Questions on the Heptateuch

Contents

Only the questions that touch divorce are published: 2.71 (on the commandment against adultery, citing Matt 5:32), 3.61 (on Lev 18:16), 5.33 and 5.34 (on Deut 22:13–29).

Reading pages: 2.71 · 3.61–5.34

1. 2.71Augustine discusses how to divide the Ten Commandments, the difference between adultery and coveting a neighbour's wife, and whether the commandment against adultery also forbids all sexual immorality, citing Matt 5:32.
2. 3.61On Lev 18:16 Augustine asks whether marriage to a brother's wife is forbidden during the brother's life or after his death, and reconciles the law with the levirate command either by excepting the case of a brother who left children or by applying it to a brother's wife put away by a bill of repudiation.
3. 5.33On Deut 22:13–21 Augustine notes that a husband who falsely accuses his wife of not being a virgin is only fined and forbidden ever to put her away, not punished as other false witnesses are, which shows how subject to their husbands the law wished wives to be.
4. 5.34On Deut 22:28–29 Augustine asks why a man who violated an unbetrothed virgin may never put her away, since Moses otherwise permitted a bill of repudiation, and answers that the law denied him this so that the marriage would not be a pretence.