Thesis XXII

By the very law of the primitive institution, generally any marriage whatsoever is intrinsically indissoluble.

I. Thus far we have spoken of Christian marriage. There remains the question concerning the marriage of unbelievers: whether it also is endowed with the same indissolubility. Innocent III certainly judged this, in c. Gaudemus, de Divortiis; and this must now be proved. Therefore we are speaking generally of any marriage whatever, appealing to the law of institution, under which certainly all marriages fall. Wherefore we affirm that marriages not only of the faithful, concerning which we have already disputed separately, but also marriages of unbelievers, by right of divine institution, were intrinsically indissoluble, and now are so, the same institution remaining in force after Christ.

II. Certainly in Matthew XIX, 3 seq., when the Pharisees ask, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for any cause whatever? Christ answers: Have you not read that he who made man from the beginning made them male and female? And he said: For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh. Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. And when they say: Why then did Moses command to give a bill of divorce and to put away? Christ answered: Because Moses, because of the hardness of your heart, permitted you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so; that is, marriage was not instituted in such a way that that permission would exist. Note the Hebrew phrase: they shall be two in one flesh, היו לבשר אחד, which the Greek retained, ἔσονται οἱ δύο[^1] εἰς σάρκα μίαν, unto one flesh, has the same force as they shall be one flesh, as Christ himself explains. Moreover husband and wife are one flesh, not as if they are physically one man, but because physically according to the flesh they are one principle of generation, and they are this in act when they commingle, in potency by force of the marriage itself, which is the power of one over the body of the other in order to generation. Namely the man is the head of the woman, and the woman is the body of the man (Eph. V), and thus from the two one is made, one flesh.

III. Moreover, from these words of Christ these things are manifest: a) that marriage was so instituted by God that God himself is the author[^2] of the conjunction of man and woman, and that God is so the author of this conjunction that it is never lawful for man to dissolve that conjunction. Certainly it was indeed permitted to the Jews to give a bill of divorce and to dismiss their wives; but from the beginning, when marriage was instituted, this permission did not exist. For this is the sense of those words, but from the beginning it was not so, by which what was said before is excluded; but the discourse before was about permission.

You will say that the sense of Christ's words is not properly this, but another. Namely, when the Pharisees had asked whether it was lawful for a man to dismiss his wife for any cause whatever, which they thought lawful for themselves from the law of Moses, Deuter. XXIV, 1 seq., Christ answered that Moses indeed permitted this, but that from the beginning it was not so, namely, that a man could dismiss his wife for any cause whatever; consequently not denying that from the beginning it was lawful to do this for some special cause. And indeed Christ himself then approves the cause of fornication. I answer that if we wish to adhere to the words of Christ and to those alone, Christ's answer, Because Moses, by reason of the hardness of your heart, permitted you to put away

[^1]: Concerning the reading οἱ δύο, which now does not appear in the Hebrew copies, read the distinguished Patrizi on Mark, c. X, vv. 7, 8.

[^2]: How much positive institution of God claims for itself in this matter will be declared in what follows.

your wives, but from the beginning it was not so, this answer, I say, is not to that question, whether it is lawful for a man to dismiss his wife for any cause whatever; but since he had already satisfied this question by that answer by which he universally concludes, What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate, by which words no cause is left on account of which it is lawful to dissolve marriage by the authority of man, when the Pharisees objected to him the commandment of Moses, he gave that answer in order to refute this objection. In this answer it must be observed that Christ makes mention only of the permission granted by Moses of dismissing wives, not of a permission of dismissing for any cause whatever; and indeed that broadest permission cannot be read even in the words of Moses (Thesis XVI). For the sentence of Moses must not be confused with the interpretation which certain Jews in the age of Christ applied to it; nor did the Pharisees themselves, when objecting, bring forward the authority of Moses in this way. That is, the Pharisees, hearing that man cannot separate what God has joined, thought that it was sufficient for themselves, in order to refute Christ, to oppose to him the commandment of Moses, who certainly permitted some dissolution, or, as they themselves were saying, commanded it. Therefore in this second question there is no longer a question about dismissal for any cause whatever, but simply about dismissal or the bill of divorce by which marriage is dissolved. If this is at any time lawful, the Pharisees thought that they had sufficiently refuted the preceding words of Christ. Therefore the opposition instituted here by Christ is between the permission made by Moses to men of dismissing a wife, insofar as it is simply a permission, and the primitive institution. Therefore marriage was not instituted in this manner, that license would be given to the man of repudiating his wife, and consequently neither to the wife of repudiating her husband. This certainly must at least be understood of repudiation dissolving the bond, both because, if it is understood of simple divorce, by that very fact this must much more be understood of the former, and because simple divorce for a just cause is lawful in the Christian economy, in which the primitive institution has been altogether recalled, and therefore it was lawful also then. Therefore the words of Christ, which are universal, cannot be taken of divorce alone or separation alone. Moreover, the question proposed by the Pharisees was not about fact, but about right. Therefore when Christ says that from the beginning, when God made male and female, it was not so, he is not speaking about fact, which could not have had place, but about right, that is, about permission, which was not then made. But it is established that divine permission was necessary for the Jews, that men might be able to repudiate their wives; for on Christ's authority, from the manner in which God instituted marriage, it follows that man cannot separate what God has joined, unless therefore God himself permits it, dissolution by man cannot be effected. And this also Christ signified, when he brought forward no other reason for dismissal except the permission of Moses, who in giving the law acted in the place of God.

IV. b) It is manifest that God from the beginning so joined man and woman that each lacked the power of dissolving the bond, and therefore repudiation would be not merely illicit, but invalid. For Christ immediately inferred from that institution: What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. But in these words is contained not only the prohibition of separation, but the nullity of the act attempting it. For there is not exhibited merely the will of God the legislator, which can be violated, but there is exhibited the efficacious will of God, effecting the conjunction: what God has joined together; but no creature can render void the effect of the divine will acting. Therefore either spouse would attempt to dissolve the bond of marriage not only illicitly, but without any effect. And certainly Christ, recalling the first institution and abrogating the permission of repudiation, established in the words immediately following that he commits adultery who marries her that is put away. Therefore the bond remains, without which there can be no adultery. Certainly he who marries her that is put away, even because of fornication, commits adultery. Therefore the woman is still bound to the law of the husband; therefore also the husband dismissing her is still bound to the law of the wife, for the bond is mutual. Therefore also from the beginning he who had married her that was put away would have committed adultery; therefore then the bond remained, and thus there was no power in the spouses of dissolving the bond.

We said that by those words, What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate, Christ recalled the first institution and abrogated the permission of repudiation. For the words are of one commanding indissolubility, or prohibiting the dissolution of marriage by human authority, and therefore prohibiting what Moses had permitted. But this command is connected by Christ with the words of God in which the first institution of marriage is contained; therefore the primitive law is recalled. Accordingly, from the beginning marriage was instituted by God in such a way that man, whether husband or wife, could not dissolve it; that the male and female joined by God should always exist as the same joined persons, and their bond should remain perpetual; that the permission of repudiation should not exist; that therefore repudiation, that is, with the power of man to dissolve the bond or to separate what God joined altogether removed, should be prohibited by God and destitute of force. Now an institution of this kind was a law for future marriages; for Christ appeals to it in the question whether it is lawful to dismiss one's wife. But a law laid down from the beginning of the human race had force for any future marriage whatever that would exist among men. "From which it is manifestly evident," says Pius VI in his epistle to the Bishop of Agria, in the year 1789, "that marriage, even in the very state of nature and indeed long before it was raised to the dignity of a sacrament properly so called, was so divinely instituted that it bears with itself a perpetual and indissoluble bond." But although in former times a dispensation from this law was given to the Jews through Moses, Christ removed this dispensation both when he openly pronounced, What God has joined together let not man separate, and when, opposing himself to Moses, he added to the Pharisees themselves: But I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, except for fornication, and shall marry another, commits adultery; and he who shall marry her that is put away commits adultery; or more simply according to Mark X, 11, 12: Whosoever shall put away his wife and marry another, commits adultery against her; and if the wife shall put away her husband and marry another, she commits adultery; and finally when by the Christian institution he abrogated the whole Mosaic institution, except those things which pertain to the natural law, of which sort certainly that permission was not, since it was opposed to the divine institution.

Therefore first, marriages of the faithful, because of the primitive law recalled by Christ, are intrinsically indissoluble. Therefore likewise, secondly, marriages of unbelievers, which are subject to that former law, for which no dispensation was ever enacted, and to which the Mosaic permission abrogated by Christ can be of no service even indirectly, are altogether indissoluble (cf. Thesis XVII, n. V). Thus the Council of Trent, Decree on Matrimony: "The first parent of the human race, by the impulse of the divine Spirit, pronounced the perpetual and indissoluble bond of marriage, when he said: This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; wherefore," etc.