The Lord's Sermon on the Mount 1.14–1.17

“It has also been said, Whoever puts away his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.” This is the lesser righteousness of the Pharisees, to which what the Lord says is not contrary: “But I say to you, whoever puts away his wife, except for the cause of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman released from her husband commits adultery.” For he who commanded that a certificate of divorce be given did not command this, that a wife be put away; but, “Whoever puts away,” he says, “let him give her a certificate of divorce,” so that the thought of the certificate might temper the rash anger of one casting off his wife. He, then, who sought a delay in putting away indicated, as far as he could to hard men, that he did not want separation. And therefore the Lord himself, questioned about this in another place, answered thus: “Moses did this because of your hardness.” For however hard he might be who wished to put away his wife, when he reflected that, once the certificate of divorce had been given, she could now marry another without danger, he would easily be appeased. The Lord, therefore, to confirm that a wife should not easily be put away, excepted only the cause of sexual immorality; but all other troubles whatever, if any should arise, he commands to be borne bravely for the sake of conjugal fidelity and chastity; and he calls an adulterer also the man who marries her who has been released from her husband. The apostle Paul shows the limit of this matter, for he says it is to be observed as long as her husband lives; but when he has died, he gives permission to marry. For he himself also held this rule, and in it he shows not his own counsel, as in some admonitions, but the precept of the Lord who commands, when he says: “But to those who are married I command, not I but the Lord, that the woman not depart from her husband; but if she departs, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband; and let the husband not put away his wife.” I believe it is in like manner: that if he puts her away, he is not to marry another, or is to be reconciled to his wife. For it can happen that he puts away his wife for the cause of sexual immorality, which the Lord willed to be excepted. Now if neither is she permitted to marry while the husband from whom she departed is alive, nor he to take another while the wife whom he put away is alive, much less is it lawful to commit unlawful acts of sexual immorality with anyone at all. More blessed, certainly, are those marriages to be judged which, whether after children have been begotten or even with this earthly offspring disregarded, have been able to keep continence between themselves by mutual consent: because this is not done against that precept by which the Lord forbids a spouse to be put away (for he does not put her away who lives with her not carnally but spiritually), and that is kept which is said through the Apostle, “It remains that those who have wives be as though they had none.”

That other saying usually troubles more the minds of the little ones, who are nevertheless now eager to live according to the precepts of Christ, which the Lord himself says in another place: “Whoever comes to me and does not hate his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, and his own soul besides, cannot be my disciple.” For it can seem contradictory to those who understand little that here he forbids a wife to be put away, except for the cause of sexual immorality, but elsewhere denies that anyone can be his disciple who does not hate his wife. And if he were saying this on account of intercourse, he would not also have put father and mother and brothers in the same condition. But how true it is that the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and those who use violence seize it! For how much force is needed for a man to love his enemies and to hate father and mother and wife and children and brothers! For he who calls to the kingdom of heaven commands both. And how these are not contrary to each other is easy to show with him as guide; but once they are understood, they are hard to fulfil, although this too is most easy with him helping. For the eternal kingdom to which he has deigned to call his disciples, whom he also calls brothers, has no temporal relationships of this kind. “For there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female, neither slave nor free; but Christ is all and in all.” And the Lord himself says: “For in the resurrection they will neither marry nor take wives, but will be like the angels of God in heaven.” Whoever, then, wishes already here to meditate on the life of that kingdom must hate not men themselves but these temporal relationships by which this life that is to pass away is propped up, a life carried on by being born and dying; and whoever does not hate this does not yet love that life where there will be no condition of being born and dying, the condition that joins earthly marriages.

And so, if I ask some good Christian who nevertheless has a wife, even if he still begets children with her, whether he would wish to have a wife in that kingdom, mindful surely of the promises of God and of that life where this corruptible will put on incorruption and this mortal will put on immortality, he, already lifted up by a great or at least by some love, will answer with abhorrence that he vehemently does not want it. Again, if I ask whether he would wish his wife, after the resurrection, having received the angelic change that is promised to the saints, to live with him there, he will answer that he wants this as vehemently as he does not want the other. Thus the good Christian is found to love in one woman God’s creature, whom he desires to be reformed and renewed, but to hate the corruptible and mortal union and coupling: that is, to love in her that she is a human being, to hate that she is a wife. So too he loves his enemy, not insofar as he is an enemy but insofar as he is a human being, so that he wishes for him what he wishes for himself, that is, that he may come corrected and renewed to the kingdom of heaven. This is to be understood also of father and mother and the other bonds of blood: that we hate in them what the human race has received as its lot by being born and dying, but love what can be brought with us to those kingdoms where no one says, “My father,” but all say to the one God, “Our Father”; nor “My mother,” but all say to that Jerusalem, “Our mother”; nor “My brother,” but all say of all, “Our brother.” And there will be a marriage, as of one spouse, when we have been brought together into one, with him who set us free from the prostitution of this world by the shedding of his blood. It is necessary, then, that the disciple of Christ hate the things that pass away, in those whom he desires to come with him to the things that will always remain; and the more he loves them, the more he will hate these things in them.

A Christian, therefore, can live in concord with his wife: whether meeting the carnal need with her, which the Apostle says by way of concession, not of command; or for the propagation of children, which can already be praiseworthy in some degree; or in a brotherly fellowship without any mingling of bodies, having a wife as though not having one, which is the most excellent and sublime thing in the marriage of Christians: yet so that he hates in her the name of temporal necessity and loves the hope of everlasting blessedness. For without doubt we hate what we certainly wish someday not to be, as this very life of the present world, which, being temporal, if we did not hate, we would not desire the future one, which is not subject to time. For the soul is put in place of this life, of which it was said there, “Whoever does not hate his own soul besides cannot be my disciple.” For this corruptible food is necessary to this life, of which the Lord himself says, “Is not the soul more than food?”, that is, this life, to which food is necessary. And when he says that he lays down his soul for his sheep, he certainly means this life, when he declares that he is going to die for us.

Here another question arises: since the Lord permits a wife to be put away for the cause of sexual immorality, how far sexual immorality is to be understood in this place: whether as everyone understands it, that is, that we should believe that sexual immorality is meant which is committed in illicit intercourse; or as the Scriptures are accustomed to call sexual immorality, as was said above, every unlawful corruption, such as idolatry or greed, and hence every transgression of the law through unlawful desire. But let us consult the Apostle, lest we say anything rashly: “To those who are married,” he says, “I command, not I but the Lord, that the wife not depart from her husband; but if she departs, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband.” For it can happen that she departs for that cause for which the Lord permits it. Or if a woman is allowed to put away her husband even apart from the cause of sexual immorality, and a man is not, what shall we answer concerning what he said afterward, “And let the husband not put away his wife”? Why did he not add “except for the cause of sexual immorality,” which the Lord permits, unless because he wants a similar pattern to be understood: that if he puts her away (which is permitted for the cause of sexual immorality), he is to remain without a wife or be reconciled to his wife? For a husband would not do ill to be reconciled to a woman like her to whom, when no one had dared to stone her, the Lord said, “Go, and see that you sin no more from now on.” For he too who says, “It is not lawful to put away a wife except for the cause of sexual immorality,” compels one to keep the wife if there is no cause of sexual immorality; but if there is, he does not compel one to put her away, but permits it; just as it is said, “Let it not be lawful for a woman to marry another unless her husband is dead”: if she marries before her husband’s death, she is guilty; if she does not marry after her husband’s death, she is not guilty; for she was not commanded to marry, but permitted. If, then, there is an equal pattern in this law of marriage between man and woman, so much so that the same Apostle not only said of the woman, “The woman does not have power over her own body, but the husband,” but also did not keep silent about him, saying, “Likewise the husband too does not have power over his own body, but the wife”: if, then, the pattern is similar, it must not be understood that a woman is allowed to put away her husband except for the cause of sexual immorality, just as with the man.

It must be considered, therefore, how far we ought to understand sexual immorality, and the Apostle is to be consulted, as we had begun. For he goes on and says, “But to the rest I say, not the Lord.” Here we must first see to which “rest”: for above he was speaking in the person of the Lord to those who are married, but now he speaks in his own person to the rest; so perhaps to those who are not married? But this does not follow. For he adds thus: “If any brother has an unbelieving wife, and she consents to live with him, let him not put her away.” So even now he speaks to those who are married. What then does he mean by “to the rest,” unless that above he was speaking to those who were so joined that both were alike in the faith of Christ, but now he speaks to the rest, that is, to those who are so joined that not both are believers? But what does he say to them? “If any brother has an unbelieving wife, and she consents to live with him, let him not put her away; and if any woman has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to live with her, let her not put away her husband.” If, then, he does not command in the person of the Lord but admonishes in his own person, this is good in such a way that if anyone does otherwise he is not a transgressor of a precept; just as he says of virgins a little later that he has no precept of the Lord but gives counsel; and he praises virginity in such a way that whoever wishes may embrace it, yet not so that, if one does not, he is judged to have acted against a precept. For one thing is commanded, another is counselled, another is pardoned. The woman is commanded not to depart from her husband, and if she departs, to remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband: so it is not lawful to do otherwise. But the believing husband, if he has an unbelieving wife who consents to live with him, is counselled not to put her away: so it is lawful also to put her away, because it is not a precept of the Lord that he should not put her away, but counsel of the Apostle; just as a virgin is counselled not to marry, but if she marries, she will indeed not keep the counsel, but will not act against a precept. Something is pardoned when it is said, “But this I say by way of concession, not of command.” Wherefore, if it is lawful for an unbelieving spouse to be put away, although it is better not to put away, and yet according to the Lord’s precept it is not lawful for a spouse to be put away except for the cause of sexual immorality, then unbelief itself is also sexual immorality.

For what do you say, Apostle? Surely that a believing husband should not put away an unbelieving wife who consents to live with him? “Yes,” he says. Since, then, the Lord too commands this, that a husband should not put away his wife except for the cause of sexual immorality, why do you say here, “I say, not the Lord”? Because, of course, the idolatry which unbelievers follow, and any harmful superstition, is sexual immorality. And the Lord permitted a wife to be put away for the cause of sexual immorality; but because he permitted and did not command it, he gave room to the Apostle to counsel that whoever wished should not put away an unbelieving wife, so that thus perhaps she might become a believer. “For the unbelieving husband,” he says, “is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the brother.” I believe it had already happened that some women came to the faith through believing husbands, and men through believing wives; and though not naming names, he nevertheless exhorted by examples to confirm his counsel. Then follows: “Otherwise your children would be unclean; but now they are holy.” For there were already Christian little ones who had been sanctified either on the initiative of one of the parents or with both consenting; which would not happen if the marriage were dissolved as soon as one believed, and the unbelief of the spouse were not borne until there was opportunity to believe. This, then, is the counsel of him to whom I believe it was said, “Whatever you spend beyond this, I will repay you when I return.”

Further, if unbelief is sexual immorality, and idolatry is unbelief, and greed is idolatry, it is not to be doubted that greed too is sexual immorality. Who then can rightly separate any unlawful desire whatever from the class of sexual immorality, if greed is sexual immorality? From this it is understood that on account of unlawful desires, not only those which are committed in illicit intercourse with other men or women, but any whatever which make the soul, misusing the body, stray from the law of God and be ruinously and shamefully corrupted, a husband can put away his wife without crime, and a wife her husband: because the Lord makes the cause of sexual immorality an exception; and this sexual immorality, as was considered above, we are compelled to understand as general and universal.

But when he says, “except for the cause of sexual immorality,” he did not say whose, the husband’s or the wife’s. For not only is it permitted to put away a wife who commits sexual immorality; but whoever puts away that wife too by whom he himself is compelled to commit sexual immorality certainly puts her away for the cause of sexual immorality. For instance, if a wife compels someone to sacrifice to idols, he who puts away such a wife puts her away for the cause of sexual immorality, not only hers but his own: hers, because she commits sexual immorality; his own, so that he may not commit it. But nothing is more unjust than to put away a wife for the cause of sexual immorality if he himself is also convicted of committing sexual immorality. For that saying comes to mind, “For in that in which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you do the same things that you judge.” Wherefore whoever wishes to cast off his wife for the cause of sexual immorality ought first to be cleansed of sexual immorality himself; and I would say the same likewise of the woman.

As for his saying, “Whoever marries a woman released from her husband commits adultery,” it can be asked whether, as he who marries commits adultery, so also does she whom he marries. For she too is commanded to remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband; but “if she departs,” he says, “from her husband.” Yet there is much difference whether she puts away or is put away. For if she has put away her husband and married another, she seems to have left her former husband out of a desire to change her marriage, which is without doubt an adulterous thought. But if she is put away by the husband with whom she desired to be, he who marries her indeed commits adultery, according to the Lord’s sentence; but whether she too is held by such a crime is uncertain. Although it can much less be found how, when a man and a woman unite with each other by equal consent, one of them is an adulterer and the other is not. Add to this that if he commits adultery by marrying her who has been released from her husband, even though she did not put away but was put away, she causes him to commit adultery, which the Lord nonetheless forbids. From this it is gathered that, whether she has been put away or has put away, she ought to remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband.

Again it is asked whether, if with his wife’s permission (whether she is barren or unwilling to endure intercourse) a husband takes to himself another woman, not another’s wife nor separated from a husband, he can be without the crime of sexual immorality. In the history of the Old Testament, indeed, an example is found; but now the precepts are greater, to which the human race has come through that stage; those things are to be handled in order to distinguish the ages of the dispensation of divine providence, which comes to the aid of the human race in a most orderly way, but not in order to appropriate rules of living. But yet, whether what the Apostle says, “The woman does not have power over her own body, but the husband; likewise the husband too does not have power over his own body, but the wife,” can be valid to such an extent that, with the permission of the wife, who has power over the husband’s body, the husband can lie with another woman who is neither another’s wife nor separated from her husband: but it is not to be thought so, lest the woman too should seem able to do this with her husband’s permission, which everyone’s sense excludes.

Although some cases can arise where the wife too, with her husband’s consent, might seem obliged to do this for the husband’s own sake, as is reported to have happened at Antioch about fifty years ago, in the time of Constantius. For Acyndinus, then prefect, who was also consul, when he was demanding from a certain man a debt of a pound of gold owed to the treasury, moved by I know not what (which is often dangerous in these powers to whom anything is permitted, or rather is thought to be permitted), threatened, swearing and vehemently affirming, that if he did not pay the said gold on a certain day that he had fixed, he would be put to death. And so, while he was held in cruel custody and could not free himself of that debt, the dreaded day began to threaten and draw near. And as it happened, he had a very beautiful wife, but without any money with which to help her husband. When a certain rich man had been inflamed by this woman’s beauty and had learned that her husband was set in that peril, he sent to her, promising that he would give a pound of gold for one night, if she would consent to lie with him. Then she, knowing that she did not have power over her own body, but her husband did, carried the matter to him, saying that she was ready to do this for her husband, provided that he himself, the lord of the conjugal body to whom all that chastity was owed, wished it to be done, as with his own property, for the sake of his life. He thanked her and commanded that it be done, in no way judging it to be an adulterous union, since no lust but the great love of her husband demanded it at his own command and will. The woman came to that rich man’s villa; the shameless man did what he wished; but she gave her body only to her husband, who desired not to lie with her, as is usual, but to live. She received the gold; but he who gave it fraudulently withdrew what he had given and substituted a similar bundle with earth. When the woman, now back at home, found this, she rushed out in public, ready to cry out what she had done with the same love for her husband by which she had been compelled to do it: she appeals to the prefect, confesses everything, shows the fraud she had suffered. Then indeed the prefect first pronounces himself guilty, because matters had come to this through his threats, and, as if passing sentence on another, declares that a pound of gold be paid into the treasury from the goods of Acyndinus, and that the woman be put in possession as owner of that land from which she had received earth instead of gold. I argue nothing from this one way or the other; let each judge as he wishes; for the story is not drawn from divine authorities. But yet, when the deed is told, human sense does not so reject what was done in that woman at her husband’s command as we shuddered before, when the matter itself was put without any example.

But in this passage of the Gospel nothing is to be considered more seriously than that the evil of sexual immorality is so great that, while marriages are bound together by so great a bond, this one cause of dissolution has been excepted; and what sexual immorality is has now been treated.

“Again,” he says, “you have heard that it was said to those of old, You shall not swear falsely, but you shall render your oath to the Lord. But I say to you, do not swear at all, neither by heaven, for it is the throne of God; nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of his feet; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King; nor shall you swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your speech be, Yes, yes; No, no; whatever is more than this is from evil.” The righteousness of the Pharisees is not to swear falsely; he who forbids swearing, which pertains to the righteousness of the kingdom of heaven, confirms it. For just as he who does not speak cannot speak falsely, so he who does not swear cannot swear falsely. But yet, since he swears who calls God as witness, this passage must be carefully considered, lest the Apostle seem to have acted against the Lord’s precept, who often swore in this way, when he says, “What I write to you, behold, before God, I do not lie”; and again, “The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever, knows that I do not lie.” Such too is this: “For God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel of his Son, how without ceasing I always make mention of you in my prayers.” Unless perhaps someone says that an oath is to be reckoned only when something is named by which one swears, so that he has not sworn, because he did not say “by God,” but said “God is witness.” It is ridiculous to think this; yet on account of the contentious or the very slow, lest anyone think there is some difference, let him know that the Apostle swore in this way too, saying, “I die daily, by your glorying.” And lest anyone think this was said as if it meant “Your glorying makes me die daily,” as one says, “By his teaching he was made learned,” that is, it came about by his teaching that he was perfectly taught, the Greek copies decide it, in which is written Νὴ τὴν ὑμετέραν καύχησιν, which is said only by one who swears. So it is understood that the Lord commanded us not to swear, lest anyone seek an oath as a good thing and, through readiness to swear, slide by habit into perjury. Wherefore he who understands that swearing is to be reckoned not among good things but among necessary ones should restrain himself as far as he can, so as not to use it except from necessity, when he sees that men are slow to believe what it is useful for them to believe unless it is confirmed by an oath. To this, then, pertains what is said: “But let your speech be, Yes, yes; No, no”: this is good and to be sought. “Whatever is more than this is from evil”; that is, if you are compelled to swear, know that it comes from the necessity of the weakness of those whom you are persuading of something; and this weakness is certainly an evil, from which we pray daily to be delivered when we say, “Deliver us from evil.” And so he did not say, “Whatever is more than this is evil”; for you do not do evil when you make good use of an oath, which, though not good, is yet necessary to persuade another of what you usefully urge; but “it is from evil,” the evil of him by whose weakness you are compelled to swear. But no one knows, except one who has experienced it, how difficult it is both to extinguish the habit of swearing and never to do rashly what necessity sometimes compels one to do.

But it may be asked why, when it was said, “But I say to you, do not swear at all,” there was added, “neither by heaven, for it is the throne of God,” and the rest, up to the words “nor by your head.” I believe it is because the Jews did not think they were bound by an oath if they swore by these things; and since they had heard, “But you shall render your oath to the Lord,” they did not think they owed their oath to the Lord if they swore by heaven or earth, or by Jerusalem, or by their head: which happened not through the fault of the one who commanded, but because they understood badly. And so the Lord teaches that nothing among God’s creatures is so cheap that anyone should think he may swear falsely by it, since created things from the highest to the lowest are ruled by divine providence, beginning from the throne of God down to a white or black hair. “Neither by heaven,” he says, “for it is the throne of God; nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of his feet”: that is, when you swear by heaven or earth, do not think that you do not owe your oath to the Lord; for you are shown to swear by him whose throne heaven is and whose footstool the earth is. “Nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King”: better than if he said “mine,” though he is understood to have meant this. And since he himself is certainly the Lord, he who swears by Jerusalem owes his oath to the Lord. “Nor shall you swear by your head.” For what could anyone think belonged more to himself than his own head? But how is it ours, when we do not have the power to make a single hair white or black? Therefore whoever wishes to swear even by his own head owes the oath to God, who holds all things ineffably and is present everywhere; and here the rest also are understood, which certainly could not all be mentioned; as we recalled that saying of the Apostle, “I die daily, by your glorying”; and to show that he owed this oath to the Lord, he added, “which I have in Christ Jesus.”

Yet (I say this for the sake of the carnal) one must not suppose, because heaven is called the throne of God and the earth the footstool of his feet, that God has members placed in heaven and on earth as we do when we sit; rather, that seat signifies judgment. And since in this whole body of the universe heaven has the greatest beauty and the earth the least, as if the divine power were more present to surpassing beauty, yet ordered the least in the outermost and lowest parts, he is said to sit in heaven and to tread the earth. Spiritually, however, the name of heaven signifies holy souls, and that of earth sinful ones; and since the spiritual man judges all things but is himself judged by no one, he is fittingly called the seat of God; but the sinner, to whom it was said, “You are earth, and to earth you shall go,” since he is set among the lowest by the justice that assigns to deserts what they deserve, and he who was unwilling to remain in the law is punished under the law, is fittingly taken as the footstool of his feet.