Week 3    Day 3

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The Only Cause for Divorce

Matthew 19:9

“And I say to you that whoever shall send away his wife, except over scortation, and shall marry another, commits adultery; and he who marries her that is sent away commits adultery.”

Conjugial Love 423

[W]hat is meant by scortatory love: The fornicatory love that precedes marriage is not meant... Nor are the mild kinds of adultery meant; nor the graver kinds of which a man actually repents... But here, by the scortatory love opposite to conjugial love is meant the love of adultery when it is such that it is not regarded as a sin, nor as evil, dishonorable, and against reason, but as permissible with reason. This scortatory love not only makes conjugial love the same as itself, but also ruins, destroys, and at length nauseates it.

Conjugial Love 255

That adultery is the cause of divorce. For this there are many reasons, which are in rational light, and yet at this day are concealed. It may be seen from rational light that marriages are holy, and that adulteries are profane; and thus, that marriages and adulteries are diametrically opposite to each other, and that when opposite meets opposite one destroys the other, to the very last spark of its life. It is so with conjugial love when a married man with determination and thus with set purpose commits adultery. With those who know something of heaven and hell these considerations come into a clearer light of reason; for they know that marriages are in heaven and from heaven, and that adulteries are in hell and from hell; and that these two cannot be conjoined, just as heaven cannot be conjoined with hell, and that if they are brought together in a man, heaven instantly departs and hell enters.

This then is the reason why adultery is the cause of divorce. Therefore, the Lord says, “Whoever sends away his wife except for scortation, and marries another, commits adultery” (Mat. 19:9).

He says, if he sends away, except for scortation, and marries another he commits adultery, because sending away for this cause is the complete separation of minds, which is called divorce. But all other sendings away, for their causes, are the separations treated just above. If after these, another wife is married, adultery is committed, but not after divorce.

Another passage that quotes Matthew 19

Conjugial Love 482

That double adultery is that of a husband with the wife of another, or the converse. This is called double adultery because it is committed by two, and by each of them the marriage covenant is violated; wherefore also it is twofold more grievous than [single adultery].

It was said just above at n. 480, that the conjugial love of one man with one wife, after the pact and covenant, unites the souls; and that this union is the love itself in its origin; and that by adultery this is closed and stopped up, like the spring and flow of a fountain. That the souls of two unite themselves when the love of the sex on the part of each is restricted to one of the sex, which takes place when the virgin pledges herself wholly to the young man, and on the other hand the young man pledges himself wholly to the virgin, is very plain from the fact that the lives of both unite themselves; consequently so do the souls, because these are the beginnings of life. There cannot be this union of souls except in monogamous marriages, or marriages of one man with one wife, but not in polygamous marriages, or of a man with more wives than one, because in these the love is divided, while in monogamous marriages it is united.

That in this, its highest seat, conjugial love is spiritual, holy, and pure, is from the cause that the soul of every man by virtue of its origin is heavenly, and therefore receives influx immediately from the Lord, for it receives from Him the marriage of love and wisdom, or of good and truth, and this influx makes him man, and distinguishes him from beasts.

[2] From this union of souls, conjugial love, which is there in its spiritual holiness and purity, flows down into the life of the whole body, and fills it with blessed delights so long as its flow remains open, which it does with those who from the Lord become spiritual.

That nothing else but adultery closes up and stops this seat and origin, or fountain of conjugial love and its flow, is plain from the Lord’s words in Matthew 19:4-9...

When therefore this pure and holy fountain is stopped up, as was said before, it is encompassed with foulness, as a gem with excrement, or as bread with vomit, the very opposite to the purity and holiness of that fountain, or of conjugial love. From this opposition comes conjugial cold, and according to this the wanton pleasure of scortatory love, which spontaneously consumes itself. This is an evil of sin, because what is holy is covered up and its flow into the body is thus obstructed, and there succeeds in its place what is profane, and the flow of this into the body is opened. Thence from being heavenly, man becomes infernal.

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