Erasmian View
Three Major Variations
Contemporary supporters of the Erasmian view that divorced Christians may remarry fall into several camps. First, there are those, like J. Murray,’ who adhere to the view that only adultery or desertion justifies full divorce with the ri
gLht to remarriage.
Second, there are those, like D. Atkinson, who claim that
‘unchastity’ (porneiu) is a very much wider term than ‘adultery’
and therefore that Matthew 19: 9 permits divorce and remarriage for a wide range of sins. Third, there is an older critical view3 which argues that although the present text of Matthew permits remarriage after divorce, this was not Jesus’ original intention.
Jesus taught that marriage was indissoluble, but the evangelist Matthew modified this teaching to allow full divorce in some hard cases.
We shall postpone examining the third view because it only becomes viable if it can be shown that either of the other two views is correct. Although it offers a way of harmonising the New Testament divorce sayings, it does so at the expense of the unity of the message, setting the teaching of our Lord and of Paul against that of Matthew. This is somewhat improbable in itself, and the more so when it is considered that Matthew’s Gospel was the most often read in the early church, yet the same church was firmly opposed to remarriage after divorce. It makes the evangel- ist Matthew very much the odd man out if he is sandwiched chronologically between Jesus, Paul, Mark and Luke before him and all the Fathers after him. Furthermore, as the more recent redactional critical studies have shown, it is most improbable that
88 JESUS AND DIVORCE MODERN DEFENCES OF THE ERASMIAN VIEW 89 Matthew 19: 9 should be understood in an Erasmian sense: the
immediately following remarks in verses lo-12 show Matthew was not contemplating the possibility of remarriage after divorce.
For these reasons we will concentrate our attention on the first two alternatives.
Indeed, most of our attention will be directed to the first view, namely, that Matthew 19: 9 permits divorce and remarriage for adultery alone: ‘unchastity’ (porneia) is taken as synonymous with adultery (moicheia). For although it seems likely that unchastity covers more offences than adultery, only proponents of the adultery view have really tried to prove that Matthew 19:9 Rermits remarriage after divorce. And this is the key issue. As we ave already seen, the early church permitted separation for adultery, but it did not permit remarriage. So whatever ‘unchas- tity’ covers, the point that modern Erasmians must demonstrate is that Matthew 19: 9 demands the right of remarriage for post- marital offences. If, however, supporters of the Erasmian view concede their view is onZy Ooze
of a
number of interpretations, then it becomes highly improbable that it is the most primitive one, given the consensus of the rest of the New Testament and the views of the early church Fathers.Contemporary Support for the Erasmian View
There are two pillars which support the superstructure of the Erasmian view today. The first is the belief that the divorce which Jesus spoke about was the Mosaic dissolution divorce, and the second is the understanding that the exception clause qualifies the entire protasis of Matthew 19:9 (= ‘Whoever divorces his wife. . . and marries another’), thus permitting both divorce and remarriage of the innocent party in the case of unchastity. This second argument appears to replace the exegetical basis for remarriage which the Reformers found in the legal fiction that the adulterer should be considered as dead. A discussion of the weaker lines of support will follow consideration of the two major pillars.
We should inform our readers here at the beginning of this presentation of the modern support for the Erasmian view that we shalI be drawing largely on the work of Murray. For just as
Erasmus established the exegetical base that was later developed by the Reformers, so Murray’s study laid the groundwork which more recent writers have built upon. What is said about Murray’s interpretation for the most part may be said of the other writers who champion his understanding of the Matthean exception clauses.4
The Deuteronomy
24: l-4Dissolution Divorce
One of Murray’s crucial arguments in support of the Erasmian view is that ‘the dissolution permitted or tolerated under the Mosaic economy had the effect of dissolving the marriage bond’.5 Since this is the divorce Jesus alluded to in Mark 10: 2-12, and especially in Matthew 5: 32 and 19: 9,
. . we are surely justified in concluding that the putting away sanctioned by our Lord was intended to have the same effect in the matter of dissolving the marriage tie. It should be appreciated that the law as enunciated here by Jesus does not in any way suggest any alteration in the nature and effect of divorce. The change intimated by Jesus was rather the abolition of every other reason permitted in the Mosaic provisions and the distinct specification that adultery was now the only ground upon which a man could legitimately put away his wife.6
Murray then concludes that if divorce involves the dissolution of the marriage bond we should not expect that remarriage would be regarded as adultery. Further support for this belief is that the word apolyd (let go, send away, dismiss) in the gospel divorce passages has turned up in the clear sense of ‘divorce’ in a Greek document of remarriage from Palestine.7
Murray is careful in his exegesis of Deuteronomy 24: 1-4 not to characterise the wife’s second marriage as adulterous. For if the second marriage falls into the category of disapproval - the second marriage being tantamount to adultery - then he would have to carry into the New Testament this idea that a second marriage is adulterous despite the fact that a legal divorce has transpired. This would hint that remarriage after a legal or proper New Testament divorce (i.e., for immorality) is also adulterous.
This is precisely what Murray argues against by bringing into the New Testament his conception of the dissolution divorce which he finds in Deuteronomy 24. Yet Murray observes the reason
90 JESUS AND DIVORCE MODERN DEFENCES OF THE ERASMIAN VIEW 91 the divorced wife may not return to her first husband after
a second marriage is that by her second marriage she has be- come ‘defiled’. This defilement seems to be placed in a negative light.
Murray then brings to our attention the unique relationship that persists between the original couple even after divorce:
The second marriage effects an unobliterable separation from the first husband. This implies a unique relation to the first husband and demonstrates that the marriage bond is so sacred that, although divorce may be given and a certain freedom granted to the divorced persons, yet there is an unobliterable relationship that appears, para- doxically enough, in the form of an unobliterable separation in the event that a second marriage has been consummated on the part of the divorced wife.’
Murray concludes his discussion of Deuteronomy 24 with a strong emphasis on what divorce does to the first marriage.
The one insurmountable obstacle to the marriage of this particular woman with this particular man is not that the woman had been married to another man but simply that the particular man concerned is the man from whom she had been divorced. It is the fact of divorce that bears the whole onus of ultimate responsibility for the defilement that is sure to enter when the first marriage is restored after a second had been consummated.’
In other words, the divorce, not the second marriage, bears the whole blame for the defilement which takes place in the event the wife returns to her former husband.
What the Matthean Exception Clause Qualifies
Murray’s second line of defence for the Erasmian view arises from his understanding of the function of the exception clause.
He holds that it qualifies both what precedes it (‘whoever div- orces his wife’) and what follows it (‘and marries another’). His argument falls into two parts. First, he discusses the nature of exceptions to general statements in Greek syntax, and second, the need to maintain the co-ordination of divorce and remarriage if the sentence as a whole is to make sense. The latter point is the mainstay of the Erasmian view as it is defended today just as the
Reformers’ belief that the adulterer should be considered as dead was the mainstay of their exegetical tradition.
Murray attempts to show that it should be obvious that the divorce in Matthew 19: 9 clearly covers permission to remarry also; or at least that it is grammatically harsh to make the exception clause qualify only putting away the wife and not also the remarriage portion. He then allows that it is surely true that
‘an exception clause is sometimes used in the Greek to intimate
“an exception to something that is more general than that which has actually been mentioned”‘.” Matthew 12: 4, Romans 14: 14 and probably Galatians 1:9 do this through the use of ei me (except, unless). l1 In Matthew 19:9 this would mean that the negated prepositional phrase, mP epi porneiu (not on the grounds of unchastity), would not be an exception to the principle that whoever puts away his wife and marries another commits adul- tery, but simply an exception to the principle that a man may not put away his wife - he may put her away for unchastity, but if he remarries he still commits adultery. Murray admits that this rendering makes good sense and solves many difficulties in harmonising Matthew with Mark and Luke, but he argues that there are weighty reasons for rejecting it.
To begin with, he observes that if the exception clause is
. . . not an exception to that which is expressly stated but an exception to another closely related and more general consideration [i.e., connected only to ‘put away’ versus to ‘put away and remarry’], then this is a most unusual, if not unparallelled, way of expressing it
* . . In other instances the statement of that to which a more general exception is appended is given first in its completeness and then the exception in its completeness follows. But this is not the case here - the exception is inserted before the statement is completed. Analogy does not, therefore, favour this rendering.12
This concludes the first part of his defence. It will be shown in the critique of the above observations that the unusual construction Murray has noted in Matthew 19: 9 actually argues
for
the verysyntactical meaning he thinks it argues against! There are three possible positions the exception clause could have occupied in the conditional portion of Matthew 19: 9 (= the protasis). When Murray notes that the exception clause is inserted before the statement of the protasis as a whole is completed, he intimates that something less than the whole is qualified.13
92 JESUS AND DIVORCE
The second aspect of Murray’s argument has to do with the logical sense the sentence makes depending on which words in the sentence the clause qualifies. He continues by saying that while it is true grammatically that an exception clause may modify one member of a sentence without modifying another, connecting it solely to ‘put away’ without reference to the re- marriage clause results in
. . . nonsense and untruth, namely, ‘whoever puts away his wife except for fornication commits adultery’. In other words, it must be observed that in this sentence as it stands no thought is complete without the principal verb, moichatai [commit adultery]. It is this thought of committing adultery by remarriage that is the ruling thought in this passage, and it is quite indefensible to suppress it. The very exceptive clause, therefore, must have direct bearing upon the action denoted by the verb that governs.14
We should like to ask Murray at this point why he left out ‘and marries another’ after connecting the exception clause solely to
‘put away’. It is his omission of ‘and marries another’ that results in a nonsensical statement, not the fact that the negated prep- ositional phrase may very well qualify only ‘put away’. Dissecting the sentence to suit one’s argument seems inappropriate at this point. Furthermore, it is quite clear in Matthew 5: 27-32 that divorce is seen as a breach of the seventh commandment: i.e., to divorce is tantamount to committing adultery. Once this is accepted it is surely not nonsense to say ‘whoever puts away his wife except for unchastity commits adultery’.
Murray then says that the logion of Matthew 19: 9 must be clearly distinguished from the one in Matthew 5: 32 because in the latter passage only putting away is contemplated, whereas in Matthew 19: 9 it is putting away and remarriage. Thus Matthew 19: 9 must be placed in the same category as the sayings in Mark 10: 11 and Luke 16: 18 which also co-ordinate divorce and remar- riage. This is all mentioned in support of his contention that putting away and remarriage must be dealt with in co-ordination.
He concludes:
The subject dealt with . . . is putting away and remarriage in coordi- nation, and this coordination must not be disturbed in any way. . . It would be unwarranted, therefore, to relate the exceptive clause to anything else than the coordination. Furthermore, the exceptive
MODERN DEFENCES OF THE ERASMIAN VIEW 93 clause is in the natural position [italics ours] with reference to the coordination and with reference to the resulting sin to which it provides an exception.”
Other interpreters would agree with Murray that ‘the natural meaning provides in the unfaithfulness of a wife an exception to what is said both of divorce and of remarriage’.16
Harmonisation with Mark and Luke
Murray resolves the apparent contradiction between the absolute prohibitions found in Mark 10: 11-12 and Luke 16: 18 and the exception in Matthew with three considerations. First, the bur- den of emphasis, he contends, in both Matthew 19: 3-9 and Mark 10:2-12 is upon the abrogation of the Mosaic permission of Deuteronomy 24: 1-4. Since there is no provision for divorce for adultery in the Mosaic law, Jesus must be annulling permission to divorce for other reasons introduced by Deuteronomy. Luke 16: 18 may also be brought into the discussion, and it is clear that
‘there is no exception to the abrogation of the permission implied in Deuteronomy 24: 1-4’.17 J. Job would add that in Luke 16: 18
. . . Jesus is inveighing against the injustices of a man’s world in which a wife could be lightly divorced. One who treated his wife in this way was not only committing adultery against her, but (ironically) encouraging some man to commit adultery against him. In other words, it is not the remarriage of the divorced woman which is condemned; all the fault and the folly lie with the man who dismisses his wife without a cause.18
Secondly, Murray notes the remarkable omission in Mark and Luke of the right of a man to put away his wife for adultery.
However, there is no question about the propriety of such a dismissal which is clearly established by Matthew 5: 32 and 19: 9.
Since one cannot suppose that Mark and Luke intend” to deny such a right, and they do not suggest it is illegitimate, their silence concerning this right does not in any way prejudice the right itself. Nor should their omission of the right of remarriage in case of divorce for adultery prejudice or deny that right.
Finally, ‘since Mark and Luke do not refer to divorce for adultery they could not in the nature of the case refer to the right of remarriage in the event of such a divorce’. Their silence respecting
94 JESUS AND DIVORCE
divorce for adultery precludes any reference to remarriage after such divorce. Murray concludes ‘that Mark and Luke are not envisaging the situation created in the event of adultery and are not reflecting on the rights of the innocent spouse in such a case.‘2o
C. Brown also observes that all three evangelists record the point that the man who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery. In each case he feels it is not the divorce proceedings, but the action which constitutes the break-up of the marriage that is crucial in God’s sight. ‘In each case the starting- point is the marriage that already exists intact. What is con- demned as adulterous is the action which causes the break-up of a marriage for the sake of contracting a new liaison.‘21 Thus Murray, Job and Brown all believe that the primary focus of Jesus’ teaching was against the wrong of divorce and not the wrong of remarriage.
MODERN DEFENCES OF THE ERASMIAN VIEW 95
1 Corinthians 7: IO-l&l5
Present-day advocates of the Erasmian view harmonise Paul’s words on divorce and remarriage to Christian couples in 1 Corinthians 7: lo-11 with Matthew’s exception in the same way in which the Reformers did: a case of separation without the right to remarry is in view. Thus Paul is not here considering divorce for adultery.
1 Corinthians 7: 15, of course, is understood to permit remar- riage to the Christian who is deserted by a non-Christian partner.
It is usually observed that when Paul is speaking about divorce between two Christians (w. 10-11) he makes it very clear that they are to remain single or be reconciled. But there is no such explicit command to remain single when the non-Christian partner has deserted the believer (v. 15).
The lexical arguments in favour of the view that the deserted Christian is permitted to remarry were first presented by R.H.
Charles. He argues that a comparison of 1 Corinthians 7: 15 and 7: 39 suggests some parallel meanings between different words.
Yet if the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave; the brother or sister is not under bondage (doulod) in such cases, but God has called us to peace (1 Cor. 7: 15).
A wife is bound (de0) as long as her husband lives; but if her husband
is dead, she is free (eleuthercx) to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord (1 Cor. 7: 39)
Charles feels that ‘is not under bondage’ in verse 15 has the same meaning as ‘free’ in verse 39. He then adds that ‘free’ has the same meaning in Romans 7: 2-3:
For the married woman is bound (de@ by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. So then if, while her husband is living, she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free (eleutheros) from the law, so that she is not an adulteress, though she is joined to another man.
Charles concludes from the above analysis that ‘is not under bondage’ in verse 15 and ‘free’ ‘appear to have the same meaning.
This fact suggests that the right of remarriage is here conceded to the believing husband or wife who is deserted by an unbeliev- ing partner.‘” H. Ridderbos, in his excellent outline of Paul’s theology, follows a similar line of reasoning.=
We want to point out, however, that whereas 1 Corinthians 7: 15 deals with a situation of divorce where the husband is still living, Romans 7:2-3 and 1 Corinthians 7:39 both refer to a situation of death which Paul clearly says ‘frees’ a person to remarry. Charles may well be mixing apples with oranges here,
Another lexical argument is sometimes advanced as evidence that Paul permits remarriage in the 1 Corinthians 7: 15 situation.
Some writers have asserted that ‘is not under bondage’ (douZoO1 in verse 15 and ‘is bound’ (de0 = ‘of binding by law and duty’)2 in verse 39 have a common root and are therefore etymologically related.25 Thus what is permitted in verse 39 - remarriage - is also permitted in verse 39. This seems confirmed by those who note that deii (v. 39) is ‘a weaker word’ than doulod (v. 15).26 This is taken to mean that the freedom of remarriage given to the deserted Christian in verse 15 is equal to or greater than the freedom given to the Christian whose partner has died (v. 39).
G.L. Archer has recently addressed the problem of desertion in 1 Corinthians 7: 15. He feels that divorce is definitely not permit- ted on the ground of desertion alone. Archer, like Calvin and Theodore Beza before him, notes that when a separation of this sort takes place and continues for some time, the unbelieving