Divorce and Remarriage BY The Right Reverend WILLIAM CROSWELL DOANE, D.D. THE HE Church represents three distinct shades of thought and conviction upon this very important question. First, of those who are convinced that there can be no remarriage after divorce for any cause during the lifetime of the other party to the marriage. Secondly, of those who so far doubt the legality, that they dare not give such a marriage the sanction of the Church, and yet so far admit the possibility of the authenticity and intention of our Lord's words regarding a divorce for unfaithfulness, as to be unable positively to declare its illegality. And thirdly, of those who are so clear of the exception as divinely allowed, that they think it warrants the giving of the sanction and of the Sacraments of the Church in the case of this one remarriage. Three wide lines of difference, clearly drawn, strongly held, earnestly urged. I believe, however, that more and more examination and education will bring our Church to recognize and realize that the only safety for the sacredness of marriage, the purity of society, the protection of the family and the sanctity of the home, is to refuse the sanction of the Church to all remarriage of divorced persons, guilty or innocent, for whatever cause. In the study of this subject, before I come to the crucial difficulty of text and interpretations, there are two undisputed and I think indisputable facts, namely, that during two marked and important periods of the history of the Church, the law and use about remarriage are positive and clear. One of these periods is Primitive and the other is English. When Mr. Gladstone said in 1857 that divorce with remarriage was unknown in Christendom for 300 years; and when Mr. Keble wrote and proved that there was almost a consensus patrum until A. D. 314 on the absolute inviolability of marriage, they were asserting, after minute investigation, an indisputable fact. The references in Mr. Keble's “sequel to his argument that the nuptial bond is indissoluble" begin with St. Paul's strong statements and end with the fortyseventh Apostolic Canon, including the testimony of Hermas, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian and Origen, so covering "the whole of Christendom" according to its bounds in that age, the East, Egypt, Africa and Rome. Quotations from the canons of Eliberis A. D. 305 to 313, and the canon of Arles A. D. 314, at which council two or perhaps three British Bishops were present, exhibit the same principle acting in Spain and in Gaul. I shall hope to have the opportunity, in some day of larger leisure, to collect and publish these authorities. Meanwhile, because Mr. Keble's statements need no verifying, we may assume them to be true. This brings us down to a marked and momentous period in the Christian Story, which may be variously described as the time when Constantine became Christianized or when Christianity became Constantinized. Certain it is that the first departure from the old rule is to be found in the Divine Institutions of Lactantius, tutor to Constantine's son, which contain the statement that the tie of the marriage covenant may never be undone except when it is broken by faithlessness; and again, that he is an adulterer who, except for the cause of adultery, hath dismissed his wife to marry another. It is to be noted as marking the danger of departure from the strict rule, that within seven years after this, when Constantine promulgated his law of divorce, which was a civil and not an ecclesiastical rescript, it included four other grounds of legal divorce, murder, sorcery, the violation of graves, pandering to unchastity in others. And it is to be noted also that the Bishops most in favour at court at this time, were those who were known either as Arians or Indifferentists. The second undisputed fact is that the Church of England, in her canons and in her customs, following the course of her Bishops in the Council of Arles, from the Norman Conquest, through the Reformation and down to the present day, has never recognized divorce with the right of remarriage. This was true also of the civil law of England until forty years ago. The primitive and the Anglican authority therefore are in entire accord, and altogether on the side of the indissolubility of the marriage bond except by death. Between these two points, the Primitive and the Anglican, what occurs? In the East, Erastianism, going from bad to worse, from one to four, from four to sixteen causes of divorce. And in the West, what has been called by an admirable collocation of adjectives, though sometimes misapplied, a course of conduct, “Latin and disingenuous." That is, the Roman Church has in the letter of her laws upheld nobly and boldly the sanctity of marriage but, after her manner, she has managed, by the application of the rite of marriages annulled and of Papal dispensations, to make the law elastic and inclusive, through a list of prohibitions, which made marriages unlawful from the first on grounds. often unknown to the contracting parties, and so to destroy the practical value of her catholic profession. Alas, it is the old story, Romae omnia venalia. One says it with shame and with sorrow because the appearance, the utterance, and in the majority of cases the practical application of the Roman Catholic law, has made divorce difficult and remarriage after it rare. But it leaves the primitive centuries and the English Church for nine hundred years, still, as bearing the most manly and consistent testimony to this great fact. The suggestion that the condition of social morals in Continental countries is an argument against strong laws about marriage and difficulty of divorce has no such application. Because impurity is a matter of climate and race rather than of ecclesiastical relation, as is easily seen by the fact that there are no purer women in the world than the women of Roman Catholic Ireland. If it is true that prominent ministers of other religious bodies have said openly that they were tired of marrying people whom we would not marry, it means that a strong stand taken by this Church will lift the standard of all religious denominations to a higher level. And the time will not be far distant |