those who, while the wife is living, although the marriage seems to have been separated, have hastened to another union, cannot not be seen as adulterers, to such an extent that even those persons to whom such persons have been joined seem themselves also to have committed adultery, according to that which we read in the Gospel: he who shall dismiss his wife and marry another commits adultery; likewise he who shall marry one dismissed commits adultery." The Council of Elvira, year 305, can. 9, established this: "A faithful woman who has left a faithful adulterous husband and marries another, let her be prohibited from marrying; but if she shall marry, let her not receive communion before he whom she left has first departed from this world, unless perhaps necessity of infirmity shall compel it to be given." Finally Apostolic canon 48, according to the recension of Dionysius Exiguus, decreed: "If any layman, having rejected his wife, has received another, or one dismissed (or loosed) by another, let him be separated." Nor are the Greek interpreters Theodore Balsamon and Aristenus to be heard here, who, for the purpose of confirming the practice of their Church at that time, add a limitation, namely, if he has cast her out beside reason, or without some one of the causes sanctioned by the laws.

IV. Parallel to the series of decrees is the series of testimonies of the Fathers reaching all the way to the apostolic age. To bring forward the more important testimonies, beginning from the more ancient, first there occurs Hermas, who in L. II, Mand. 4, introduces the Shepherd speaking thus: "If a man shall know that his wife has sinned, and the woman has not done penance and remains in her fornication, and the man lives with her, he will be guilty of her sin and a sharer in her adultery. And I said to him: What then if the woman remains in her vice? And he said: Let the man dismiss her and remain by himself. But if he shall dismiss his woman and marry another, he too commits adultery." Justin Martyr, in the First Apology, n. 15, commending the doctrine of Christ concerning chastity, recites these testimonies from the Gospel: "he who has looked upon a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart ... he who marries one repudiated by another man commits adultery." Then he adds: "As also those who, by human law, enter into a double marriage, so also those who look upon a woman to lust after her, are sinners before our Master." Therefore, by the law of Christ, the bond remains between the repudiated woman and the one repudiating; and although human laws permit entering another marriage, the former having been loosed, nevertheless this is sin before Christ. Athenagoras teaches the same in the Legatio pro Christianis, n. 33: "Whoever," says Christ, "shall dismiss his wife and marry another commits adultery; not allowing her to be dismissed whose virginity someone has ended, nor another besides to be married." Tertullian, moreover, in the book de Patientia, c. 12, says that the virtue of patience confers this good upon each spouse "when marriage has been separated on account of the adultery of one, that one may be amended and the other (that is, the innocent one) may not become an adulterer." But such a one could not become such unless the bond still remained and it were not lawful to dissolve it. And in the book de Monogamia he reports this opinion of the Catholics whom he attacks: "that God, while the husband is living, does not wish the repudiated woman to be joined to another man."

Clement of Alexandria, Strom., L. II, c. 23, teaches from the words of Christ that the one who takes to himself a wife dismissed on account of fornication commits adultery: "Scripture openly established the law: you shall not dismiss a wife except on account of fornication. But it judges adultery to be joining in matrimony while the other of those separated is alive. ... But he who takes a dismissed wife commits adultery, it says." Origen, on Matthew, Tom. 14, notes that "against the law of Scripture certain rulers of the Church permitted a woman, while her husband was alive, to marry, acting against that which is written: A woman is bound to the law for as long a time as her husband lives, and against that: Therefore, while her husband lives, the woman shall be called an adulteress if she has been with another man. Nevertheless, they did not permit it altogether without reason; for it is probable that they permitted these things against the law given and written from the beginning, to avoid worse things, accommodating another's discretion."

Therefore it was a matter of women repudiated or repudiating, which repudiation the discretion of civil laws and powers permitted; Origen thinks that Bishops accommodated this discretion in order to avoid worse evils. For they must not be judged to have accommodated the discretion of private persons even against civil laws; for they could not have thought that they were avoiding worse evils, since this would have been the greatest evil, nor would there have been need for them to permit this, since civil law also prohibited divorce apart from the cases permitted by it, nor therefore, if they had done this, would they have been worthy of excuse.

The same doctrine is exhibited by Cyprian, L. III, Testimonia ad Quirinum, n. 90, and by Ambrose, who, on Luke, L. VIII, 2-5, on those words everyone who dismisses his wife, etc., reproves the faithful because they think that it is lawful for them to dismiss their wives because human laws permitted this: "You dismiss your wife as if by right, without crime, and you think this is lawful for you because human law does not prohibit it; but divine law prohibits it. You who obey men, fear God; hear the law of the Lord, which even those who make laws obey: what God has joined let not man separate." Then he notes, n. 7, that he is a Jew, not a Christian, who appeals to the permission made by Moses, which Christ abrogated. Besides, he teaches in the same place (n. 6) that if the repudiated woman (certainly according to human laws, and therefore even in the case of adultery) marries another, her marriage is adultery. But in lib. I de Abraham, c. 4, he establishes the principle that "what is not lawful for the woman is not lawful for the man."

Basil, in Moral., reg. 73, c. 2: "what is not lawful," he says, "for a man, once his wife has been dismissed, to marry another; nor is it right that one repudiated by her husband be taken as wife by another." And to prove this he cites Matt. XIX, 9, as it is in the Vulgate (cf. the preceding book, de Fide, n. 6). Nazianzen, epist. CXLIV to Olympius (Maurist edition), advising a certain Venerius not to make a divorce, adds: "which is wholly disapproved by our laws, even if the Roman laws decree otherwise." Namely, this permission of Roman law was opposed to Christian laws, which Roman law permitted divorce with dissolution of the bond, not from any cause whatever, but only from certain causes, among which was adultery. Thus Chrysostom, on Matthew, hom. XVII, interpreting the words of Christ, c. V, 32, teaches that a woman cast out by a man remains the wife of the one casting her out: "even cast out," he says, "she perseveres as the wife of him who cast her out." And in the Sermon de libello repudii, weighing the words of Paul, A woman is bound to the law, he says: "See with how great diligence he used propriety of words. For he did not say: let her live with the man as long as he lives, but: a woman is bound to the law for as long a time as her husband lives; and therefore even if he gives a bill of repudiation, even if she leaves the house, even if she goes away to another, she is bound by the law and is an adulteress. Therefore, when a man wishes to cast out his wife, or a wife to leave her husband, let him be mindful of this saying and think Paul to be present and crying out: A woman is bound to the law. But she who is a slave and subject to law, even if she receives a bill of repudiation a thousand times, will be bound by the law of adultery. Do not read to me laws established by outsiders; for God will not judge you according to those on that day, but according to those which He Himself established." Therefore, even when repudiation has been given according to civil laws, which permitted this on account of adultery, the one dismissing remains still bound by the bond, and he who marries the dismissed woman commits adultery. To this also belongs the fact that in the same place he says that a wife repudiated by one and received by another is the wife neither of the former nor of the latter; for an adulteress is the wife of no one. For if the bond were loosed, she would really be the spouse of the second. Therefore she is not de facto, or according to affection, the spouse of the former, because she is not acknowledged; she is not the spouse of the other de iure, because the prior bond remains. But in the book de Virginitate he teaches openly, n. 40, that although the wife may be wicked, slanderous, talkative, extravagant, and filled with many other evils, and likewise the man may be fierce, angry, proud, who holds a free woman in the same place as a slave, one must be borne by the other in turn; and if the woman departs, she must remain unmarried or be reconciled to the man; but if she is unwilling to return into favor, she must await the death of the man; that the bond of matrimony subjects the spouses mutually; that no spouse is in his own right; that whether they wish it or not, spouses, male and female, must bear servitude.

Theodoret on 1 Cor. VII, vv. 10, 11, says: "But this, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to the man, is not contrary to that: do not defraud one another, except perhaps by consent. For those things were said to those who are separated not on account of another cause, but on account of continence alone; but this establishes the law for those who contend concerning other matters. And indeed he tries to preserve the bond of matrimony intact; but yielding to weakness, he commands continence to the one who has separated, by this reason also prohibiting the severance of matrimony. For when he forbids one to be joined to another, he compels each party to return to the former matrimony." Jerome (who, having been educated in the Eastern Church and spending there the greater part of his life, must be judged also to report the sentiments of the Eastern Church), ep. LV to Amandus, nn. 3, 4: "Answer not our opinion but that of the Apostle: therefore, while the husband lives, she will be an adulteress, etc.; and in another place: a woman is bound to the law, etc. Therefore the Apostle, cutting off all excuses, has most openly defined that while the husband lives a woman is an adulteress if she has married another. ... As long as the husband lives, although he is an adulterer, although a sodomite, although covered with all crimes, and on account of these wicked deeds abandoned by his wife, he is reputed her husband, and it is not lawful for her to receive another man. Nor does the Apostle decree these things by his own authority, but with Christ speaking in him, he followed the words of Christ, who says in the Gospel: he who dismisses his wife, except for the cause of fornication, makes her commit adultery, and he who has received a dismissed woman is an adulterer. Whether she herself has dismissed the man, or has been dismissed by the man, he who has received her is an adulterer." Although the holy Father speaks chiefly of the woman because such was the question proposed to him, nevertheless he sufficiently shows that what he affirms of the woman also pertains to the man, since he appeals to the words of Christ, which speak of the man, and when by arguing from there he concludes; and also when, epist. LXXVII to Oceanus, n. 3, he says: "The laws of the Caesars are one thing, the laws of Christ another; Papinian taught one thing, Paul another. Among them the reins of unchastity are loosened for men ... among us what is not lawful for women is equally not lawful for men, and the same servitude is reckoned on equal condition." And there also he excuses Fabiola, who, by repudiating her adulterous husband, had married another, because "she had not known the vigor of the Gospel, in which every excuse for marrying is cut off from women while their husbands are living." And on Matt. XIX, 9: "Wherever there is fornication and suspicion of fornication, the wife is freely dismissed ... so the man is commanded to dismiss the former wife, that he not have a second while the first lives."

Augustine, L. II ad Pollentium, c. 4: "These words of the Apostle (A woman is bound to the law, etc.), so often repeated, so often inculcated, are true, are living, are sound, are full: a woman begins to be wife of no later man unless she has ceased to be wife of the former. But she will cease to be wife of the former if her husband dies, not if he fornicates. Therefore a spouse is licitly dismissed on account of fornication, but the bond of the former remains, on account of which he who marries the dismissed woman becomes guilty of adultery, even on account of fornication." Read both books, and de Bono coniugali. But the difficulty which Augustine confesses that he experiences in this matter, ad Pollentium, L. I, c. 25, is not concerned with the question whether the matter is so, in which he always defends the affirming part most expressly; but it is both in the exegetical question concerning those words of Christ, unless on account of fornication, which difficulty would be none unless the prior affirmation were certain, and in the question why it is so, or in rendering the intrinsic reason of the matter, which he himself seeks from the reason of the sacrament. "So much is that nuptial covenant once entered into the reality of a certain sacrament, that it is not made void even by the separation itself. For with divorce intervening, that confederation of nuptials is not abolished, so that the spouses are spouses to each other even when separated; but with those to whom they have been joined even after their own repudiation, she to the man or he to the woman, they commit adultery. And nevertheless not except in the city of our God, on His holy mountain, is such a case with a wife. But who does not know that the laws of the nations hold themselves otherwise?" Bede on 1 Cor. VII, 10: "It can happen that a man dismiss his wife for the cause of fornication, which the Lord wished to be excepted. But now, if neither is it granted to her to marry while he from whom she has departed is alive, nor to him to marry another while the wife whom he dismissed is alive, much less is it right to commit illicit fornications with anyone whatever." In the Capitularies of Charles, Louis, and Lothair collected by Ansegisus, this canon is 42, Lib. I: "Likewise in the same (that is, in the African council), that neither a wife dismissed by her husband receive another man while her own husband is living, nor a man receive another while the former wife is living."

The same doctrine shines forth from the rites of nuptials. Thus in the Gelasian ritual God is entreated as "You who bound the covenants of nuptials by the gentle yoke of concord and by the indissoluble bond of peace." And in the order of the Greeks for Betrothals, God is called σύνδεσμον διαθέσεως τιθεὶς ἀρραβῶνα ("placing the pledge as a bond of covenant"). Cf. the other ritual books in Martene.

From all these monuments it is clear that this doctrine concerning the intrinsic indissolubility of marriage, even in the case of adultery, always existed in the Church, both Latin and formerly certainly Greek, and was held as a revealed doctrine flowing from the words of Christ and of the Apostle, and that the matter was sanctioned by divine immutable law, against which the opposing laws of the Caesars have no force.