Skip to content

S22 reasoning: Marriage, divorce and remarriage

Reasoning steps: Marriage, divorce and remarriage

Verdicts: S22 · Marriage, divorce and remarriage. Method: conventions, scoring and proximity eras. Scripture is the primary measure; fathers are weighed by era (Era I to c. 150 = 1.0, II = 0.8, III = 0.6, IV = 0.4).

S22.1: Divorce for adultery, and remarriage of the innocent party

Step S22.1.1: Scripture

Matt 19:9: ‘whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality (μὴ ἐπὶ πορνείᾳ), and marries another, commits adultery’; Matt 5:32 likewise; Mark 10:11–12 and Luke 16:18 give no exception; 1 Cor 7:15: if the unbeliever departs, ’the brother or sister is not enslaved’. In first-century Jewish usage a lawful divorce normally freed the parties to remarry, which favours reading the exception as covering remarriage; the absolute sayings in Mark and Luke and Rom 7:3 keep the point disputed.

Step S22.1.2: Patristic evidence

Hermas (Era I): the husband ‘should put her away, and remain by himself’. Athenagoras (Era II): even ‘a second marriage is only a specious adultery’. Origen (Era II–III) reports that ‘some even of the rulers of the church have permitted a woman to marry, even when her husband was living, doing contrary to what was written’. Basil (Era III): ’the man who has been abandoned is pardonable’. Augustine (Era III): marriage is not to be severed and the divorced are not to be ‘joined to another’. Sources: hermas-s22-s1 · origen-s22-s1 · basil-s22-s1 · augustine-s22-s1.

Step S22.1.3: Weighing decision

Era I–II allow separation for adultery but not remarriage; Origen shows remarriage was already practised by some bishops and judged contrary to Scripture. Era III divides: Basil tolerates a deserted husband’s remarriage as ‘pardonable’; Augustine forbids remarriage while the spouse lives. Verdict: the early consensus is separation without remarriage; Eastern pastoral tolerance appears in Era III; Scripture’s exception clause probably permits more than the fathers allowed.

  • Confidence: Medium.

Step S22.1.4: Source-proximity weighing

  • Scripture (benchmark): Matt 5:32 and 19:9 allow divorce for πορνεία and, read in their Jewish setting, probably remarriage; 1 Cor 7:15 frees the deserted believer; Mark 10 and Luke 16 state the rule without the exception. (Scripture confidence: medium)
  • Assessment: Here Scripture and the earliest fathers diverge: the fathers are stricter than the most natural reading of Matthew’s exception. Traditions that forbid remarriage fit Era I–II; those allowing the innocent party to remarry fit Scripture better.

S22.2: Is marriage a sacrament?

Step S22.2.1: Scripture

‘This mystery (μυστήριον; Vulgate sacramentum) is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church’ (Eph 5:32). Marriage is a creation ordinance (Gen 2:24; Matt 19:4–6) that images Christ and the church; Scripture does not present it as a rite instituted by Christ to give grace.

Step S22.2.2: Patristic evidence

Tertullian (Era II–III): the marriage ‘which the Church cements, and the oblation confirms, and the benediction signs and seals’. Augustine (Era III): one of marriage’s goods is ’the Sacrament, that marriage be not severed’. Sources: tertullian-s22-s1 · augustine-s22-s2.

Step S22.2.3: Weighing decision

Era II–III show church blessing of marriage and call its bond a sacramentum, but no one before 750 counts sacraments as seven; that list is 12th-century. Verdict: marriage is a holy, church-blessed bond and a ‘sacrament’ in Augustine’s sense (a sacred, indissoluble sign) from Era III; its status as one of seven grace-giving sacraments is a later definition.

  • Confidence: Medium.

Step S22.2.4: Source-proximity weighing

  • Scripture (benchmark): Eph 5:32 calls the Christ–church union a ‘mystery’ imaged by marriage; marriage is a creation ordinance, not a rite instituted by Christ. (Scripture confidence: medium)
  • Assessment: The fathers’ ‘sacrament’ language supports a sacred view of marriage without the later seven-sacrament definition; Protestant denials fit Scripture’s creation-ordinance framing.

Post-750 development by tradition

Catholic

Trent XXIV (1563): marriage a sacrament and indissoluble; separation allowed.

  • S22.1 (fathers 4/4; Scripture 2/4): Trent XXIV canon 7 anathematizes the claim that the bond can be ‘dissolved on account of the adultery of one of the married parties’ or that the innocent party may remarry (verified).
  • S22.2 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 2/4): Trent XXIV canon 1: matrimony is ’truly and properly one of the seven sacraments of the evangelic law … instituted by Christ’ and confers grace (verified).

Orthodox

Second and third marriages by economy, with a penitential rite.

  • S22.1 (fathers 2/4; Scripture 2/4): OCA Holy Synod, ‘On Marriage’: second and third marriages ‘are tolerated as condescension to human frailty and weakness, while fourth marriages are totally forbidden’; the ‘Order of Second Marriage’ is used (verified); grounds go beyond adultery.
  • S22.2 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 2/4): Dositheus, decree 15: ’there are in the Church Evangelical Mysteries … and that they are seven’, matrimony among them (verified).

Oriental Orthodox

Coptic discipline: divorce for adultery only (since 1944, restated 2008).

  • S22.1 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 3/4): Coptic Church: ’no divorce has been permitted within the Coptic community except in cases of adultery’ since 1944 (Pope Shenouda III, 2010, Coptic Diocese of Los Angeles report, verified); remarriage of the innocent party was not separately verified.
  • S22.2 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 2/4): Coptic Church (Bishop Mettaous): the seven sacraments include the ‘Sacrament of Matrimony’ (verified).

Lutheran

Treatise on the Power and Primacy 78.

  • S22.1 (fathers 1/4; Scripture 4/4): Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope: ‘Unjust also is the tradition which forbids an innocent person to marry after divorce’ (verified).
  • S22.2 (fathers n/a/4; Scripture n/a/4): Not assessed: the Lutheran statement on marriage as a sacrament (Apology XIII) was not located in the texts checked.

Anglican

Canon 107 (1604); the 1662 vow ’till death us do part’.

  • S22.1 (fathers 4/4; Scripture 2/4): Canons of 1604, canon 107: those separated ‘shall live chastely and continently, neither shall they, during each other’s life, contract matrimony with any other person’ (verified as quoted in Hansard, 3 June 1830).
  • S22.2 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 4/4): Art. XXV: Matrimony is among ’those five commonly called Sacraments’ that ‘are not to be counted for Sacraments of the Gospel’, being ‘states of life allowed in the Scriptures’ (verified).

Presbyterian

WCF XXIV.5–6.

  • S22.1 (fathers 1/4; Scripture 4/4): WCF XXIV.5–6: after adultery the innocent party may ‘sue out a divorce: and, after the divorce, to marry another’; also ‘wilful desertion as can no way be remedied’ (verified).
  • S22.2 (fathers 2/4; Scripture 4/4): WCF XXVII.4: ‘There be only two sacraments ordained by Christ our Lord in the Gospel’ (verified).

Reformed Baptist

1689 ch. 25 (silent).

  • S22.1 (fathers n/a/4; Scripture n/a/4): Not assessed: 1689 ch. 25 has only four paragraphs and omits the WCF divorce paragraphs, so no position is stated (verified).
  • S22.2 (fathers 2/4; Scripture 4/4): 1689 28.1: only baptism and the Lord’s Supper are ‘ordinances of positive and sovereign institution’ (verified).

General Baptist

Orthodox Creed art. 47.

  • S22.1 (fathers n/a/4; Scripture n/a/4): Not addressed: Orthodox Creed (1679) art. XLVII (Of Marriage) treats monogamy, consent and degrees, with no divorce clause (verified).
  • S22.2 (fathers 2/4; Scripture 4/4): Orthodox Creed (1679) art. XXVII: ‘These two Sacraments, (viz.) Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper, are Ordinances of Positive, Sovereign, and holy Institution’ (verified, reformedontheweb.com transcription).

Anabaptist

Dordrecht XII.

  • S22.1 (fathers 1/4; Scripture 4/4): Menno Simons, Instruction on Excommunication: ‘divorce is not allowed by the Scripture only by reason of adultery’ (CCEL, verified); Wismar Resolutions (1554), as quoted in GAMEO ‘Divorce and Remarriage’: ‘In cases of deliberate adultery, the innocent party may be free to remarry after consulting with the congregation’ (reputable scholarship).
  • S22.2 (fathers 2/4; Scripture 4/4): Dordrecht XII: ’the state of matrimony’, instituted ‘in Paradise’, without sacramental language (verified).