Although not constituting in any sense a legal code, the teachings of Jesus have been so fundamental in shaping the ideas and ideals of the Christian Church throughout its entire history and in its relation to the development of Western civilization that we feel justified in including a study of them in this survey.
Marriage, as Jesus viewed it with remarkable historical insight, finds its origin neither in the sanctions of religion nor in civil law, but in the basic fact of sex, which constitutes it an organic rather than a formal union. Thus it is a relation founded upon the basis of natural law. Furthermore it should be remembered that in his day neither the State nor the Jewish Church had as yet arrived at the concept of marriage as a legalized institution, and it was his belief that man should not interfere, either in his legal or in his ecclesiastical capacity, to dissolve this natural relationship which theoretically consisted in a complete merger of personalities. Hence his statement:
"Hath ye not read, that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh? So that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."
Jesus' attitude toward divorce, however, seems to have been influenced profoundly by the conditions of the social life of his age. Powerful influences were making for the disintegration of the family. Jewish divorce scandals were agitating the minds of the people. The Doctors of the Law were divided in their opinions on legal interpretation. John the Baptist had been beheaded for speaking his mind freely on the subject. "For Herod had laid hold on John, and bound him, and put him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife. For John said unto him, It is not lawful for thee to have her . . . and he sent and beheaded John in the prison."
Moreover in Rome the tide of domestic disorder was beyond the control of the law. Against this gloomy and forbidding background of chaotic family life Jesus, as a moral reformer, cast up the alluring picture of the ideal family. Marriage he had defined as a relation creating a physical unity and therefore indissoluble: "Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her: and if she herself shall put away her husband, and marry another, she committeth adultery."
In the two parallel passages from Matthew there is a qualifying clause "except for fornication," but since this exception is not found in Mark and Luke nor in St. Paul's reference to Jesus' teachings on the subject of divorce, and still further because any exception is inconsistent with the former statement, "What therefore God hath joined together let not man put asunder," many Scriptural exegetes believe that this exception was an interpolation inserted by compilers of the Matthew text. At any rate, the Pharisees who were interrogating him, construed his statement as an assertion of the indissolubility of marriage for any cause and challenged his inconsistency with the law of Moses by the query: "Why then did Moses command to give a bill of divorcement, and to put her away?" In defense he was ready with the reply: " Moses for your hardness of heart suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it hath not been so." This latter remark probably was not intended as a historic allusion but as a statement of the principle to which he adhered.
It has been asserted on the theory that he made the exception in the case of adultery, that in his teaching on divorce Jesus did not advance beyond the Jewish theory that divorce was the sole right of the husband, and that this probably was due to the fact that his utterances on this subject were in answer to the question, which it would have occurred to no one to put the other way: "Is it right for a man to put away his wife for every cause?" This assertion overlooks the fact that in his statement as recorded by Mark he assumes that either the husband or the wife may divorce the other, and thereby places them upon an equal footing while he condemned the action of both. This, however, may have been nothing more than an allusion to the practices allowed by Rabbinical interpretation or to the current Roman customs.
The issue of the conflict which has been waged throughout the centuries over the interpretation and application of these recorded teachings of Jesus on the subject of divorce has been one of literalism versus liberalism--a controversy similar in kind to that which we found among the Jews concerning the strict construction of the divorce laws of the Torah or Written Law. The issue there was settled, as we observed, not by formal decision but by the progressive adaptation of the law through judicial interpretation to the needs of a growing civilization.
The question here is, are we warranted in assuming that Jesus intended his teachings on divorce to constitute another Law, abrogating the edicts of his own people in the Torah and in the Talmud on the subject, and constituting an unalterable code for Church and State for all future time? Or, should we assume that he enunciated ideal principles like those of the Sermon on the Mount and the Golden Rule to be worked out in harmony with human experience in the moral struggle of mankind for the actualization of the Kingdom of God on earth?
In response to the question whether the teachings of Jesus constitute an absolute maxim of Christian morals from which there can be no possible deviation, Rev. Newman Smyth says:
"Our answer will depend very much on two considerations. The first will be our general habit of reading the New Testament as another law, or of interpreting its precepts to the best of our understanding in what we may judge to have been the spirit in which they were spoken, remembering the Master's own saying that his words are spirit and they are life. The other consideration will be our confidence in the correctness of the premise that the special sin alleged, by which the marriage union has been violated, is the full moral equivalent of adultery."
Summarizing a wide range of views it seems possible to reduce them to three fairly typical attitudes:
First, that Jesus evidently intended his declarations on divorce to be accepted and applied literally, and without modification on the basis of his divine authority both in the doctrines and discipline of the Church and in civil legislation as the "secular arm" of the Church in so far as the Church has power to secure that result.
This is substantially the position taken by the Roman Catholic Church and in much of the ecclesiastical legislation of Protestant Churches.
Second, that the State has its own separate and legitimate sphere of secular control, and since its primary function is the preservation of the public order and the promotion of the temporal well-being of its citizens it is proper to concede to it the right to declare marriage a civil contract and to grant divorces upon such grounds as it may decree in what it may regard as the best and most enlightened interests of society.
This represents the view of those who hold that the Church functions predominantly, if not exclusively, in the domain of spiritual matters and exercises its control alone over its adherents.
Third, that Jesus did not commit himself to any definite political or ecclesiastical policy and that he did not intend, in expressing his views on divorce, any more than he did upon any other subject of economic, political, or social importance, to legislate either for the Church or for the State, but that he enunciated great ethical principles as standards of both individual and social behavior, here as in every other domain of human interest. From this it follows that, while the duty of religious leaders is clear in the matter of upholding high ideals in regard to marriage and the family as among the most important concerns of life, the Church may not legitimately insist in his name upon the incorporation of any interpretation of his views into State or ecclesiastical codes except as it applies them to other moral questions such as temperance, truthfulness, chastity, and the like.
This last may be regarded as a dangerous doctrine by some, but it finds increasing adherence on the part of many of the most progressive religious and moral leaders of modern times.
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