Wedding at Cana
Duccio di Buoninsegna 1308-11

Outline
I. Introduction
II. New Testament Scripture on Marriage
III. Evidence from the Tradition and the Magisterium
A. First Millennium
B. Second Millennium
IV. The Porneia Clause
V. Objections to the Sacramentality and Indissolubility of Marriage
VI. Implications
VII. Conclusion

I. Introduction

According to the Catholic doctrine, a consummated marriage between two baptized persons is absolutely indissoluble so long as both persons live. Neither the Church nor the State has the power to dissolve the marriage; only the death of one of the spouses dissolves the marriage. And because marriage is exclusive to only one other person at a time, no person who is presently married can marry another person. Therefore, if a married couple acquires a civil divorce from a judge, that divorce is such only in the eyes of the State and its laws. The couple remains truly married before God, and before the Church until one spouse dies, even though the State declares it dissolved and no longer recognizes the marriage. So if upon obtaining a civil divorce one spouse goes before a judge or a Protestant pastor, and ‘marries’ a third party while the other spouse is alive, the new union is not a marriage, even if the State calls it a marriage and treats it like a marriage. Moreover, having sexual relations with a third party, while one’s spouse remains alive, is an act of adultery. For this reason, even if a judge grants a person a legal divorce from his spouse, and he then enters a civil marriage with a third party, every sexual act with that third party is an act of adultery and therefore a grave sin imperiling the souls of those engaged in that act.² As the Catechism explains, no one in such a situation may receive the Eucharist:

Today there are numerous Catholics in many countries who have recourse to civil divorce and contract new civil unions. In fidelity to the words of Jesus Christ – “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery” the Church maintains that a new union cannot be recognized as valid, if the first marriage was. If the divorced are remarried civilly, they find themselves in a situation that objectively contravenes God’s law. Consequently, they cannot receive Eucharistic communion as long as this situation persists. For the same reason, they cannot exercise certain ecclesial responsibilities. Reconciliation through the sacrament of Penance can be granted only to those who have repented for having violated the sign of the covenant and of fidelity to Christ, and who are committed to living in complete continence.³

This doctrine is perceived by many people in our generation as scandalous, because divorce and remarriage have become so commonplace. The notion that divorce allows remarriage is rooted in a fundamental difference between the Protestant and Catholic doctrines concerning marriage. According to the Catholic Church, Christ raised marriage to the dignity of a sacrament. This means, among other things, that Christ did not merely remove Moses’s permission of divorce (Mt. 19:7-8; Mk. 10:3-4) and restore the original order of marriage (Mt. 19:6), while leaving married couples with no additional grace to live the married life. Rather, under the New Covenant the marriage of two baptized persons is accompanied by special grace from God such that the spouses may fulfill their marital and parental responsibilities in union with Christ and His Body, the Church. In this way, Christian marriage is an efficacious sign, communicating to the couple the grace it signifies regarding the indissoluble union of Christ and His Bride, the Church. It also makes Christian marriage (i.e. marriage between two baptized persons) a matter subject to the Church, because sacraments belong fundamentally to the stewardship of the Church.

But one of the Catholic doctrines that the first Protestants rejected is precisely the Catholic teaching that Christ raised marriage to the dignity of a sacrament. The inevitable consequence of this rejection is that in societies sufficiently influenced by Protestantism, marriage comes to be conceived and treated as merely a civil matter, and hence, by default, merely as a legal contract. As the Catholic Encyclopedia article on “Divorce” states regarding the practice and belief of the first Protestants, “Jurisdiction in matrimonial affairs was relegated, on principle, to the civil law, and only the blessing of marriage was assigned to the Church.”⁴ Of course many Protestant couples are wedded in a religious ceremony before a pastor in a church building, not before a judge. But because of the Protestant denial of the sacramental character of Christian marriage, what takes place during that ceremony, from the Protestant point of view, is still only the formation of a legal bond, one that the State has the authority to dissolve.⁵ Concerning this, Fr. Peter Elliot wrote,

This sacramental understanding of the papal policy is borne out by the Reformation when the rejection of the sacramentality of Marriage was at the same time a rejection of indissolubility [of marriage]. That the Reformers and their successors gave way to social and political pressure must be balanced by their loss of the sacramental understanding of man and woman. In their view of fallen human nature, male and female did not have the capacity or dignity to be able to signify and recapitulate the indissoluble bond of Christ the Bridegroom. This pessimism concerning our nature also struck out celibacy as “impossible.” It allowed for concessions towards divorce, surrendering to that “hardness of heart” which led Moses to grant the right of divorce (cf. Matthew 19:8).”⁶

But from a Catholic point of view, both the State and Protestant ecclesial communities, by treating marriages that are indissoluble as though they are dissoluble, are allowing and even sanctioning what is in fact adultery. And this is deeply harmful not only to the souls of those persons committing adultery in this way, but also to marriages, families, spouses, children, and society. Anyone concerned about recent State legislation regarding same-sex marriage ought to be much more concerned about State-sanctioned adultery through the rejection of the sacramental character of marriage, because as I will show below, the Protestant rejection of the sacramental character of marriage lies behind and makes possible the more recent same-sex legislation.

So why does the Catholic Church teach that a consummated marriage of two baptized persons is dissolved only by death? The answer is that this is what Christ and the Apostles handed down to us. To see this, we need to examine the evidence both from Scripture and from the Tradition.

II. New Testament Scripture on Marriage

Here I will very briefly set out the relevant passages from the New Testament concerning marriage. I will not discuss the two exception clauses (“except for fornication”) here in this section; I will discuss them in Section IV below. The reason for considering the patristic evidence first is so that we may approach Scripture in and with that very same living Tradition in which it was given, rather than interpreting Scripture within a man-made tradition of our own time.

In St. Matthew’s Gospel, we find two passages relevant to this question. In the first, Jesus says:

It was also said, “Whoever divorces [ἀπολύσῃ] his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.” But I say to you that every one who divorces his wife, except for the reason of fornication [παρεκτὸς λόγου πορνείας], makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” (St. Matthew 5:31-32)

I will discuss the exception clause below in Section IV, but here Jesus teaches two things. First, if anyone divorces his wife he makes her commit adultery insofar as he puts her in a position where she is for various reasons compelled to seek marriage with another man. Jesus is not saying that the wife, in that case, is not guilty of adultery when she marries another man. Rather, He is saying that the husband materially contributes to her sin of adultery, by placing her in a situation that requires her to choose between, say, starvation and adultery. Second, Jesus teaches here that if any man marries a divorced woman, that man commits adultery in doing so. Marrying a divorced person is an act of adultery when either a divorced woman marries another man or a man marries a divorced woman. This is because the sort of divorce Jesus is speaking about does not break the marriage bond, but is only a separation in bed and board (divorce a mensa et thoro). In both cases, ‘marrying’ a divorced person is an act of adultery because the divorced person is still married to the person from whom he or she is divorced, so long as both spouses are alive.

Later in St. Matthew’s Gospel we read:

And Pharisees came up to Him and tested Him by asking, “Is there any cause for which it is lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered, “Have you not read that He who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and the two shall become one? So they are no longer two but one. What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?” He said to them, “For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for fornication [μὴ ἐπὶ πορνείᾳ] and marries another commits adultery. (St. Matthew 19:3-9)

Jesus here shows that the true nature of marriage was revealed in the Garden of Eden, when God made Adam and Eve, and disclosed that in marriage the man and woman become one, not merely having been brought together in physical proximity, but more deeply, having been divinely joined together for life in a one-flesh union. Hence Jesus says that whoever divorces his wife, except in the case of fornication, and marries another woman, commits adultery. Marrying another woman, in such a case, is an act of adultery, again because the man is still married.

In St. Mark’s gospel, Jesus says:

Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her; and if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.” (St. Mark 10:11-12)

This is very straightforward. If a man divorces his wife, and remarries, he commits adultery against her, because he is still married to her. And if a woman divorces her husband, and marries another man, she also commits adultery, because she is still married to her husband.

In St. Luke’s gospel, Jesus says:

Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery; and he who marries one who is divorced from a husband commits adultery. (St. Luke 16:18)

Jesus again speaks plainly here. The man who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery. And the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. Again, in both cases what makes the man’s action adulterous is that divorce has not dissolved the marriage, and thus the third party is entering sexually into an existing marriage.

Another important passage is Jesus’ first miracle at the wedding at Cana, recorded in John 2:1-11. Concerning this event, St. Augustine writes, “And for this cause did the Lord, on being invited, come to the marriage, to confirm conjugal chastity, and to show forth the sacrament of marriage.” (On the Gospel of John, 9:2) And the Catechism states, “The Church attaches great importance to Jesus’ presence at the wedding at Cana. She sees in it the confirmation of the goodness of marriage and the proclamation that thenceforth marriage will be an efficacious sign of Christ’s presence.”⁷

In his letter to the Christians of Rome, St. Paul writes:

Thus a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives; but if her husband dies she is discharged from the law concerning the husband. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. (Romans 7:2-3)

The law St. Paul refers to is divine law, not Roman law. The divine law from Christ regarding marriage is that marriage is binding until one of the spouses dies. As long as the husband lives, the wife is bound to him by divine law. If the husband dies, the marriage is dissolved and only then is the woman free to remarry. If she “lives with another man” while her husband remains alive, she is an “adulteress.”⁸ And all this applies to the man as well. He is bound by law to his wife, as long as she lives. If he ‘remarries’ while his wife remains alive, he becomes an adulterer. But if his wife dies, he is free to remarry.

In his first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul writes:

But to the married I give instructions, not I, but the Lord. A wife should not separate [χωρισθῆναι] from her husband. But if she does separate she must either remain single or become reconciled to her husband – and a husband should not divorce [ἀφιέναι] his wife.” (1 Corinthians 7:10-11)

Here again St. Paul indicates that his instruction concerning marriage comes from Christ. This divine instruction is that a wife should not separate from her husband, and a husband should not divorce his wife. If a wife separates from her husband, she must either remain single (i.e. not united to another man) or be reconciled to her husband. He remains her husband even when she is separated from him, and she remains his wife even when he is separated from her. Likewise, we may infer, if a husband divorces his wife, he must either remain sexually separated from all other women, or he must be reconciled to his wife. Divorce here is a separation that does not dissolve the marriage bond.

Later in this same chapter St. Paul writes:

A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. If the husband dies, she is free to marry whomever she wishes, only in the Lord. (1 Corinthians 7:39)

Again St. Paul teaches that the marriage bond endures for life, so long as both spouses live. Only if one spouse dies is the other spouse free to remarry, because only when one spouse dies is the marriage bond dissolved.

III. Evidence from the Tradition and the Magisterium
A. First Millennium

Shepherd of Hermas (early second century)

And I said to him, Sir, if any one has a wife who trusts in the Lord, and if he detect her in adultery, does the man sin if he continue to live with her? And he said to me, As long as he remains ignorant of her sin, the husband commits no transgression in living with her. But if the husband know that his wife has gone astray, and if the woman does not repent, but persists in her fornication, and yet the husband continues to live with her, he also is guilty of her crime, and a sharer in her adultery. And I said to him, What then, sir, is the husband to do, if his wife continue in her vicious practices? And he said, The husband should put her away, and remain by himself. But if he put his wife away and marry another, he also commits adultery. And I said to him, What if the woman put away should repent, and wish to return to her husband: shall she not be taken back by her husband? And he said to me, Assuredly. If the husband do not take her back, he sins, and brings a great sin upon himself; for he ought to take back the sinner who has repented. But not frequently. For there is but one repentance to the servants of God. In case, therefore, that the divorced wife may repent, the husband ought not to marry another, when his wife has been put away. In this matter man and woman are to be treated exactly in the same way. (The Shepherd 2:4:1)

Here in the early part of the second century we find a teaching on the Christian understanding of marriage. Hermas first asks the angel whether a man who discovers that his wife is committing adultery sins if he continues to live with her. The angel’s answer is that if he lives with her, while knowing that she is committing adultery, he is cooperating with her sin.⁹ For that reason, he must separate himself from her in such a case. But the angel makes clear that in such a case if the husband re-marries (while his spouse is still living), he commits adultery, because she remains his wife. If she repents, he must take her back, again, because he is still married to her. The marriage bond is not broken by infidelity. And this is why, explains the angel, neither spouse may marry when the other commits adultery.

St. Justin Martyr (d. AD 165)

In regard to chastity, [Jesus] has this to say: ‘If anyone look with lust at a woman, he has already before God committed adultery in his heart.’ And, ‘Whoever marries a woman who has been divorced from another husband, commits adultery.’ According to our Teacher, just as they are sinners who contract a second marriage, even though it be in accord with human law, so also are they sinners who look with lustful desire at a woman. He repudiates not only one who actually commits adultery, but even one who wishes to do so; for not only our actions are manifest to God, but even our thoughts.” (First Apology, 15)

When St. Justin writes, “Whoever marries a woman who has been divorced from another husband, commits adultery,” he is quoting Jesus, as can be seen in the quotations from the Gospels laid out in Section II above. St. Justin explains that according to Jesus, if one spouse has committed adultery, the spouse who then re-marries while the other spouse lives, commits adultery. Such a person commits adultery even if the “human law” (i.e. the civil law, or law of the State) permits such a re-marriage.

Theophilus, bishop of Antioch [c. AD 175]

He who marries a woman put away by her husband, commits adultery; and he who puts away his wife save for the case of fornication, makes her to commit adultery. (Ad Autolycum, III, 13)

Theophilus here echoes Jesus’ own words. Anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. And anyone who divorces his wife, except in the case of adultery, makes her to commit adultery. What I will show below, in Section IV is that the sort of ‘divorce’ allowed here that in which they separate from each other, so as not to participate in the adultery of the other, but neither are permitted to remarry so long as both spouses live.

Athenagoras of Athens [c. AD 177]

Athenagoras writes:

For we bestow our attention, not on the study of words, but on the exhibition and teaching of actions, — that a person should either remain as he was born, or be content with one marriage; for a second marriage is only a specious adultery. For whosoever puts away his wife, says He, and marries another, commits adultery [Matthew 19:9]; not permitting a man to send her away whose virginity he has brought to an end, nor to marry again. For he who deprives himself of his first wife, even though she be dead, is a cloaked adulterer, resisting the hand of God, because in the beginning God made one man and one woman, and dissolving the strictest union of flesh with flesh, formed for the intercourse of the race. (Legatio pro Christianis 33)

The debate at this time was whether second marriages were allowed after one’s spouse had died. I included this quotation because it shows by an a fortiori argument that second marriages after divorce, while the other spouse was living, were out of the question for Christians of this time.

St. Clement of Alexandria (AD 202)

Now that the Scripture counsels marriage, and allows no release from the union, is expressly contained in the law, You shall not put away your wife, except for the cause of fornication; and it regards as fornication, the marriage of those separated while the other is alive. … He that takes a woman that has been put away, it is said, commits adultery; and if one puts away his wife, he makes her an adulteress, that is, compels her to commit adultery. And not only is he who puts her away guilty of this, but he who takes her, by giving to the woman the opportunity of sinning; for did he not take her, she would return to her husband. (Stromata 2, chapter 23, AD 202)

What is clear here in this quotation from St. Clement of Alexandria is that the sort of divorce permitted was not a divorce that dissolved the marriage bond, but only a separation of the spouses, anticipating eventual reconciliation. Such a separation was allowed only for fornication (i.e. adultery), and this separation did not then permit either spouse to remarry a third party.

In the following book of the Stromata, St. Clement notes that the Apostles asked Jesus “If the case of a wife be thus, it is not good for the man to marry.” (Matthew 19:10) Then, adds St. Clement, “They in making this enquiry sought to learn whether, when a wife has been found guilty on a charge of fornication, and has been put away, it is permitted to marry another.” (Stromata 3) St. Clement understood the Apostles as recognizing that Jesus was prohibiting remarriage after divorce, except if one spouse died, and that Jesus was teaching that those who re-marry, while both spouses live, commit adultery in doing so.

Tertullian

In a work titled “To My Wife,” written at or prior to AD 206, Tertullian says:

Whence are we to find (words) enough fully to tell the happiness of that marriage which the Church cements, and the oblation confirms, and the benediction signs and seals; (which) angels carry back the news of (to heaven), (which) the Father holds for ratified? For even on earth children do not rightly and lawfully wed without their fathers’ consent. (To My Wife, 2,8)

This passage does not directly address the question of divorce and remarriage, but it does show that for Tertullian, Christian marriage was not merely a civil affair. Christian Marriage was overseen by the Church, and ratified by God the Father, in very much the way pagan men and women would not wed without their father’s approval. Thus for Tertullian the Church’s approval of the Christian couple’s wedding is a sign of God the Father’s approval of the wedding. In this way we see implicitly the sacramental character of Christian marriage.

Around that same time, Tertullian wrote:

But, however, since Patience takes the lead in every species of salutary discipline, what wonder that she likewise ministers to Repentance, (accustomed as Repentance is to come to the rescue of such as have fallen,) when, on a disjunction of wedlock (for that cause, I mean, which makes it lawful, whether for husband or wife, to persist in the perpetual observance of widowhood), she waits for, she yearns for, she persuades by her entreaties, repentance in all who are one day to enter salvation? How great a blessing she confers on each! The one she prevents from becoming an adulterer; the other she amends. (On Patience, chapter 12) [c. AD 206]

Tertullian here speaks of patience as allowing a woman who has been separated from her spouse by “that cause … which makes it lawful … to persist in the perpetual observance of widowhood, to remain unmarried, so as to avoid adultery. It is possible that Tertullian is speaking of death, but if so, then a fortiori, this indicates that remarriage for the cause of divorce was seen as adultery.

In AD 207, Tertullian wrote the first edition of his work Against Marcion. In Book IV of this work, he writes:

But Christ prohibits divorce, saying, Whosoever puts away his wife, and marries another, commits adultery; and whosoever marries her that is put away from her husband, also commits adultery. (Luke 16:18) In order to forbid divorce, He makes it unlawful to marry a woman that has been put away. Moses, however, permitted repudiation in Deuteronomy: When a man has taken a wife, and has lived with her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he has found unchastity in her; then let him write her a bill of divorcement and give it in her hand, and send her away out of his house. (Deuteronomy 24:1) You see, therefore, that there is a difference between the law and the gospel — between Moses and Christ? To be sure there is! But then you have rejected that other gospel which witnesses to the same verity and the same Christ. There, while prohibiting divorce, He has given us a solution of this special question respecting it: Moses, says He, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to give a bill of divorcement; but from the beginning it was not so (Matthew 19:8) — for this reason, indeed, because He who had made them male and female had likewise said, They two shall become one flesh; what therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder. (Matthew 19:4, 6) Now, by this answer of His (to the Pharisees), He both sanctioned the provision of Moses, who was His own (servant), and restored to its primitive purpose the institution of the Creator, whose Christ He was. Since, however, you are to be refuted out of the Scriptures which you have received, I will meet you on your own ground, as if your Christ were mine. When, therefore, He prohibited divorce, and yet at the same time represented the Father, even Him who united male and female, must He not have rather exculpated than abolished the enactment of Moses? But, observe, if this Christ be yours when he teaches contrary to Moses and the Creator, on the same principle must He be mine if I can show that His teaching is not contrary to them. I maintain, then, that there was a condition in the prohibition which He now made of divorce; the case supposed being, that a man put away his wife for the express purpose of marrying another. His words are: Whosoever puts away his wife, and marries another, commits adultery; and whosoever marries her that is put away from her husband, also commits adultery, Luke 16:18 — put away, that is, for the reason wherefore a woman ought not to be dismissed, that another wife may be obtained. For he who marries a woman who is unlawfully put away is as much of an adulterer as the man who marries one who is un-divorced. (Against Marcion, Bk IV. 34.)

Marcion had argued that Christ’s reversal of Moses’s permission of divorce indicated that the Father of Jesus is not the God of the Old Testament. Tertullian is arguing here in response that Christ’s prohibition on divorce is not contrary to Moses’s law, but perfects it, by showing that the only kind of divorce allowed is one that (a) is on grounds of adultery and (b) for which remarriage is not permitted [until one of the spouses dies].

Later in that same work, he writes:

Even Christ, however, when He here commands the wife not to depart from her husband, or if she depart, to remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband, (1 Corinthians 7:10-11) both permitted divorce, which indeed He never absolutely prohibited, and confirmed (the sanctity) of marriage, by first forbidding its dissolution; and, if separation had taken place, by wishing the nuptial bond to be resumed by reconciliation. (Against Marcion, Bk. V. 7.)

Here again he shows how Christ did not absolutely prohibit divorce, in that He allowed a separation of the spouses on grounds of infidelity. But, at the same time, Christ confirmed the sanctity of marriage by absolutely forbidding the dissolution of marriage. The marriage bond remains, even when the spouses are separated, until one of them dies. Tertullian saw that according to Christ’s teaching, the goal and hope when the spouses have been legitimately separated, is always the reconciliation of the spouses.

About five years later, then into his Montanist period, Tertullian wrote a work on monogamy. One of the beliefs of the Montantists is that remarriage is not permitted even after one of the spouses dies. But in these writings we can still find information about the general practice of Christians. For example, Tertullian writes:

They [the pagan Romans] enter into adulterous unions even when they do not put away their wives, we [Christians] are not allowed to marry even when we put our wives away.” (“De monogamia, chapter ix (c. AD 212) )

Tertullian contrasts the behavior of the pagan Romans, and the Christians. The pagans have extramarital affairs without even divorcing their spouses. The Christians, by contrast, are not allowed to marry even when they divorce. Again, this indicates that for Christians, the marriage bond remained, even after divorce. And this shows that the Christian way of understanding divorce (in marriages between Christians) is only as a separation, not as a dissolution of the marriage bond. In that same chapter he writes:

A divorced woman cannot even marry legitimately; and if she commit any such act without the name of marriage, does it not fall under the category of adultery, in that adultery is crime in the way of marriage? Such is God’s verdict, within straiter limits than men’s, that universally, whether through marriage or promiscuously, the admission of a second man (to intercourse) is pronounced adultery by Him. (De monogamia, chapter ix)

Here he shows that what makes an act an act of adultery is the existence of a marriage bond, whether or not the person calls himself or herself married. When Jesus teaches that the man who divorces his wife and then remarries commits adultery, and that the person who marries a divorced spouse commits adultery, this shows that men do not have the authority to remove the marriage bond by mere stipulation or civil law. The remarriage is adulterous in these cases precisely because the marriage bond has not been broken by the divorce. Man cannot untie or dissolve the marriage bond.

Origen (AD 248)

In his Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, Origen writes:

But now contrary to what was written, 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, where it is said, A wife is bound for so long time as her husband lives, and So then if while her husband lives, she shall be joined to another man she shall be called an adulteress, (Rom. 7:3) not indeed altogether without reason, for it is probable this concession was permitted in comparison with worse things, contrary to what was from the beginning ordained by law, and written. (Commentary on Matthew, Bk. 14, chapter 23)

Just as a woman is an adulteress, even though she seem to be married to a man, while a former husband yet lives, so also the man who seems to marry her who has been divorced does not marry her, but, according to the declaration of our Savior, he commits adultery with her.” (Commentary on Matthew, Bk. 14, chapter 24) [c. AD 248]

Here Origen points out that even some rulers of the church, presumably leaders of a local church, have allowed a woman to marry, even while her husband is still living. Origen acknowledges that these rulers likely had the intention of preventing something worse. But nevertheless, he explains, her union with another man, while her husband still lives, makes her an adulteress, according to the word of Jesus and St. Paul. And this divine prohibition on remarriage while one’s spouse remains alive is not particular to women over men, or men over women; it applies equally to both spouses. Origen clearly believes that according to the Scriptures, the marriage bond remains until one of the spouses dies. Hence the woman who seems to be married to a [second] husband, is nevertheless an adulteress while her former husband lives. And likewise, the man who seems to be married to a divorced woman, is not actually married to her, but is living in adultery, so long as her former husband lives. In both cases the new ‘marriage’ is no marriage at all, but only an adulterous union.

St. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage (d. AD 258)

Concerning marriage, St. Cyprian quotes the Scripture, writing:

In the first Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians: But to them that are married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, that the wife should not be separated from her husband; but if she should depart, that she remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband: and that the husband should not put away his wife. (Treatise 12, Bk. 3, chap. 90)

Council of Elvira (c. AD 300)

Around the end of the third century and the beginning of the fourth, we find three relevant canons concerning marriage, in the Council of Elvira held in southeast Spain:

Likewise, women who have left their husbands for no prior cause and have joined themselves with others, may not even at death receive communion.” (Canon 8)

Likewise, a woman of the faith [i.e., a baptized person] who has left an adulterous husband of the faith and marries another, her marrying in this manner is prohibited. If she has so married, she may not at any more receive communion–unless he that she has left has since departed from this world. (Canon 9)

If she whom a catechumen [an upbaptized person studying the faith] has left shall have married a husband, she is able to be admitted to the fountain of baptism. This shall also be observed in the instance where it is the woman who is the catechumen. But if a woman of the faithful is taken in marriage by a man who left an innocent wife, and if she knew that he had a wife whom he had left without cause, it is determined that communion is not to be given to her even at death” (Canon 10)

Canons 8 and 9 are self-explanatory. Women who leave their husbands and join another man, may not receive the Eucharist even at death [unless they repent]. In the case of a married couple in which both spouses are Christian (i.e. baptized), and the husband commits adultery and the wife subsequently leaves him and marries another man, she may not receive the Eucharist until the man she left has died. She is not permitted to receive the Eucharist in that state because she is living in adultery. Only when her husband dies is the marriage bond broken, and then she may marry another man, and receive the Eucharist.

Canon 10 is an example of what is known as the Pauline privilege (discussion in Objection 7 below). When two persons who are not Christian marry, then if one of them seeks to become a Christian, and the other does not wish to remain with the person becoming a Christian, the marriage is dissolved and they are free to marry another person. This is based on 1 Corinthians 7, where St. Paul writes, “But if the unbelieving partner desires to separate, let it be so; in such a case the brother or sister is not bound. For God has called us to peace.” (1 Cor. 7:15) Such a marriage is not a sacramental marriage, because it is not entered into by two baptized persons. A non-sacramental marriage may be dissolved through the Pauline privilege. But, in Canon 10 we see that if a Christian woman marries a man who left an innocent wife, she is not allowed to receive communion even at death, because she is living in adultery.

It is worth noting here that in the first three centuries of the Church, we find not a single Church Father or writer who teaches that the Church permits remarriage after the divorce of two Christians, so long as both spouses are living. In every case we find that among Christians, remarriage after divorce is prohibited, so long as both spouses remain alive. The evidence of the first three centuries unanimously testifies to the indissolubility of Christian marriage. Divorce in the sense of separation was permitted in cases of adultery, but not remarriage. The purpose of the permitted separation was to avoid participation in the other’s sin, and always with the aim and hope of eventual repentance and reconciliation of the couple, never to permit remarriage while both spouses lived.

Lactantius (AD 303-311)

Lactantius was a convert and a tutor to Constantine’s son. He writes:

Lest anyone think that he can circumscribe the divine precepts, there are added those that take away all calumny and occasion of fraud; he is an adulterer who marries a divorced spouse, and he who dismisses his wife commits adultery (Mt. 5:32) for God is unwilling to dissociate the body. (The Divine Institutes, Bk. 6, Chap. 23)

According to Lactantius, the person who marries a divorced spouse commits adultery, as does the person who divorces his spouse. God does not treat us as though what we do with our bodies is irrelevant. Because we are embodied beings our actions in our bodies, including our sexual relations, matter; evil done in the body corrupts the heart.

In his Epitome of the Divine Institutes, he writes:

Therefore let it be observed in all the duties of life, let it be observed in marriage. For it is not sufficient if you abstain from another’s bed, or from the brothel. Let him who has a wife seek nothing further, but, content with her alone, let him guard the mysteries of the marriage-bed chaste and undefiled. For he is equally an adulterer in the sight of God and impure, who, having thrown off the yoke, wantons in strange pleasure either with a free woman or a slave. But as a woman is bound by the bonds of chastity not to desire any other man, so let the husband be bound by the same law, since God has joined together the husband and the wife in the union of one body. On this account He has commanded that the wife shall not be put away unless convicted of adultery, and that the bond of the conjugal compact shall never be dissolved, unless unfaithfulness have broken it. (Epitome, 66)

Lactantius is the first Christian writer we know of to claim apparently that adultery breaks the marriage bond.

Council of Arles (AD 314)

In AD 314, the Council of Arles met to address the Donatist schism. Canon 10 of that council reads:

As regards those who find their wives to be guilty of adultery, and who being Christians are, though young men, forbidden to remarry, we decree that, so far as may be, counsel be given them not to take other wives while their own, though guilty of adultery, are yet living. (Canon 10)

This council was held under the patronage of Constantine, and it is worded in such a way so as gently to instruct young Christian men not to follow the practice of pagans who did remarry while their spouses remained alive. It takes as given that men who find their wives guilty of adultery are “forbidden to remarry,” as long as their wives live. This is additional evidence that these bishops understood the “except for porneia” clause not as allowing divorce-with-remarriage, but only as allowing separation of the spouses, the marriage bond remaining until one of the spouses died.

Council of Ancyra (between AD 313-319)

If any one have violated a married woman, or have broken the marriage bond, he must for seven years undergo the different degrees of penance, at the end of which he will be admitted into the communion of the Church.” (Canon 20)

Council of Nicea (AD 325)

Concerning those who call themselves Cathari, if they come over to the Catholic and Apostolic Church, the great and holy Synod decrees that they who are ordained shall continue as they are in the clergy. But it is before all things necessary that they should profess in writing that they will observe and follow the dogmas of the Catholic and Apostolic Church; in particular that they will communicate with persons who have been twice married, and with those who having lapsed in persecution have had a period [of penance] laid upon them, and a time [of restoration] fixed so that in all things they will follow the dogmas of the Catholic Church. (Canon 8)

One of the conditions imposed by the ecumenical Council of Nicea upon the Cathari (i.e.”puritans”) for re-entrance into the Catholic Church is that they will communicate (i.e. maintain fellowship) with those who have been twice married. The Cathari, like the Montanists, did not allow remarriage after one spouse died. So the Church here requires them to accept this, as a condition for restoration to full communion. There is no question here of remarriage after divorce; the prohibition of remarriage after divorce was understood as given.

St. Hilary, Bishop of Poietiers (d. AD 368)

St. Hilary writes:

For whereas the law had conceded the liberty of effecting divorce by the authority of instruments, now the Evangelical Faith has not only enjoined upon the husband the desire for concord, but has judged him guilty of compelling his wife to adultery, if she is married anew to another through the stress of his desertion, prescribing no other ground for ceasing from wedded life than the defilement of a husband by the society of a prostituted wife. (Commentary on St. Matthew 4:22)

This statement gives further clarity to the meaning of Jesus’ words when He says, “causes her to commit adultery.”

St. Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis (Cyprus) (c. AD 370)

St. Epiphanius died in AD 403-404, after nearly forty years as a bishop. In AD 370, in his Panarion, he wrote:

[I]t may be tolerated in the laity by reason of their weakness, and of their inability to remain constant to the first wife, that they should be connected with a second after the death of the first. Yet he who has had but one wife is held in greater praise and honour by all members of the Church, but [not] if he could not be content with the one wife, who had died. If there has been a divorce for some reason — whether fornication, or adultery, or an evil charge, and the man marries a second wife, or the woman marries a second husband, God’s Word does not censure them or bar them from the Church and life, but tolerates them because of their weakness. The holy Word and God’s holy Church show mercy to such a person, particularly if he is devout otherwise and lives by God’s law — not by letting him have two wives at once while the one is still alive, but [by letting] him marry a second wife lawfully if the opportunity arises, after being parted from the first. ….” (Against Heresies, Bk. II, Haer. 59.)

There is some controversy over both the translation and interpretation of this passage. Some take it to be permitting divorce with remarriage while the other spouse is still alive. But, I think it is more accurate to understand it as allowing remarriage after the death of the spouse, and thus addressing the erroneous tendency of rigorists like the Montanists and Cathari to forbid remarriage even after the death of the spouse. St. Epiphanius is saying that if a man has divorced his wife [in the sense of mensa et thoro], and then [after she dies] marries another woman, they are not censured or barred from the Church. Likewise, if a woman divorces her husband, and he then dies and she remarries, she is not censured or barred from the Church. The Church does not allow a man to have two wives at once while one wife is still alive. But, after being parted from the first wife for some cause, and then the opportunity arises (i.e. the first wife dies), the Scripture and the Church allow him to remarry, tolerating his weakness.

St. John Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople (d. AD 407)

In his commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew, St. Chrysostom writes:

“‘What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.’ See a teacher’s wisdom. I mean, that being asked, Is it lawful? He did not at once say, It is not lawful, lest they should be disturbed and put in disorder, but before the decision by His argument He rendered this manifest, showing that it is itself too the commandment of His Father, and that not in opposition to Moses did He enjoin these things, but in full agreement with him. But mark Him arguing strongly not from the creation only, but also from His command. For He said not, that He made one man and one woman only, but that He also gave this command that the one man should be joined to the one woman. But if it had been His will that he should put this one away, and bring in another, when He had made one man, He would have formed many Women. But now both by the manner of the creation, and by the manner of lawgiving, He showed that one man must dwell with one woman continually, and never break off from her.” (On the Gospel of Matthew, 62:1 [AD 370])

Here St. Chrysostom affirmed the divine purpose that marriage is a lifelong bond. In other words, he acknowledges that divorce (i.e. separation) is permitted in a case of adultery:

If he [i.e. the husband] have one who is a harlot and adulteress he is not forbidden to cast her out. For whosoever (saith He) shall put away his wife except for the cause of porneia maketh her to commit adultery. So that on account of porneia it is lawful to put away.” (Homily against those who fasted with the Jews)

But, when there has been such a separation, there cannot be remarriage so long as both spouses live. In his Treatise on Virginity, he writes that a wife who has separated from her husband cannot remarry so long as her husband remains alive:

[T]he husband, though he have a wife more intolerable than all besides, must needs be content with his bondage, and cannot find any release or escape from this arbitrary sway…. (Treatise on Virginity, 28)

Later in this same work he again addresses the question of remarriage after divorce:

Let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. … What then if he will never be reconciled? one may ask. Thou hast one more mode of release and deliverance. What is that? Await his death. For as the (consecrated) virgin may not marry because her Spouse liveth away, and is immortal; so to her who hath been married it is then only lawful when her husband is dead. (Treatise on Virginity, 40)

In his Homily on 1 Corinthians, St. Chrysostom writes:

Look at the propriety of the words which are used by Paul. He says that she is bound by the law as long as her husband lives, so that even though he gives her a write of separation, or leaves the house, or lives with another, she would still be an adulteress. And do not tell me that the civil law allows such practice. Because you will not be judged in accordance with the civil law, but according to those which the Lord Himself has established. (Homily on 1 Corinthians 7)

St. Basil the Great (c. AD 375)

In his Ethica, St. Basil writes:

The husband must not separate from the wife, nor the wife from the husband, except on detection in fornication (porneia), or hindrance of piety. … It is not lawful for him that hath put away his own wife to marry another, nor for her that is put away from a husband to be married to another.” (Ethica, 73)

That is the same understanding of the nature of divorce and the indissolubility of marriage we have seen all along in the Fathers. Elsewhere, he writes:

But if the man who has deserted his wife goes to another, he is himself an adulterer because he makes her commit adultery; and the woman who lives with him is an adulteress, because she has caused another woman’s husband to come over to her. (Letter 188)

If a man who has left his wife goes to another woman, then not only is he an adulterer, but so is the woman who joins him.

Concerning a woman who has been abandoned by her husband, St. Basil writes:

A woman whose husband has gone away and disappeared, and who marries another, before she has evidence of his death, commits adultery. … The woman who has been abandoned by her husband, ought, in my judgment, to remain as she is. The Lord said, If any one leave his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, he causes her to commit adultery; Matthew 5:22 thus, by calling her adulteress, He excludes her from intercourse with another man. For how can the man being guilty, as having caused adultery, and the woman, go without blame, when she is called adulteress by the Lord for having intercourse with another man? (Letter 199, To Amphiliochius)

The wife whose husband has departed may not remarry unless she has some evidence of his death, because if she ‘remarries’ while he still lives, the new union is not a marriage, but an adulterous union.

Concerning a woman who remarries while her husband is living, St. Basil writes:

If this marriage be thus manifest by witnesses and processions and in every way, but her husband be not, I say, dead; then such an one commits adultery, committing adultery thus throughout her life, if her husband continue to live; or rather abandonedly playing the harlot for the enjoyment of pleasure, but also, because her husband is living, committing adultery in transgression of the law. (On True Undefiledness in Virginity)

It is well known that the civil law, even of the Christian emperors, permitted in several cases a new marriage after the separation of the wife. Hence, without contradicting himself, St. Basil could say of the husband, “He is not condemned”, and “He is considered excusable,”¹⁰ because he is speaking distinctly of the milder treatment of the husband than of the wife with regard to the canonical penance imposed for adultery. Even though St. Basil puzzles over the lax and asymmetrical civil penalties for men and women pertaining to adultery, and he permits divorce (as separation) on grounds of adultery or hindrance to piety, he does not permit remarriage after divorce while the other spouse lives or show any sign that the Church permits remarriage after divorce so long as the other spouse lives.

Ambrosiaster (between AD 363 and 384)

The author referred to as Ambrosiaster, writes:

‘For this reason shall a man leave father and mother and cleave to his wife and they shall be two in one flesh.’ To commend this unity he supplies an example of unity. Just as a man and a woman are one in nature so Christ and the Church are recognized as one through faith. ‘This is a great mystery — I mean in reference to Christ and the Church.’ He means that the great sign of this mystery is in the unity of man and woman…. Just as a man forsakes his parents and cleaves to his wife, so too he forsakes every error and cleaves to the Church and subjects himself to her Head, which is Christ.” (In Ephesians 5:31 (before AD 384)

Ambrosiaster here explores the relationship between the sacramental nature of marriage and that of which it is a sign, namely, the union of Christ and His Bride, the Church.

Elsewhere, commenting on 1 Corinthians 7:10-11, this author [called Ambrosiaster] writes:

The husband may marry, if he have put away an offending wife; the husband not being bound by the law as the wife is; for the head of the woman is the man. It is not permitted to a woman to remarry, if she have sent away her husband by reason of fornication or apostasy … because the meaner part has not quite the same rule to abide by as the more dignified.

Ambrosiaster here recognizes that the wife who divorces her husband on account of his infidelity cannot remarry, but nevertheless allows the husband who divorces his wife for her infidelity to remarry. On this he seems to have been influenced by Roman law. In general, what we see in the Church Fathers is a strong reaction against the unequal treatment of women and men, in the laws concerning divorce. For Christians, infidelity on the part of the husband was no less adulterous than was infidelity on the part of the wife. Ambrosiaster stands out here as an anomaly, both for his affirmation of the inequality of the Roman law, and for his concession to the remarriage of the husband.

St. Gregory of Nazianzen, bishop of Sasima and Constantinople (AD 370-390)

Now the Law grants divorce for every cause; but Christ not for every cause; but He allows only separation from the whore; and in all other things He commands patience. He allows to put away the fornicatress, because she corrupts the offspring; but in all other matters let us be patient and endure; or rather be enduring and patient, as many as have received the yoke of matrimony. (Oration 37, 8)

Notice the purpose for separating from the adulterous wife: to prevent the children from being morally corrupted. The purpose is not to allow for remarriage.

St. Timothy of Alexandria Patriarch from 381-385

Asked whether, if a man’s wife becomes mad [i.e. insane] to the point of having to be put in irons, and the husband says, “I am not able to contain [myself], and desire to take another wife,” what should he do, St. Timothy replied:

In this matter, adultery comes in; and I have nothing and can find nothing, to reply concerning it. (Canonical answers)

St. Pacian (d. AD 390), bishop of Barcelona

St. Pacian writes:

And these are the nuptials of the Lord, so that like that great Sacrament they might become two in one flesh, Christ and the Church. From these nuptials a Christian people is born, when the Spirit of the Lord comes upon that people. (Sermon on Baptism, 6) [before AD 392]

Again here, we see an awareness of the sacramental character of marriage as a sign of one-flesh union of Christ and the Church, effected through the sacrament of baptism.

St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan (AD 340 – 397)

In his work On Abraham, St. Ambrose writes:

Every fornication [by a married man] is adultery; and it is not permitted to a man to do that which is forbidden to a woman. The same chastity is demanded of a man as of a woman. Everything committed with her who is not the legitimate spouse is condemned as the crime of adultery. (De Abraham Bk 1, chapter 4 [AD 387])

No one is permitted to know a woman other than his wife. The marital right is given you for this reason: lest you fall into the snare and sin with a strange woman. ‘If you are bound to a wife do not seek a divorce’; for you are not permitted, while your wife lives, to marry another. (De Abraham 1:7:59 [AD 387] )

First he shows that the sin forbidden to the wife is also forbidden to the husband. Any sexual act committed with one who is not one’s spouse is adultery. Then he enjoins his readers not to divorce, because Christians are not permitted to marry another person, while their spouse lives. In other words, don’t think about seeking divorce for the purpose of remarriage, because remarriage is not allowed while the spouse lives.

Two years later, in a letter he writes:

We do not say that marriage was not sanctified by Christ, since the Word of God says: ‘The two shall become one flesh’ and one spirit. But we are born before we are brought to our final goal, and the mystery of God’s operation is more excellent than the remedy for human weakness. Quite rightly is a good wife praised, but a pious virgin is more rightly preferred. (To Siricius, Ep. 42:3 (AD 389)

This statement is not about divorce and marriage, but it is an early witness among the Fathers concerning the notion that Christ sanctified marriage, elevating it far beyond a remedy for human weakness.

In his Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke, St. Ambrose writes:

Anyone saying that one is free to marry a wife that has been put away is not a Christian; he is a Jew. (Commentary on the Gospel of Luke, 8)

In that same section, he writes:

You dismiss your wife, therefore, as if by right and without being charged with wrongdoing [by the civil law]; and you suppose it is proper for you to do so because no human law forbids it. But divine law forbids it. Anyone who obeys men ought to stand in awe of God. Hear the law of the Lord, which even they who propose our laws must obey: ‘What God has joined together let no man put asunder.” (Commentary on Luke 8:5 [AD 389])

I must first, I think, speak of the law of marriage so as to treat afterward the prohibition of divorce. Certain persons think, in fact, that every marriage is of God, especially since it is written, “What God has joined man must not separate.” So then, if every marriage is of God, it is not permitted to dissolve any marriage. Why then has the Apostle said, “If the unbelieving souse departs, let him depart?” His discernment here is admirable. He wanted no motive for divorce to remain available to Christians, but showed that not every marriage is of God. For it is not by God’s authority that Christians marry pagans, since the law forbids this. … In his wonderful way, he did not want the cause of divorce to lie with Christians; and at the same time he showed that not every marriage is from God. Christian women are not joined to pagans by the judgment of God, since the law forbids it. (Commentary on Luke, Book 8)

Here St. Ambrose shows the difference between the law of Christ, and the civil law. The civil law allowed for divorce and remarriage. But, says St. Ambrose, the divine law prohibits it. When he speaks of divine law he is referring to the law of Christ concerning marriage under the New Covenant. Then St. Ambrose speaks of non-Christian ‘marriages’ in which a Christian illicitly ‘marries’ a pagan. Since this is not allowed by the law of the Church, such a union is not a marriage.

Later in this same commentary he refers to Christ’s statement that “he who puts away his wife causes her to commit adultery,” and explains it by saying:

Because it not being lawful for her in her husband’s lifetime to contract a new marriage, sinful desire may gradually prevail against her. Suppose her to marry. The blame of the constraint she lay under is upon you: and what you account to be marriage is adultery. For what does it matter whether one commits that crime with open avowal of it, or as one who is an adulterer under the mask of a husband. Only that it is more grievous to have contrived a law to warrant crime than a secret perpetration of it. (Commentary on Luke 16:18)

That is, insofar as the husband, by divorcing his wife places her in a situation where in weakness or desperation she may give in to the sinful temptation to be united to another man, the husband bears some responsibility. But that the remarriage is in fact adultery, according to St. Ambrose, shows that the marriage bond remains, and is not broken by this divorce. Whether a husband openly commits adultery, or hides his act of adultery by divorcing his wife and seemingly marrying another woman, either way, teaches St. Ambrose, he is committing adultery.

St. Asterius of Amasea (c. 350 – c. 410 AD) was made Bishop of Amasea between 380 and 390 AD, after having been a lawyer. He writes:

These things were spoken to the Pharisees; but do you hear them now, you who do such things as these: you who change your wives as readily as your garments; who build bridal chambers as often and as easily as you build booths for feasts; who marry money, and deal in women; who if provoked a little immediately write a bill of divorcement; you who leave many widows while you are yet alive; believe me, marriage is terminated only by death or adultery. (Homily V, On Divorce)

St. Asterius recognizes that adultery is cause for divorce. But here at least, he does not clearly distinguish whether he is speaking of divorce a mensa et thoro (i.e. separation from bed and board) or the dissolution of the marriage that takes place at the death of one of the spouses.

St. Jerome (AD 346 – 420)

In 384 AD, St. Jerome wrote a letter to the priest Amandus, to answer certain questions, among which was the question, “whether a wife who has left her husband for adultery and unnatural crime, and has another forcibly imposed upon her, may without penance communicate with the Church during the lifetime of him whom she had before left.” This was an actual case, not a merely hypothetical case. St. Jerome answered:

Tell the sister, therefore, who thus enquires of me concerning her condition, not my sentence but that of the apostle. Do you not know, brethren (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? For the woman which has an husband is bound by the law to her husband, so long as he lives; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then, if, while her husband lives, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress. (Rom. 7:1-3) And in another place: the wife is bound by the law as long as her husband lives; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord. (1 Cor. 7:39) The apostle has thus cut away every plea and has clearly declared that, if a woman marries again while her husband is living, she is an adulteress. You must not speak to me of the violence of a ravisher, a mother’s pleading, a father’s bidding, the influence of relatives, the insolence and the intrigues of servants, household losses. A husband may be an adulterer or a sodomite, he may be stained with every crime and may have been left by his wife because of his sins; yet he is still her husband and, so long as he lives, she may not marry another. The apostle does not promulgate this decree on his own authority but on that of Christ who speaks in him. For he has followed the words of Christ in the gospel: whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causes her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, commits adultery. (Mt. 5:32) Mark what he says: whosoever shall marry her that is divorced commits adultery. Whether she has put away her husband or her husband her, the man who marries her is still an adulterer. … Therefore if your sister, who, as she says, has been forced into a second union, wishes to receive the body of Christ and not to be accounted an adulteress, let her do penance; so far at least as from the time she begins to repent to have no farther intercourse with that second husband who ought to be called not a husband but an adulterer. (Letter 55, to Amandus:3,4 [AD 396]

St. Jerome grants that a wife is allowed to separate from her husband on account of adultery or sexual perversion (on his part) but taught that “he is still her husband and, so long as he lives, she may not marry another.” According go St. Jerome, if she divorced her husband and remarried, she and the new ‘spouse’ would be guilty of the sin of adultery. “They could not receive the Eucharist until they had done penance by agreeing to refrain from further sexual intercourse.” In order to receive the Eucharist, she would need to agree to relate to this man only as sister and brother, not sexually, at least until her husband had died.

In AD 393, he writes:

For he [i.e. St. Paul] ordains, according to the mind of the Lord, that excepting the cause of fornication, a wife must not be put away, and that a wife who has been put away, may not, so long as her husband lives, be married to another, or at all events that her duty is to be reconciled to her husband. (Against Jovianus, I.10)

Five years later, in his Commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew, specifically on St. Matthew 19:9 (i.e. containing the ‘except for porneia‘ clause) he writes:

Wherever there is fornication and a suspicion of fornication a wife is freely dismissed. Because it is always possible that someone may calumniate the innocent and, for the sake of a second joining in marriage, act in criminal fashion against the first, it is commanded that when the first wife is dismissed a second may not be taken while the first lives. (Commentaries on St. Matthew 3:19:9) [AD 398].

Clearly, according to St. Jerome, the nature of the divorce allowed in Matthew 19:9 is one of separation, since no remarriage is allowed, so long as the first spouse lives.

We learn more from St. Jerome in his correspondence with and about a woman named Fabiola. The Catholic Encyclopedia article on St. Fabiola says the following:

Fabiola belonged to the patrician Roman family of the Fabia. She had been married to a man who led so vicious a life that to live with him was impossible. She obtained a divorce from him according to Roman law, and, contrary to the ordinances of the Church, she entered upon a second union before the death of her first husband. On the day before Easter, following the death of her second consort, she appeared before the gates of the Lateran basilica, dressed in penitential garb, and did penance in public for her sin, an act which made a great impression upon the Christian population of Rome. The pope received her formally again into full communion with the Church.

Concerning her case, St. Jerome writes:

The laws of Cæsar are different, it is true, from the laws of Christ: Papinianus commands one thing; our own Paul another. Earthly laws give a free rein to the unchastity of men, merely condemning seduction and adultery; lust is allowed to range unrestrained among brothels and slave girls, as if the guilt were constituted by the rank of the person assailed and not by the purpose of the assailant. But with us Christians what is unlawful for women is equally unlawful for men, and as both serve the same God both are bound by the same obligations. … She [i.e. Fabiola] did not know the full force of the gospel in which every pretext for marriage is taken away from a wife so long as her husband is alive. (Epist. 77, To Oceanus, 3)[AD 399]

Fabiola had been justified in putting her husband away, but she had remarried, while her husband was still living. She did this, claims St. Jerome, not knowing the “full force of the gospel” regarding the prohibition on remarriage while one’s spouse is alive. But eventually she came to see the evil of her action, and made penance before the whole city of Rome, in the way described in the selection above, for the adultery she has committed in the form of her second ‘marriage’ while her husband still lived.

Apostolic Constitutions (c. AD 400)

If any layman put away his wife and marry another, or one who has been divorced by another man, let him by excommunicated. (Canon 47, [48])

Eleventh Council of Carthage (AD 407)

We decree that according to the evangelic and apostolic discipline neither a husband dismissed by his wife nor a wife dismissed by her husband may marry another; but they are to remain as they are or to be reconciled to one another. If they despise [this law] they are to be subjected to penance and on this subject an imperial law ought to be promulgated. (Canon 8)

Notice that this council teaches that the indissolubility of Christian marriage comes from Christ and the Apostles.

Pope Innocent I (pope from AD 401-417)

In a letter responding to an inquiry from Victricius, bishop of Rouen, in AD 404, Pope Innocent wrote:

The practice is observed by all of regarding as an adulteress a woman who marries a second time while her husband yet lives, and permission to do penance is not granted her until one of them is dead. (Epist. ad Vict. Rothom xiii, 15)

The reason why the wife was not allowed to do penance in such a case is because doing penance is allowed only to those who have purposed no longer to commit the sin. A wife who remained with a second man, while her husband was alive, had not ceased from the sin of adultery, and therefore was not allowed to do penance.

In another case, in AD 405, Exsuperius, bishop of Toulouse, had inquired of Pope Innocent, asking him about those who, “divorce intervening, have connected themselves with another in marriage.” Pope Innocent replied:

Your diligence has asked concerning those, also, who, by means of a deed of separation, have contracted another marriage. That these on both sides are adulterers, is evident. (Epist. ad Exsuper.”, c. vi, n. 12)

St. Augustine, bishop of Hippo (lived from AD 354 – 430)

St. Augustine recognizes that Christ allowed for a spouse to put away his or her spouse in the case of adultery.¹¹ And St. Augustine also believed and taught that remarriage after divorce (while the other spouse remains alive) is prohibited. He derives this from St. Paul’s injunction that if the wife depart from her husband (on account of adultery), she must remain unmarried or be reconciled to him. In his “Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount,” composed between AD 393 and 396, he writes:

The inference from all this is, that, whether dismissed or dismissing, she ought to remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband. (Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount, Bk 1. 48)

Around AD 401, in the fifth or sixth year of his episcopate, St. Augustine wrote his work “On the Good of Marriage.” Regarding Jesus’ statement in Matt. 5:32 that he who divorces his wife (except for the reason of fornication) makes her commit adultery, St. Augustine writes:

This we now say, that, according to this condition of being born and dying, which we know, and in which we have been created, the marriage of male and female is some good; the compact whereof divine Scripture so commends, as that neither is it allowed one put away by her husband to marry, so long as her husband lives: nor is it allowed one put away by his wife to marry another, unless she who have separated from him be dead. (On the Good of Marriage, c. 3)

According to St. Augustine, a wife cannot put away her husband to remarry, so long as he lives, nor can a husband put away his wife to remarry, so long as she lives. Here we see clearly that according to St. Augustine, the marriage bond is indissoluble, except by death. Three chapters later he writes:

To such a degree is that marriage compact entered upon a matter of a certain sacrament, that it is not made void even by separation itself, since, so long as her husband lives, even by whom she has been left, she commits adultery, in case she be married to another: and he who has left her, is the cause of this evil. (On the Good of Marriage, chapter 6)

In the succeeding chapter he writes:

And, this being the case, so strong is that bond of fellowship in married persons, that, although it be tied for the sake of begetting children, not even for the sake of begetting children is it loosed. … (On the Good of Marriage, chapter 7)

On this point John Calvin disagreed, since he treated impotence not only as an impediment to entering into marriage, but as a justifiable cause for divorce with remarriage. (See Objection 4 below.)

St. Augustine continues, locating the cause of the indissolubility of Christian marriage in its sacramental character:

[W]ho is there but it must make him attentive to learn, what is the meaning of this so great strength [i.e. indissolubility] of the marriage bond? Which I by no means think could have been of so great avail, unless some sacramentum of a much greater reality were at work in this fragile human mortality, a sacramentum which remains unbroken for the punishment of those who desert their marriages and wish to dissolve them. Seeing that the compact of marriage is not done away by divorce intervening; so that they continue wedded persons one to another, even after separation; and commit adultery with those, with whom they shall be joined, even after their own divorce, either the woman with a man, or the man with a woman. And yet, save in the City of our God, in His Holy Mount, the case is not such with the wife. But, that the laws of the [pagans] are otherwise, who is there that knows not; where, by the interposition of divorce, without any offense of which man takes cognizance, both the woman is married to whom she will, and the man marries whom he will. And something like this custom, on account of the hardness of the Israelites, Moses seems to have allowed, concerning a bill of divorcement. In which matter there appears rather a rebuke, than an approval, of divorce. (On the Good of Marriage, chapter 7)

We can see in this that for St. Augustine, non-Christian marriages do not have the same sacramental addition, and therefore are treated as dissoluble.

That marriage can take place of persons first ill joined, an honest decree following after, is manifest. But a marriage once for all entered upon in the City of our God, where, even from the first union of the two, the man and the woman, marriage bears a certain sacramental character, can no way be dissolved but by the death of one of them. For the bond of marriage remains, although a family, for the sake of which it was entered upon, do not follow through manifest barrenness; so that, when now married persons know that they shall not have children, yet it is not lawful for them to separate even for the very sake of children, and to join themselves unto others. And if they shall so do, they commit adultery with those unto whom they join themselves, but themselves remain husbands and wives. (On the Good of Marriage, chapter 17)

Here St. Augustine contrasts marriage that takes place outside the Church, and marriage that takes place inside the Church (i.e. inside the City of our God). Christian marriage bears a “certain sacramental character” and can in no way be dissolved except by the death of one of the spouses. That bond remains even if the marriage is barren. This is why when a married couple learns that one of them is sterile, it is not lawful for them to separate and remarry a third party unless one of them dies. If they remarry while the other spouse lives, they are in fact committing adultery, because the marriage bond remains, and no new marriage bond can be formed while the original marriage bond remains.

Therefore the good of marriage throughout all nations and all men stands in the occasion of begetting, and faith of chastity: but, so far as pertains unto the People of God, also in the sanctity of the Sacrament, by reason of which it is unlawful for one who leaves her husband, even when she has been put away, to be married to another, so long as her husband lives, no not even for the sake of bearing children: and, whereas this is the alone cause, wherefore marriage takes place, not even where that very thing, wherefore it takes place, follows not, is the marriage bond loosed, save by the death of the husband or wife. (On the Good of Marriage, Chapter 32)

Here again we see a sacramental conception of marriage, according to which Christian marriage is indissoluble while both spouses live.

In Sermon 392, preached in Hippo around this time, he said the following:

You must not have wives whose former husbands are living; nor may you, women, have husbands whose former wives are living. Such marriages are adulterous, not by the law of the courts, but by the law of Heaven. Nor may a woman who by divorce has withdrawn from her husband become your wife while her husband lives. Only because of fornication may one dismiss an adulterous wife; but in her lifetime you may not marry another. Neither to you, O women, is it granted to find husbands in those men whose wives have quitted them by divorce: such are adulterous, not marriages. (Sermon 392, c. 2)

In De Genesi ad litteram, written in the first fifteen years of the fifth century, he wrote:

This [good of marriage] is three-fold: fidelity, offspring, sacrament. Fidelity means that one avoids all sexual activity apart from one’s marriage. Offspring means that a child is accepted in love, is nurtured in affection, is brought up in religion. Sacrament means that the marriage is not severed nor the spouse abandoned, not even so that the abandoner or the abandoned may remarry for the sake of children. (De Genesi ad litteram, Bk 9, chapter 7)

The sacramental character of marriage, according to St. Augustine, makes it indisssoluble while both spouses live. The marriage bond remains even when one spouse abandons the other. Nor can it be broken if one of the spouses is infertile.

In “On the Good of Widowhood” (AD 414), he writes of “the sacrament (indissoluble, so long as both live) of matrimony.” Five years later, in 419, he wrote “On Marriage and Concupiscence.”

It is certainly not fecundity only, the fruit of which consists of offspring, nor chastity only, whose bond is fidelity, but also a certain sacramental bond in marriage which is recommended to believers in wedlock. Accordingly it is enjoined by the apostle: Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church. (Ephesians 5:25) Of this bond the substance undoubtedly is this, that the man and the woman who are joined together in matrimony should remain inseparable as long as they live; and that it should be unlawful for one consort to be parted from the other, except for the cause of fornication. (Matthew 5:32) For this is preserved in the case of Christ and the Church; so that, as a living one with a living one, there is no divorce, no separation for ever. And so complete is the observance of this bond in the city of our God, in His holy mountain — that is to say, in the Church of Christ — by all married believers, who are undoubtedly members of Christ, that, although women marry, and men take wives, for the purpose of procreating children, it is never permitted one to put away even an unfruitful wife for the sake of having another to bear children. And whosoever does this is held to be guilty of adultery by the law of the gospel; though not by this world’s rule, which allows a divorce between the parties, without even the allegation of guilt, and the contraction of other nuptial engagements, — a concession which, the Lord tells us, even the holy Moses extended to the people of Israel, because of the hardness of their hearts. (Matthew 19:8) The same condemnation applies to the woman, if she is married to another man. So enduring, indeed, are the rights of marriage between those who have contracted them, as long as they both live, that even they are looked on as man and wife still, who have separated from one another, rather than they between whom a new connection has been formed. For by this new connection they would not be guilty of adultery, if the previous matrimonial relation did not still continue. If the husband die, with whom a true marriage was made, a true marriage is now possible by a connection which would before have been adultery. Thus between the conjugal pair, as long as they live, the nuptial bond has a permanent obligation, and can be cancelled neither by separation nor by union with another. But this permanence avails, in such cases, only for injury from the sin, not for a bond of the covenant. In like manner the soul of an apostate, which renounces as it were its marriage union with Christ, does not, even though it has cast its faith away, lose the sacrament of its faith, which it received in the laver of regeneration. It would undoubtedly be given back to him if he were to return, although he lost it on his departure from Christ. He retains, however, the sacrament after his apostasy, to the aggravation of his punishment, not for meriting the reward. (On Marriage and Concupiscence, Bk 1, chapter 10 [11]) [AD 420]

The marriage bond remains even through separation of the spouses, so long as both remain alive, even if they join with other men or women. If remarrying by one spouse (while the other is still living) is adulterous, this entails that the marriage bond remains, which then entails that it is adulterous for the other spouse to remarry (so long as both spouses are alive).

St. Augustine is explaining both the Catholic practice of not remarrying while one’s spouse is alive, and the injunctions in the Gospels and in St. Paul prohibiting such remarriage. The explanation for both the Catholic practice and the teaching of Scripture is the sacramental character of Christian marriage, which signifies the indissolubility of the union of Christ with His Church.

In marriage, however, let the blessings of marriage be loved: offspring, fidelity, and the sacramental bond. Offspring, not so much because it may be born, but because it can be reborn; for it is born to punishment unless it be reborn to life. Fidelity, but not such as even the unbelievers have among themselves, ardent as they are for the flesh. . . . The sacramental bond, which they lose neither through separation nor through adultery, this the -spouses should guard chastely and harmoniously. (On Marriage and Concupiscence, 1:17:19)

That same year, St. Augustine received an inquiry from a certain Pollentius. Pollentius believed that there were two types of divorce: that which was not justified by an act of adultery, and that which was justified by an act of adultery. According to Pollentius, if neither spouse committed adultery, then even though divorce could be allowed, neither spouse would be permitted to remarry a third party after the divorce. But if one spouse committed adultery, then remarriage could be allowed. St. Augustine wrote his work “Adulterous Unions” (De Conjugiis Adulterinis) in reply to Pollentius. In this work St. Augustine writes:

Neither can it rightly be held that a husband who dismisses his wife because of fornication and marries another does not commit adultery. For there is also adultery on the part of those who, after the repudiation of their former wives because of fornication, marry others. This adultery, nevertheless, is certainly less serious than that of men who dismiss their wives for reasons other than fornication and take other wives. Therefore, when we say: ‘Whoever marries a woman dismissed by her husband for reason other than fornication commits adultery,’ undoubtedly we speak the truth. But we do not thereby acquit of this crime the man who marries a woman who was dismissed because of fornication. We do not doubt in the least that both are adulterers. We do indeed pronounce him an adulterer who dismissed his wife for cause other than fornication and marries another, nor do we thereby defend from the taint of this sin the man who dismissed his wife because of fornication and marries another. We recognize that both are adulterers, though the sin of one is more grave than that of the other. No one is so unreasonable to say that a man who marries a woman whose husband has dismissed her because of fornication is not an adulterer, while maintaining that a man who marries a woman dismissed without the ground of fornication is an adulterer. Both of these men are guilty of adultery. (On Adulterous Marriages 1:9:9)

A woman begins to be the wife of no later husband unless she has ceased to be the wife of a former one. She will cease to be the wife of a former one, however, if that husband should die, not if he commit fornication. A spouse, therefore, is lawfully dismissed for cause of fornication; but the bond of chastity remains. That is why a man is guilty of adultery if he marries a woman who has been dismissed even for this very reason of fornication. (On Adulterous Marriages 2:4:4)

In short, according to St. Augustine, no matter what reason one spouse dismisses another, even for adultery, the marriage bond remains until death.¹² And for that reason, for either spouse to remarry while the other spouse is alive, is adultery. A divorced Christian is still married to the other spouse. Yes, the sin of the man who remarries after divorcing his wife because she committed adultery is less serious than that of the man who remarries after divorcing his wife for some other reason less serious than adultery on her part. But in both cases, remarrying while the spouse is living is adultery. Adultery does not break the marriage bond.

In AD 426, only four years before his death, St. Augustine wrote:

Because of the sacrament of marriage, what God has joined man must not separate. (De peccato originali, Bk 2, chapter 39)

Again, for St. Augustine, marriage between Christians is a sacrament, and this means, for St. Augustine that man cannot sever this bond. A husband may divorce his wife if she commits adultery (and she may divorce her husband if he commits adultery), but if the one who has committed adultery repents, the other spouse should receive him or her back. Moreover, the marriage bond is indissoluble, so long as both spouses live. And therefore remarriage by either spouse, while both spouses live, is not actually marriage, but adultery.

Bishop Theodoret of Cyrrus (Syria) (d. 457)

Commenting on St. Paul’s statement “Let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband,” Theodoret writes:

And he [St. Paul] strives indeed to keep the bond of marriage unbroken, but condescending to men’s weakness, he puts the person separately himself under a law of continency, in this way forbidding the dissolution of marriage. For by barring connection with another he compels the party, whichever it be, to return to the former marriage. (Commentary on 1 Corinthians 7:10,11)

St. Cyril of Alexandria (AD 429)

When the wedding was celebrated [at Cana] it is clear that it was entirely decorous: for indeed, the Mother of the Savior was there; and, invited along with His disciples, the Savior too was there, working miracles more than being entertained in feasting, and especially that He might sanctify the very beginning of human generation, which certainly is a matter concerning the flesh. (Commentary on John, 2:1)

Here too we see that Christ’s presence at the wedding at Cana, is not seen as accidental, but as an indication that Christ sanctified marriage.

Pope St. Leo the Great (AD 440-461)

And so a wife is different from a concubine, even as a bondwoman from a freewoman. For which reason also the Apostle in order to show the difference of these persons quotes from Genesis, where it is said to Abraham, ‘Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.’ And hence, since the marriage tie was from the beginning so constituted as apart from the joining of the sexes to symbolize the mystic union of Christ and His Church, it is undoubted that that woman has no part in matrimony, in whose case it is shown that the mystery of marriage has not taken place. (To Rusticus, Epistle 167:4 (AD 459)

Here Pope Leo explains the distinction between a wife and a concubine. The marriage tie, which symbolizes the mystical union of Christ and His Church, is missing in the case of the concubine.

Pope Leo also wrote a letter to Nicetas, bishop of Aquileia, explaining that in cases where the husbands had been taken into exile by the barbarians under Atilla, and the wives had remarried (thinking their husbands to be dead), when the husband returns, in all cases the wife must return to her husband, since the second ‘marriage’ was no marriage at all. If she refused to return to her husband, and chose to remain with the man with whom she was living, she could no longer receive the Eucharist.

The indissolubility of Christian marriage was defended not only by Pope Innocent I, and Pope Leo the Great, but by other popes as well.¹³ In addition, just as the Synod of Arles (AD 314) had forbidden remarriage to Christians who divorced, while their spouse still lived, this same prohibition was repeated in other subsequent councils as well.¹⁴ In all the early Christian writers, we find only two who clearly permit remarriage after divorce, while both spouses live: Lactantius and Ambrosiaster. And they are not Church Fathers, not being saints. Among the Church Fathers, the only person with whom there is any question is St. Epiphanius. There is dispute over the proper interpretation of a paragraph in the writings of St. Epiphanius, but I have shown above that it can be understood in keeping with the traditional Catholic teaching on remarriage. So among all the Church Fathers and ecclesial writers, there is an overwhelming moral consensus regarding the prohibition for Christians of remarriage after divorce, so long as both spouses live. The Catholic Encyclopedia summarizes the matter as follows:

The doctrine of Scripture about the illicitness of divorce is fully confirmed by the constant tradition of the Church. The testimonies of the Fathers and the councils leave us no room for doubt. In numerous places they lay down the teaching that not even in the case of adultery can the marriage bond be dissolved or the innocent party proceed to a new marriage. They insist rather that the innocent party must remain unmarried after the dismissal of the guilty one, and can only enter upon new marriage in case death intervenes. (“Divorce (in moral theology)”)

In AD 673 an assembly of English bishops under Theodore of Tarsus, the archbishop of Canterbury decreed the following:

Regarding marriages: no one is to have any but a legally recognized marriage. No one is to commit incest. No one is to abandon his own spouse unless, as the holy Gospel teaches, he does so because of fornication. But if anyone dismisses a spouse joined to him legitimately in marriage, if he wishes truly to be a Christian, he is to be united to no one else, but is either to remain as he is or to be reconciled with his own spouse. (Canon 10)

Council of Trullo (AD 692)

At the Council of Trullo we read:

She who has left her husband is an adulteress if she has come to another, according to the holy and divine Basil, who has gathered this most excellently from the prophet Jeremiah: If a woman has become another man’s, her husband shall not return to her, but being defiled she shall remain defiled; and again, He who has an adulteress is senseless and impious. If therefore she appears to have departed from her husband without reason, he is deserving of pardon and she of punishment. And pardon shall be given to him that he may be in communion with the Church. But he who leaves the wife lawfully given him, and shall take another is guilty of adultery by the sentence of the Lord. And it has been decreed by our Fathers that they who are such must be weepers for a year, hearers for two years, prostrators for three years, and in the seventh year to stand with the faithful and thus be counted worthy of the Oblation [if with tears they do penance]. (Canon 87)

Council of Friuli (AD 791)

It was decreed that when the marriage bond is loosed because of fornication the husband may not lawfully take another wife so long as the adulteress lives, nor may she take another husband, whether he whom she hath shameless wronged be living or dead.

According to this council, the exception clause in Matthew 19:9 refers not to the permissibility of remarriage while one’s spouse is alive, but to the permissibility of putting away one’s spouse.

Synod of Paris (AD 829)

They who, when their wives have been dismissed for the cause of fornication, marry others are pronounced to be adulterers by the sentence of the Lord. (Concilium Parisiense VI.)

Benedict the Levite (AD 847)

In AD 847 Benedict the Levite examined and compiled the prior ecclesiastical canons concerning marriage, and sums up their teaching on the indissolubility of marriage as follows:

That during the lifetime of husband and wife neither of them be united in another marriage …. And if she have committed fornication, and her husband desire it, she is to be dismissed, but another wife may not be taken in marriage during her lifetime, because adulterers will not possess the kingdom of God, and her penitence is to be accepted. (Benedict the Levite, III.73)

B. Second Millennium

In the second millennium we find a continuity of the same teaching.

Gratian (ca. 1140)

Gratian, in his famous Decretum (written between 1139 and 1142) compiling the Church’s canon law, defends the indissolubility of the marriage bond, as a bond broken only by death:

The bond of marriage cannot be dissolved by fornication. … A marriage which, once entered into, is approved can in nowise be dissolved. … Whether the husband has departed from the wife, or the wife from the husband, for the cause of fornication, [the person so departing] is forbidden to cleave to another. … He commits adultery who presumes to marry one dismissed by her husband. … She is proved an adulteress who during the lifetime of her husband marries another. … By these authorities it is most evidently shewn that whoever shall have put away his wife for the cause of fornication cannot marry another during her lifetime, and if he shall have so married he is guilty of adultery. (Decretum c. 1, 2, 3, 6, 7)

Council of Verona (AD 1184)

All who, regarding the sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, or regarding baptism or the confession of sins, matrimony or the other ecclesiastical sacraments, do not fear to think or to teach otherwise than the most holy Roman Church teaches and observes … (Denz. 402)

In 1199 Pope Innocent III (pope from 1198-1216) wrote:

Although indeed true matrimony exists between unbelievers, yet it is not [divinely] ratified; between believers, however, a true and [divinely] ratified marriage exists, because the sacrament of faith, which once was admitted, is never lost, but makes the sacrament of marriage ratified so that it itself lasts between married persons as long as the sacrament of faith endures. (Quanto te magis, May 1, 1199)

Here Pope Innocent III makes a clear distinction between a non-sacramental marriage (i.e. between unbaptized persons), and a sacramental marriage (i.e. between baptized persons). Because baptism is never lost (and therefore never repeated), a marriage between two baptized persons is divinely ratified, such that once formed it necessarily exists until one spouse dies. And therefore, according to Pope Innocent III, in a Christian marriage, if one spouse deserts the other, or falls into heresy or apostasy, or commits adultery, neither spouse may remarry until one spouse dies.

Raymond of Penyafort (AD 1241)

Pope Gregory IX appointed Raymond of Penyafort to compile previous papal legal decisions. From this work, Raymond published what came to be called his Summa on Marriage. There he writes:

One of the effects of marriage is that once there is marriage or matrimony between two people, it never ceases to be even if one of the spouses becomes a heretic. … Although bodily separation sometimes occurs because of fornication or by mutual consent for prayer or religious life, sacramental separation is not possible unless the matrimonial bond ceases, which never happens between the faithful unless through entry into religious life before carnal copulation or, after carnal copulation through the death of both spouses or one of them. (Title II.9,12)

St. Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1270)

In the Supplement of the Summa Theologica, there is an article addressing the following question: Whether the indissolubility of marriage is of the natural law?

Those things which were assigned to nature when it was well established in its beginning belong especially to the law of nature. Now the indissolubility of marriage is one of these things according to Matthew 19:4-6. Therefore it is of natural law.

Further, it is of natural law that man should not oppose himself to God. Yet man would, in a way, oppose himself to God if he were to sunder “what God hath joined together.” Since then the indissolubility of marriage is gathered from this passage (Matthew 19:6) it would seem that it is of natural law.

I answer that, By the intention of nature marriage is directed to the rearing of the offspring, not merely for a time, but throughout its whole life. Hence it is of natural law that parents should lay up for their children, and that children should be their parents’ heirs (2 Corinthians 12:14). Therefore, since the offspring is the common good of husband and wife, the dictate of the natural law requires the latter to live together for ever inseparably: and so the indissolubility of marriage is of natural law.

Indissolubility belongs to marriage in so far as the latter is a sign of the perpetual union of Christ with the Church, and in so far as it fulfills an office of nature that is directed to the good of the offspring, as stated above. But since divorce is more directly incompatible with the signification of the sacrament than with the good of the offspring, with which it is incompatible consequently, as stated above (65, 2, ad 5), the indissolubility of marriage is implied in the good of the sacrament rather than in the good of the offspring, although it may be connected with both. And in so far as it is connected with the good of the offspring, it is of the natural law, but not as connected with the good of the sacrament. (Supp. Q. 67 a.1)

In the reply we find two reasons given for the indissolubility of marriage. First is that indissolubility belongs to marriage by way of natural law. That is, the nature and purpose of the marital union itself, in the relation of parents to offspring, indicates that this union is indissoluble, and is to be treated as indissoluble. The permanence of the union of the parents in the children, and the relation of the children as the common good of husband and wife, show that the marital bond is to be entered into and treated as lifelong, and therefore as indissoluble.

The second reason given for the indissolubility of marriage is its sacramentality, in that it signifies the perpetual union of Christ and His Church. And divorce (as a dissolving of that bond) is contrary to the sacramental meaning of the marriage bond.

Second Council of Lyon (AD 1274)

The same holy Roman Church also holds and teaches that the ecclesiastical sacraments are seven: namely, one is baptism, concerning which we have spoken above; another is the sacrament of confirmation which the bishops confer through the imposition of hands when anointing the reborn; another is penance; another the Eucharist; another the sacrament of orders; another is matrimony; another extreme unction, which according to the doctrine of St. James is given to the sick. The same Roman Church prepares the sacrament of the Eucharist from unleavened bread, holding and teaching that in the same sacrament the bread is changed into the body, and the wine into the blood of Jesus Christ. But concerning matrimony it holds that neither one man is permitted to have many wives nor one woman many husbands at the same time. But she (the Church) says that second and third marriages successively are permissible for one freed from a legitimate marriage through the death of the other party, if another canonical impediment for some reason is not an obstacle. (Denz. 465)

Pope John XXII (AD 1318)

There are many other things which these very presumptuous men are said to babble against the venerable sacrament of matrimony … (Denz. 490)

Council of Florence (AD 1439)

The seventh [sacrament] is the sacrament of matrimony, which is the sign of the joining of Christ and the Church according to the Apostle who says: “This is a great sacrament; but I speak in Christ and in the church” [Eph. 5:32]. … Third, there is the indivisibility of marriage, because it signifies the indivisible union of Christ and the Church. Although, moreover, there may be a separation of the marriage couch by reason of fornication, nevertheless, it is not permitted to contract another marriage, since the bond of a marriage legitimately contracted is perpetual. (Denz. 702)

Council of Trent (AD 1563)

The twenty-fourth session of the Council of Trent addressed the subject of matrimony. The Council’s teaching concerning matrimony reads as follows:

The perpetual and indissoluble bond of matrimony was expressed by the first parent of the human race, when, under the influence of the divine Spirit, he said: This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh. But that by this bond two only are united and joined together, Christ the Lord taught more plainly when referring to those last words as having been spoken by God, He said: Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh, and immediately ratified the firmness of the bond so long ago proclaimed by Adam with these words: What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder.

But the grace which was to perfect that natural love, and confirm that indissoluble union, and sanctify the persons married, Christ Himself, the instituter and perfecter of the venerable sacraments, merited for us by His passion, which Paul the Apostle intimates when he says: Husbands love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church, and delivered himself up for it; adding immediately: This is a great sacrament, but I speak in Christ and in the Church.

Since therefore matrimony in the evangelical law surpasses in grace through Christ the ancient marriages, our holy Fathers, the councils, and the tradition of the universal Church, have with good reason always taught that it is to be numbered among the sacraments of the New Law; and since with regard to this teaching ungodly men of this age, raving madly, have not only formed false ideas concerning this venerable sacrament, but, introducing in conformity with their habit under the pretext of the Gospel a carnal liberty, have by word and writing asserted, not without great harm to the faithful of Christ, many things that are foreign to the teaching of the Catholic Church and to the usage approved of since the times of the Apostles, this holy and general council, desiring to restrain their boldness, has thought it proper, lest their pernicious contagion should attract more, that the principal heresies and errors of the aforesaid schismatics be destroyed by directing against those heretics and their errors the following anathemas. (Session 24)

The first paragraph teaches that by divine institution, no person can be married to two or more persons at the same time, and that the marriage bond is perpetual and indissoluble. The second paragraph indicates that Christ raised marriage to the dignity of a sacrament, meriting for us through His Passion and Cross the grace given to persons in Christian marriages, so that their union would signify the union of Christ and His Church. The third paragraph affirms the sacramental character of marriage under the New Law, and notes that because ungodly men have formed false ideas about marriage, introducing “under the pretext of the Gospel” a “carnal liberty” contrary to the teaching of the Catholic Church and to “the usage approved since the times of the Apostles” [i.e. the Apostolic Tradition regarding marriage] the bishops of the Council have judged it necessary to destroy these heresies and errors by directing the following anathemas against them:

Canon 1. If anyone says that matrimony is not truly and properly one of the seven sacraments of the evangelical law, instituted by Christ the Lord, but has been devised by men in the Church and does not confer grace, let him be anathema.

Can. 2. If anyone says that it is lawful for Christians to have several wives at the same time and that this is not forbidden by any divine law, let him be anathema.

Can. 3. If anyone says that only those degrees of consanguinity and affinity which are expressed in Leviticus can hinder matrimony from being contracted and dissolve it when contracted, and that the Church cannot dispense in some of them or declare that others hinder and dissolve it, let him be anathema.

Can. 4. If anyone says that the Church cannot establish impediments dissolving marriage, or that she has erred in establishing them, let him be anathema.

Can. 5. If anyone says that the bond of matrimony can be dissolved on account of heresy, or irksome cohabitation, or by reason of the voluntary absence of one of the parties, let him be anathema.

Can. 6. If anyone says that matrimony contracted but not consummated is not dissolved by the solemn religious profession of one of the parties, let him be anathema.

Can. 7. If anyone says that the Church errs in that she taught and teaches that in accordance with evangelical and apostolic doctrine the bond of matrimony cannot be dissolved by reason of adultery on the part of one of the parties, and that both, or even the innocent party who gave no occasion for adultery, cannot contract another marriage during the lifetime of the other, and that he is guilty of adultery who, having put away the adulteress, shall marry another, and she also who, having put away the adulterer, shall marry another, let him be anathema.

Can. 8. If anyone says that the Church errs when she declares that for many reasons a separation may take place between husband and wife with regard to bed and with regard to cohabitation for a determinate or indeterminate period, let him be anathema.

Can. 9. If anyone says that clerics constituted in sacred orders or regulars who have made solemn profession of chastity can contract marriage, and that the one contracted is valid notwithstanding the ecclesiastical law or the vow, and that the contrary is nothing else than a condemnation of marriage, and that all who feel that they have not the gift of chastity, even though they have made such a vow, can contract marriage, let him be anathema, since God does not refuse that gift to those who ask for it rightly, neither does he suffer us to be tempted above that which we are able.

Can. 10 If anyone says that the married state excels the state of virginity or celibacy, and that it is better and happier to be united in matrimony than to remain in virginity or celibacy, let him be anathema.

Can. 11. If anyone says that the prohibition of the solemnization of marriages at certain times of the year is a tyrannical superstition derived from the superstition of the heathen, or condemns the blessings and other ceremonies which the Church makes use of therein, let him be anathema.

Can. 12. If anyone says that matrimonial causes do not belong to ecclesiastical judges, let him be anathema.

The first canon teaches infallibly that marriage is one of the seven sacraments of the evangelical law, instituted by Christ as a means of [sanctifying] grace. The second canon condemns polygamy. The third canon addresses consanguinity (marriage between relatives). The fourth canon condemns the notion that the Church does not have the authority to determine and establish what are impediments to marriage (i.e. conditions that prevent a marriage from being formed).¹⁵ The fifth canon condemns the notion that the marriage bond can be dissolved on account of heresy or “irksome cohabitation,” or desertion. The sixth canon condemns the notion that matrimony that has not been consummated cannot be dissolved by the solemn religious profession of one of the parties.

The seventh and eighth canons are the most relevant to this article. In the seventh canon, the Church infallibly condemns the notion that the Church has erred in her teaching that the bond of matrimony cannot be dissolved by adultery, and that both parties, even the innocent party, cannot contract another marriage during the lifetime of the other, and that he is guilty of adultery who, having divorced his wife because she committed adultery, marries another while his spouse still lives. In the eighth canon, the Church condemns the claim that the Church has erred in allowing a separation between husband and wife with respect to bed and cohabitation. In other words, in these two canons the Church affirms both the permissibility of divorce-as-separation (mensa et thoro) and the unconditional indissolubility of the marriage bond until the death of one of the spouses.

The ninth canon condemns the claim that clerics who have made a solemn profession of celibacy can contract marriage or if they attempt to contract marriage, that their vow of celibacy is not an impediment to the formation of a marriage bond. The tenth canon condemns the claim that celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom does not excel the married state. The eleventh canon condemns the notion that it is wrong for the Church to prohibit weddings during certain periods of the liturgical year (e.g. Lent). And the twelfth canon condemns the notion that matrimonial causes (e.g. the administration of questions of marriage, impediments, annulment, divorce, remarriage) do not belong to ecclesiastical judges.

Pope Urban VIII (1623-44)

Also, that the bond of the Sacrament of Matrimony is indissoluble; and that, although a separation tori et cohabitationis can be made between the parties, for adultery, heresy, or other causes, yet it is not lawful for them to contract another marriage.

Profession of Faith which is prescribed for Orientals (i.e. Marionites) (Pope Benedict XIV, 1743)

Likewise, I profess that there are seven sacraments of the New Law instituted by Christ, our Lord, for the salvation of the human race, although not all of them are necessary for each individual: namely, baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, penance, extreme unction, orders, and matrimony; and (I profess) that these confer grace, and that of these, baptism, confirmation, and orders cannot be repeated without sacrilege. Likewise (I profess) that baptism is necessary for salvation, and hence, if there is imminent danger of death, it should be conferred at once and without delay, and that it is valid if conferred with the right matter and form and intention by anyone, and at any time. Likewise (I profess) that the bond of the sacrament of matrimony is indissoluble, and that, although a separation of bed and board may be possible between the Spouses because of adultery, heresy, and some other causes, nevertheless it is not lawful for them to contract another marriage. (Denzinger, 1470)

Rescript. ad Episc. Agriens., Pope Pius VI, July 11, 1789.

Pope Pius VI was pope from 1775 to 1799. In 1789 he wrote the following:

Hence it is clear that marriage even in the state of nature, and certainly long before it was raised to the dignity of a sacrament, was divinely instituted in such a way that it should carry with it a perpetual and indissoluble bond which cannot therefore be dissolved by any civil law. Therefore although the sacramental element may be absent from a marriage as is the case among unbelievers, still in such a marriage, inasmuch as it is a true marriage there must remain and indeed there does remain that perpetual bond which by divine right is so bound up with matrimony from its first institution that it is not subject to any civil power. And so, whatever marriage is said to be contracted, either it is so contracted that it is really a true marriage, in which case it carries with it that enduring bond which by divine right is inherent in every true marriage; or it is thought to be contracted without that perpetual bond, and in that case there is no marriage, but an illicit union opposed of its very nature to the divine law, which therefore cannot be entered into or maintained.¹⁶

Even before Christ raised marriage to the dignity of a sacrament, in the state of nature marriage was divinely instituted to “carry with it” a perpetual and indissoluble bond. Hence, says Pope Pius VI, any concept of ‘marriage’ in which marriage was thought to be dissoluble by the State would not be a concept of marriage at all, but only a concept of an illicit union. When two unbaptized persons freely offer themselves to each other in a covenant they each intend to be lifelong, exclusive, and fruitful, and each party freely accepts the other’s offer, a true marriage bond is formed. This marriage bond is perpetual by divine law, and the State has not been given any power to dissolve it.

Brief to Charles of Dalberg, Archbishop of Mainz

The decision of lay tribunals and of Catholic assemblies by which the nullity of marriages is chiefly declared, and the dissolution of their bond attempted, can have no strength and absolutely no force in the sight of the Church. . . . Those pastors who would approve these nuptials by their presence and confirm them with their blessing would commit a very grave fault and would betray their sacred ministry. For they should not be called nuptials, but rather adulterous unions. . . . (Denzinger 1600-01)

Mirari Vos (Pope Gregory XVI, 1832)

In 1832, in a document titled Mirari Vos, Pope Gregory XVI wrote:

Now the honorable marriage of Christians, which Paul calls “a great sacrament in Christ and the Church,” (Heb. 13:4) demands our shared concern lest anything contrary to its sanctity and indissolubility is proposed. Our predecessor Pius VIII would recommend to you his own letters on the subject. However, troublesome efforts against this sacrament still continue to be made. The people therefore must be zealously taught that a marriage rightly entered upon cannot be dissolved; for those joined in matrimony God has ordained a perpetual companionship for life and a knot of necessity which cannot be loosed except by death. Recalling that matrimony is a sacrament and therefore subject to the Church, let them consider and observe the laws of the Church concerning it. Let them take care lest for any reason they permit that which is an obstruction to the teachings of the canons and the decrees of the councils. They should be aware that those marriages will have an unhappy end which are entered upon contrary to the discipline of the Church or without God’s favor or because of concupiscence alone, with no thought of the sacrament and of the mysteries signified by it. (Mirari Vos, 12)

Here Pope Gregory XVI teaches in continuity with the Tradition that marriage among Christians, rightly entered upon, cannot be dissolved, because God joins the spouses with a “knot of necessity” that cannot be loosed except by death.

Acerbissimum vobiscum (Pope Pius IX, 1852)

We say nothing about that other decree in which, after completely despising the mystery, dignity, and sanctity of the sacrament of matrimony; after utterly ignoring and distorting its institution and nature; and after completely spurning the power of the Church over the same sacrament, it was proposed, according to the already condemned errors of heretics, and against the teaching of the Catholic Church, that marriage should be considered as a civil contract only, and that divorce, strictly speaking, should be sanctioned in various cases; and that all matrimonial cases should be deferred to lay tribunals and be judged by them; because no Catholic is ignorant or cannot know that matrimony is truly and properly one of the seven sacraments of the evangelical law, instituted by Christ the Lord, and that for that reason, there can be no marriage between the faithful without there being at one and the same time a sacrament, and that, therefore, any other union of man and woman among Christians, except the sacramental union, even if contracted under the power of any civil law, is nothing else than a disgraceful and death-bringing concubinage very frequently condemned by the Church, and, hence, that the sacrament can never be separated from the conjugal agreement, and that it pertains absolutely to the power of the Church to discern those things which can pertain in any way to the same matrimony. (Denzinger, 1640)

For Catholics, there can be no marriage between the faithful that is not sacramental. Hence, a merely civil ‘marriage’ between Catholics is not marriage at all, but only “death-bringing concubinage.”

Syllabus of Errors (Pope Pius IX, 1864)

VIII. Errors Concerning Christian Marriage
65. The doctrine that Christ has raised marriage to the dignity of a sacrament cannot be at all tolerated. — Apostolic Letter “Ad Apostolicae,” Aug. 22, 1851.

66. The Sacrament of Marriage is only a something accessory to the contract and separate from it, and the sacrament itself consists in the nuptial benediction alone. — Ibid.

67. By the law of nature, the marriage tie is not indissoluble, and in many cases divorce properly so called may be decreed by the civil authority. — Ibid.; Allocution “Acerbissimum,” Sept. 27, 1852.

68. The Church has not the power of establishing diriment impediments of marriage, but such a power belongs to the civil authority by which existing impediments are to be removed. — Damnatio “Multiplices inter,” June 10, 1851.

69. In the dark ages the Church began to establish diriment impediments, not by her own right, but by using a power borrowed from the State. — Apostolic Letter “Ad Apostolicae,” Aug. 22, 1851.

70. The canons of the Council of Trent, which anathematize those who dare to deny to the Church the right of establishing diriment impediments, either are not dogmatic or must be understood as referring to such borrowed power. — Ibid.

71. The form of solemnizing marriage prescribed by the Council of Trent, under pain of nullity, does not bind in cases where the civil law lays down another form, and declares that when this new form is used the marriage shall be valid.

72. Boniface VIII was the first who declared that the vow of chastity taken at ordination renders marriage void. — Ibid.

73. In force of a merely civil contract there may exist between Christians a real marriage, and it is false to say either that the marriage contract between Christians is always a sacrament, or that there is no contract if the sacrament be excluded. — Ibid.; Letter to the King of Sardinia, Sept. 9, 1852; Allocutions “Acerbissimum,” Sept. 27, 1852, “Multis gravibusque,” Dec. 17, 1860.

74. Matrimonial causes and espousals belong by their nature to civil tribunals. — Encyclical “Qui pluribus,” Nov. 9 1846; Damnatio “Multiplices inter,” June 10, 1851, “Ad Apostolicae,” Aug. 22, 1851; Allocution “Acerbissimum,” Sept. 27, 1852.

Arcanum (Pope Leo XIII, 1880)

In February, 1880, Pope Leo XIII promulgated an encyclical titled Arcanum, on the topic of Christian marriage. The document is directly relevant to our topic, and is a rich theological resource concerning the Catholic doctrine of marriage.

Early in the document, Pope Leo writes:

And this union of man and woman, that it might answer more fittingly to the infinite wise counsels of God, even from the beginning manifested chiefly two most excellent properties – deeply sealed, as it were, and signed upon it-namely, unity and perpetuity. From the Gospel we see clearly that this doctrine was declared and openly confirmed by the divine authority of Jesus Christ. He bore witness to the Jews and to His Apostles that marriage, from its institution, should exist between two only, that is, between one man and one woman; that of two they are made, so to say, one flesh; and that the marriage bond is by the will of God so closely and strongly made fast that no man may dissolve it or render it asunder. (Arcanum, 5)

According to Pope Leo, Christ taught that the two most excellent properties of marriage are unity and perpetuity. Christ taught that in Christian marriage, God joins the couple in a bond “so closely and strongly made fast that no man may dissolve it or render it assunder.” Christ is not saying that although man has the power to dissolve the marriage bond, he ought not to do so. Rather, He is saying that man does not have the power to dissolve the marriage bond.

Pope Leo continues, relating the evils that took place after the Fall, as human society deviated from the original divine purpose of marriage, and then showing how Christ restored marriage to its original purpose, in part by proscribing divorce-with-remarriage:

So manifold being the vices and so great the ignominies with which marriage was defiled, an alleviation and a remedy were at length bestowed from on high. Jesus Christ, who restored our human dignity and who perfected the Mosaic law, applied early in His ministry no little solicitude to the question of marriage. He ennobled the marriage in Cana of Galilee by His presence, and made it memorable by the first of the miracles which he wrought; and for this reason, even from that day forth, it seemed as if the beginning of new holiness had been conferred on human marriages. Later on He brought back matrimony to the nobility of its primeval origin by condemning the customs of the Jews in their abuse of the plurality of wives and of the power of giving bills of divorce; and still more by commanding most strictly that no one should dare to dissolve that union which God Himself had sanctioned by a bond perpetual. (Arcanum, 8)

Then he explains that this Catholic understanding of marriage was handed down in the Apostolic Tradition, received and taught by the Church Fathers:

But what was decreed and constituted in respect to marriage by the authority of God has been more fully and more clearly handed down to us, by tradition and the written Word, through the Apostles, those heralds of the laws of God. To the Apostles, indeed, as our masters, are to be referred the doctrines which “our holy Fathers, the Councils, and the Tradition of the Universal Church have always taught,” namely, that Christ our Lord raised marriage to the dignity of a sacrament; that to husband and wife, guarded and strengthened by the heavenly grace which His merits gained for them, He gave power to attain holiness in the married state; and that, in a wondrous way, making marriage an example of the mystical union between Himself and His Church, He not only perfected that love which is according to nature, but also made the naturally indivisible union of one man with one woman far more perfect through the bond of heavenly love. … In like manner from the teaching of the Apostles we learn that the unity of marriage and its perpetual indissolubility, the indispensable conditions of its very origin, must, according to the command of Christ, be holy and inviolable without exception. Paul says again: “To them that are married, not I, but the Lord commandeth that the wife depart not from her husband; and if she depart, that she remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband.” And again: “A woman is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband die, she is at liberty.” (Arcanum, 9)

According to Pope Leo, the Church received from the Apostles the doctrines that she has always taught, among which are that Christ raised marriage to the dignity of a sacrament, and “made the naturally indivisible union of one man with one woman more perfect through the bond of heavenly love.” In other words, the very nature of the spousal love proper to humans is to bind oneself to another perpetually. The greater one’s love for the other, the more one wants to bind oneself to the other, for the rest of one’s life, and to the exclusion of all others. That love is a human love; it is proper to human nature, and hence faithful marriage is not uncommonly found among non-Christians. But through the grace that comes to us from Christ through baptism, we receive the supernatural love called agape, and this supernatural love perfects [i.e. elevates] the natural love in Christian marriage, making the Christian marriage not merely a sign of the unity of Christ and His Church, but a certain sort of participation in that divine union, through which the couple receives sanctifying grace. Pope Leo also affirms that the unity and perpetual indissolubility of Christian marriage is something the Church learned from the teaching of the Apostles.

A little later in the document he writes:

Yet, owing to the efforts of the archenemy of mankind, there are persons who, thanklessly casting away so many other blessings of redemption, despise also or utterly ignore the restoration of marriage to its original perfection. It is a reproach to some of the ancients that they showed themselves the enemies of marriage in many ways; but in our own age, much more pernicious is the sin of those who would fain pervert utterly the nature of marriage, perfect though it is, and complete in all its details and parts. The chief reason why they act in this way is because very many, imbued with the maxims of a false philosophy and corrupted in morals, judge nothing so unbearable as submission and obedience; and strive with all their might to bring about that not only individual men, but families, also-indeed, human society itself-may in haughty pride despise the sovereignty of God. (Arcanum, 16)

Here Pope Leo claims that owing to the efforts of Satan many people are rejecting the Catholic doctrine concerning marriage, because in imitation of Satan, they think nothing so unbearable as “submission and obedience.” So they wish to be ‘free’ to act however they wish in matters pertaining to sexuality.

He continues:

Now, since the family and human society at large spring from marriage, these men will on no account allow matrimony to be the subject of the jurisdiction of the Church. Nay, they endeavor to deprive it of all holiness, and so bring it within the contracted sphere of those rights which, having been instituted by man, are ruled and administered by the civil jurisprudence of the community. Wherefore it necessarily follows that they attribute all power over marriage to civil rulers, and allow none whatever to the Church; and, when the Church exercises any such power, they think that she acts either by favor of the civil authority or to its injury. Now is the time, they say, for the heads of the State to vindicate their rights unflinchingly, and to do their best to settle all that relates to marriage according as to them seems good.

Hence are owing civil marriages, commonly so called; ‘hence laws are framed which impose impediments to marriage; hence arise judicial sentences affecting the marriage contract, as to whether or not it have been rightly made. Lastly, all power of prescribing and passing judgment in this class of cases is, as we see, of set purpose denied to the Catholic Church, so that no regard is paid either to her divine power or to her prudent laws. Yet, under these, for so many centuries, have the nations lived on whom the light of civilization shone bright with the wisdom of Christ Jesus. (Arcanum, 17-18)

These men who resist the Church’s teaching on marriage do not want marriage to be subject to the jurisdiction of the Church. So they seek to strip marriage of its holiness. They do this in part by seeking to attribute all power over marriage to civil rulers (i.e. the State), and thus make marriage wholly a matter of civil law. Notice that attributing all power over marriage to civil rulers (rather than the Church) strips marriage of its holiness, reducing it purely to the level of nature. It thereby denies that Christ elevated marriage to the dignity of a sacrament. Because Christ elevated marriage to the dignity of a sacrament, the administration of marriage by baptized persons rightly belongs ultimately to the Church, since the administration of any sacrament belongs to the Church, not the State.

Pope Leo then speaks very strongly against such persons who seek to strip away the holiness of marriage by making it wholly subject to the State. He continues:

Nevertheless, the naturalists, as well as all who profess that they worship above all things the divinity of the State, and strive to disturb whole communities with such wicked doctrines, cannot escape the charge of delusion. Marriage has God for its Author, and was from the very beginning a kind of foreshadowing of the Incarnation of His Son; and therefore there abides in it a something holy and religious; not extraneous, but innate; not derived from men, but implanted by nature. Innocent III, therefore, and Honorius III, our predecessors, affirmed not falsely nor rashly that a sacrament of marriage existed ever amongst the faithful and unbelievers. We call to witness the monuments of antiquity, as also the manners and customs of those people who, being the most civilized, had the greatest knowledge of law and equity. In the minds of all of them it was a fixed and foregone conclusion that, when marriage was thought of, it was thought of as conjoined with religion and holiness. Hence, among those, marriages were commonly celebrated with religious ceremonies, under the authority of pontiffs, and with the ministry of priests. So mighty, even in the souls ignorant of heavenly doctrine, was the force of nature, of the remembrance of their origin, and of the conscience of the human race. As, then, marriage is holy by its own power, in its own nature, and of itself, it ought not to be regulated and administered by the will of civil rulers, but by the divine authority of the Church, which alone in sacred matters professes the office of teaching. (Arcanum, 19)

There is something holy in marriage, even marriage between non-Christians. That is because already in the Garden of Eden, marriage was a foreshadowing of the Incarnation of Christ. Marriage is not merely a biological or social institution; it was divinely instituted as typological in nature, and therefore marriage is not rightly treated as a merely biological and/or merely social institution. Intellectually advanced societies throughout history have recognized the religious dimension of marriage, conjoining it with religious ceremonies and sacredness. And because in this respect marriage is holy in its own nature, and of itself, it ought to be regulated by the divine authority of the Church, and not the State.

He continues:

Next, the dignity of the sacrament must be considered, for through addition of the sacrament the marriages of Christians have become far the noblest of all matrimonial unions. But to decree and ordain concerning the sacrament is, by the will of Christ Himself, so much a part of the power and duty of the Church that it is plainly absurd to maintain that even the very smallest fraction of such power has been transferred to the civil ruler. (Arcanum, 20)

Because Christian marriage is a sacrament, the duty concerning administrating this sacrament belongs to the Church by Christ’s institution, and cannot be handed over to the State.

Lastly should be borne in mind the great weight and crucial test of history, by which it is plainly proved that the legislative and judicial authority of which We are speaking has been freely and constantly used by the Church, even in times when some foolishly suppose the head of the State either to have consented to it or connived at it. It would, for instance, be incredible and altogether absurd to assume that Christ our Lord condemned the long-standing practice of polygamy and divorce by authority delegated to Him by the procurator of the province, or the principal ruler of the Jews. And it would be equally extravagant to think that, when the Apostle Paul taught that divorces and incestuous marriages were not lawful, it was because Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero agreed with him or secretly commanded him so to teach. No man in his senses could ever be persuaded that the Church made so many laws about the holiness and indissolubility of marriage, and the marriages of slaves with the free-born, by power received from Roman emperors, most hostile to the Christian name, whose strongest desire was to destroy by violence and murder the rising Church of Christ. Still less could anyone believe this to be the case, when the law of the Church was sometimes so divergent from the civil law that Ignatius the Martyr, Justin, Athenagoras, and Tertullian publicly denounced as unjust and adulterous certain marriages which had been sanctioned by imperial law. (Arcanum, 21)

Here Pope Leo continues laying out his case that the oversight of marriage belongs to the Church. He explains that when Christ and St. Paul condemned polygamy, incest and divorce, they did not do so through authority delegated to them from the State. Christ did so as God, and St. Paul did so with the divine authority received from Christ. Likewise, in the generations that followed the Apostles, the laws made by the Church concerning marriage were made by that same divine authority, not by authority derived from the State. That is made more evident by the fact that the marital laws made by the Church were in many ways opposed to the lax marital laws of the Roman empire.

Furthermore, after all power had devolved upon the Christian emperors, the supreme pontiffs and bishops assembled in council persisted with the same independence and consciousness of their right in commanding or forbidding in regard to marriage whatever they judged to be profitable or expedient for the time being, however much it might seem to be at variance with the laws of the State. It is well known that, with respect to the impediments arising from the marriage bond, through vow, disparity of worship, blood relationship, certain forms of crime, and from previously plighted troth, many decrees were issued by the rulers of the Church at the Councils of Granada, Arles, Chalcedon, the second of Milevum, and others, which were often widely different from the decrees sanctioned by the laws of the empire. Furthermore, so far were Christian princes from arrogating any power in the matter of Christian marriage that they on the contrary acknowledged and declared that it belonged exclusively in all its fullness to the Church. In fact, Honorius, the younger Theodosius, and Justinian, also, hesitated not to confess that the only power belonging to them in relation to marriage was that of acting as guardians and defenders of the holy canons. If at any time they enacted anything by their edicts concerning impediments of marriage, they voluntarily explained the reason, affirming that they took it upon themselves so to act, by leave and authority of the Church, whose judgment they were wont to appeal to and reverently to accept in all questions that concerned legitimacy and divorce; as also in all those points which in any way have a necessary connection with the marriage bond. The Council of Trent, therefore, had the clearest right to define that it is in the Church’s power “to establish diriment impediments of matrimony,” and that “matrimonial causes pertain to ecclesiastical judges.” (Arcanum, 22)

The Church did not give up her authority to make ecclesiastical laws concerning marriage when the Roman emperor became Christian. The Church continued to make such laws, even when those laws were contrary to the marriage laws of the Roman empire. And this practice and understanding continued unbroken even up through the Council of Trent.

Let no one, then, be deceived by the distinction which some civil jurists have so strongly insisted upon – the distinction, namely, by virtue of which they sever the matrimonial contract from the sacrament, with intent to hand over the contract to the power and will of the rulers of the State, while reserving questions concerning the sacrament of the Church. A distinction, or rather severance, of this kind cannot be approved; for certain it is that in Christian marriage the contract is inseparable from the sacrament, and that, for this reason, the contract cannot be true and legitimate without being a sacrament as well. For Christ our Lord added to marriage the dignity of a sacrament; but marriage is the contract itself, whenever that contract is lawfully concluded.

Marriage, moreover, is a sacrament, because it is a holy sign which gives grace, showing forth an image of the mystical nuptials of Christ with the Church. But the form and image of these nuptials is shown precisely by the very bond of that most close union in which man and woman are bound together in one; which bond is nothing else but the marriage itself. Hence it is clear that among Christians every true marriage is, in itself and by itself, a sacrament; and that nothing can be further from the truth than to say that the sacrament is a certain added ornament, or outward endowment, which can be separated and torn away from the contract at the caprice of man. Neither, therefore, by reasoning can it be shown, nor by any testimony of history be proved, that power over the marriages of Christians has ever lawfully been handed over to the rulers of the State. If, in this matter, the right of anyone else has ever been violated, no one can truly say that it has been violated by the Church. Would that the teaching of the naturalists, besides being full of falsehood and injustice, were not also the fertile source of much detriment and calamity! But it is easy to see at a glance the greatness of the evil which unhallowed marriages have brought, and ever will bring, on the whole of human society.
(Arcanum, 23-24)

Pope Leo here teaches something that seems quite radical to contemporary ears, namely, that for Christian marriages, the jurisdiction over the matrimonial contract cannot be given wholly over to the State, even with the intention of leaving the sacramental aspect of marriage to the Church. That is because for Christian marriages, the marriage is the contract, i.e. the mutual consent between the man and woman to give themselves to each other through the offering of their own lives. The sacramental asepect is not an added “ornament” or “outward endowment.” If the State were to claim jurisdiction over the matrimonial contract between Christians, this would be equivalent to the State claiming jurisdiction over marriage, even if the State were to make no judgment concerning the sacramental quality of the marriage bond. Hence for all Christians, oversight of the marriage contract belongs ultimately to the Church, not the State.

He continues:

But, now, there is a spreading wish to supplant natural and divine law by human law; and hence has begun a gradual extinction of that most excellent ideal of marriage which nature herself had impressed on the soul of man, and sealed, as it were, with her own seal; nay, more, even in Christian marriages this power, productive of so great good, has been weakened by the sinfulness of man. Of what advantage is it if a state can institute nuptials estranged from the Christian religion, which is the mother of all good, cherishing all sublime virtues, quickening and urging us to everything that is the glory of a lofty and generous soul? When the Christian religion is reflected and repudiated, marriage sinks of necessity into the slavery of man’s vicious nature and vile passions, and finds but little protection in the help of natural goodness. A very torrent of evil has flowed from this source, not only into private families, but also into States. For, the salutary fear of God being removed, and there being no longer that refreshment in toil which is nowhere more abounding than in the Christian religion, it very often happens, as indeed is natural, that the mutual services and duties of marriage seem almost unbearable; and thus very many yearn for the loosening of the tie which they believe to be woven by human law and of their own will, whenever incompatibility of temper, or quarrels, or the violation of the marriage vow, or mutual consent, or other reasons induce them to think that it would be well to be set free. Then, if they are hindered by law from carrying out this shameless desire, they contend that the laws are iniquitous, inhuman, and at variance with the rights of free citizens; adding that every effort should be made to repeal such enactments, and to introduce a more humane code sanctioning divorce. …

Truly, it is hardly possible to describe how great are the evils that flow from divorce. Matrimonial contracts are by it made variable; mutual kindness is weakened; deplorable inducements to unfaithfulness are supplied; harm is done to the education and training of children; occasion is afforded for the breaking up of homes; the seeds of dissension are sown among families; the dignity of womanhood is lessened and brought low, and women run the risk of being deserted after having ministered to the pleasures of men. Since, then, nothing has such power to lay waste families and destroy the mainstay of kingdoms as the corruption of morals, it is easily seen that divorces are in the highest degree hostile to the prosperity of families and States, springing as they do from the depraved morals of the people, and, as experience shows us, opening out a way to every kind of evil-doing in public and in private life.

Further still, if the matter be duly pondered, we shall clearly see these evils to be the more especially dangerous, because, divorce once being tolerated, there will be no restraint powerful enough to keep it within the bounds marked out or presurmised. Great indeed is the force of example, and even greater still the might of passion. With such incitements it must needs follow that the eagerness for divorce, daily spreading by devious ways, will seize upon the minds of many like a virulent contagious disease, or like a flood of water bursting through every barrier. (Arcanum, 27, 29-30)

Pope Leo was prophetically wise, foreseeing that as Christianity is repudiated, marriage “sinks of necessity into the slavery of man’s vicious nature and vile passions,” as men and women by repeatedly violating the marriage bond, produce a social mentality in which many young people no longer have any intention to marry. He describes the magnitude of the evils that flow from a society’s permission of divorce, and shows that repeated, widespread public violations of the marriage institution change the cultural perceptions and expectations surrounding marriage, and in this way damage the marriage institution in that society. The more couples expect marriages to ‘fail’ eventually, and believe in the dissolubility of marriage, the less incentive they have to pursue marriage. They come to see marriage as a restriction on their freedom, rather than as a free expression of the highest form of love, in which each spouse irrevocably binds himself/herself to the other through a vow of perpetual and exclusive self-giving.

Attempts by members of a Christian marriage to remarry another person, while both spouses are living, fall under the following paragraph:

In like manner, all ought to understand clearly that, if there be any union of a man and a woman among the faithful of Christ which is not a sacrament, such union has not the force and nature of a proper marriage; that, although contracted in accordance with the laws of the State, it cannot be more than a rite or custom introduced by the civil law. Further, the civil law can deal with and decide those matters alone which in the civil order spring from marriage, and which cannot possibly exist, as is evident, unless there be a true and lawful cause of them, that is to say, the nuptial bond.

In the great confusion of opinions, however, which day by day is spreading more and more widely, it should further be known that no power can dissolve the bond of Christian marriage whenever this has been ratified and consummated; and that, of a consequence, those husbands and wives are guilty of a manifest crime who plan, for whatever reason, to be united in a second marriage before the first one has been ended by death. When, indeed, matters have come to such a pitch that it seems impossible for them to live together any longer, then the Church allows them to live apart, and strives at the same time to soften the evils of this separation by such remedies and helps as are suited to their condition; yet she never ceases to endeavor to bring about a reconciliation, and never despairs of doing so. (Arcanum, 40-41)

Here Pope Leo teaches that if there is any non-sacramental union between a Christian man and a Christian woman (i.e. a baptized man and a baptized woman), this union is not marriage, even if it is treated as a marriage by the State. If, for example, in a Christian marriage, the husband commits adultery, and the two are divorced under the laws of the State, and then the wife attempts to marry another man, and this new union is treated by the State as a marriage, nevertheless, teaches Pope Leo, this new union is not a marriage at all. It remains an adulterous union. According to Pope Leo, the State has no power to dissolve the bond of Christian marriage. Therefore, the Christian husband or wife who, for whatever reason is united in a second marriage while the first spouse still lives, is guilty of a “manifest crime” [of adultery]. If there comes to be a situation in which it is impossible for them to live together, the Church may allow that kind of separation, but the marriage bond remains, and hence the Church never ceases to endeavor to bring about reconciliation, so long as the spouses live. The Church cannot sunder the marriage bond between two Christians, if that marriage has been consummated.

Casti Connubii (Pope Pius XI, 1930)

In December of 1930, fifty years after Pope Leo XIII promulgated the encyclical Arcanum discussed just above, Pope Pius XI promulgated Casti Connubii, again on the subject of Christian marriage. In this document he explains that because marriage was instituted by God, and raised to the dignity of a sacrament by Christ, the Church has proper jurisdiction over Christian marriages:

[L]et it be repeated as an immutable and inviolable fundamental doctrine that matrimony was not instituted or restored by man but by God; not by man were the laws made to strengthen and confirm and elevate it but by God, the Author of nature, and by Christ Our Lord by Whom nature was redeemed, and hence these laws cannot be subject to any human decrees or to any contrary pact even of the spouses themselves. This is the doctrine of Holy Scripture; this is the constant tradition of the Universal Church; this the solemn definition of the sacred Council of Trent, which declares and establishes from the words of Holy Writ itself that God is the Author of the perpetual stability of the marriage bond, its unity and its firmness. (Casti Connubii, 5)

Concerning the nature of the marital bond, he writes:

By matrimony, therefore, the souls of the contracting parties are joined and knit together more directly and more intimately than are their bodies, and that not by any passing affection of sense of spirit, but by a deliberate and firm act of the will; and from this union of souls by God’s decree, a sacred and inviolable bond arises. Hence the nature of this contract, which is proper and peculiar to it alone, makes it entirely different both from the union of animals entered into by the blind instinct of nature alone in which neither reason nor free will plays a part, and also from the haphazard unions of men, which are far removed from all true and honorable unions of will and enjoy none of the rights of family life. (Casti Connubii, 7)

The souls of the couple are knitted together by the bond of matrimony, even more so than are their bodies. This union is effected by an act of the will by both the bride and groom, in which they freely give themselves to each other for life. When a baptized bride and a baptized groom freely offer to give themselves irrevocably to the other, and each freely accepts this offer from the other, God effects a sacred and inviolable bond between the couple that remains until one of them dies.

Later in the document, Pope Pius XI, drawing from St. Augustine, explains the meaning of the sacramentality of Christian marriage with regard to its indissolubility and its being a means of sanctifying grace. He writes:

But this accumulation of benefits is completed and, as it were, crowned by that blessing of Christian marriage which in the words of St. Augustine we have called the sacrament, by which is denoted both the indissolubility of the bond and the raising and hallowing of the contract by Christ Himself, whereby He made it an efficacious sign of grace.

In the first place Christ Himself lays stress on the indissolubility and firmness of the marriage bond when He says: “What God hath joined together let no man put asunder,” and: “Everyone that putteth away his wife and marrieth another committeth adultery, and he that marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.”

And St. Augustine clearly places what he calls the blessing of matrimony in this indissolubility when he says: “In the sacrament it is provided that the marriage bond should not be broken, and that a husband or wife, if separated, should not be joined to another even for the sake of offspring.”

And this inviolable stability, although not in the same perfect measure in every case, belongs to every true marriage, for the word of the Lord: “What God hath joined together let no man put asunder,” must of necessity include all true marriages without exception, since it was spoken of the marriage of our first parents, the prototype of every future marriage. Therefore although before Christ the sublimeness and the severity of the primeval law was so tempered that Moses permitted to the chosen people of God on account of the hardness of their hearts that a bill of divorce might be given in certain circumstances, nevertheless, Christ, by virtue of His supreme legislative power, recalled this concession of greater liberty and restored the primeval law in its integrity by those words which must never be forgotten, “What God hath joined together let no man put asunder.” Wherefore, Our predecessor Pius VI of happy memory, writing to the Bishop of Agria, most wisely said: “Hence it is clear that marriage even in the state of nature, and certainly long before it was raised to the dignity of a sacrament, was divinely instituted in such a way that it should carry with it a perpetual and indissoluble bond which cannot therefore be dissolved by any civil law. Therefore although the sacramental element may be absent from a marriage as is the case among unbelievers, still in such a marriage, inasmuch as it is a true marriage there must remain and indeed there does remain that perpetual bond which by divine right is so bound up with matrimony from its first institution that it is not subject to any civil power. And so, whatever marriage is said to be contracted, either it is so contracted that it is really a true marriage, in which case it carries with it that enduring bond which by divine right is inherent in every true marriage; or it is thought to be contracted without that perpetual bond, and in that case there is no marriage, but an illicit union opposed of its very nature to the divine law, which therefore cannot be entered into or maintained.” (Casti Cannubii, 31-34)

Here Pope Pius reaffirms the Church’s teaching on the indissolubility of the marriage bond. This was the “primeval law” given to our first parents. But by the time of Moses, the people had become so benighted that Moses permitted the Hebrews to give a bill of divorce. Christ, by His divine authority, restored the primeval law concerning marriage and its indissolubility. And this applies to all marriages, whether between baptized persons or unbaptized persons. The only two exceptions are the Pauline privilege and the Petrine privilege, discussed below. Concerning these two privileges, Pope Pius XI writes:

And if this stability seems to be open to exception, however rare the exception may be, as in the case of certain natural marriages between unbelievers, or amongst Christians in the case of those marriages which though valid have not been consummated, that exception does not depend on the will of men nor on that of any merely human power, but on divine law, of which the only guardian and interpreter is the Church of Christ. However, not even this power can ever affect for any cause whatsoever a Christian marriage which is valid and has been consummated, for as it is plain that here the marriage contract has its full completion, so, by the will of God, there is also the greatest firmness and indissolubility which may not be destroyed by any human authority. (Casti Connubii, 35. )

Why then, did Christ re-establish the indissolubility of marriage? According to Pope Pius XI, Christ’s purpose in restoring the indissolubility of marriage is to signify the indissolubility of His union with His Church.

If we wish with all reverence to inquire into the intimate reason of this divine decree, Venerable Brethren, we shall easily see it in the mystical signification of Christian marriage which is fully and perfectly verified in consummated marriage between Christians. (Casti Connubii, 36)

But, Christ’s restoration of the original law concerning marriage has practical benefits for families and societies. Pope Pius describes these benefits, writing:

Indeed, how many and how important are the benefits which flow from the indissolubility of matrimony cannot escape anyone who gives even a brief consideration either to the good of the married parties and the offspring or to the welfare of human society. First of all, both husband and wife possess a positive guarantee of the endurance of this stability which that generous yielding of their persons and the intimate fellowship of their hearts by their nature strongly require, since true love never falls away. Besides, a strong bulwark is set up in defense of a loyal chastity against incitements to infidelity, should any be encountered either from within or from without; any anxious fear lest in adversity or old age the other spouse would prove unfaithful is precluded and in its place there reigns a calm sense of security. Moreover, the dignity of both man and wife is maintained and mutual aid is most satisfactorily assured, while through the indissoluble bond, always enduring, the spouses are warned continuously that not for the sake of perishable things nor that they may serve their passions, but that they may procure one for the other high and lasting good have they entered into the nuptial partnership, to be dissolved only by death. In the training and education of children, which must extend over a period of many years, it plays a great part, since the grave and long enduring burdens of this office are best borne by the united efforts of the parents. Nor do lesser benefits accrue to human society as a whole. For experience has taught that unassailable stability in matrimony is a fruitful source of virtuous life and of habits of integrity. Where this order of things obtains, the happiness and well being of the nation is safely guarded; what the families and individuals are, so also is the State, for a body is determined by its parts. Wherefore, both for the private good of husband, wife and children, as likewise for the public good of human society, they indeed deserve well who strenuously defend the inviolable stability of matrimony. (Casti Connubii, 37)

The indissolubility of marriage provides both spouses with a positive guarantee of the endurance of the marriage, until one spouse dies. And this provides stability to the marriage and the family. When couples enter into marriage knowing its indissolubility, they do so in accordance with true love, writes Pope Pius, since true love never falls away. The very indissolubility of marriage known as such by the contracting parties teaches them what true love is, and beckons them to true love, not to the selfishness which joins another only while the experience is pleasant or gratifying. The indissolubility of marriage, known as such by the couple, fortifies the couple to endure through hardships, because each spouse knows that so long as the other spouse lives, leaving and marrying someone else is not an option. And this provides stability to the marriage, to the family, and hence gives greater security to the children to be raised by both their parents in marital unity. And these benefits to families and children in turn lead to greater health and stability of societies constituted by these families. And for Christians, the indissolubility of marriage also teaches them existentially the nature of Christ’s patient and unconditional love for His Church.

What “train of evils” falls upon a society if it makes divorce [civilly] legal?

To revert again to the expression of Our predecessor, it is hardly necessary to point out what an amount of good is involved in the absolute indissolubility of wedlock and what a train of evils follows upon divorce. Whenever the marriage bond remains intact, then we find marriages contracted with a sense of safety and security, while, when separations are considered and the dangers of divorce are present, the marriage contract itself becomes insecure, or at least gives ground for anxiety and surprises. On the one hand we see a wonderful strengthening of goodwill and cooperation in the daily life of husband and wife, while, on the other, both of these are miserably weakened by the presence of a facility for divorce. Here we have at a very opportune moment a source of help by which both parties are enabled to preserve their purity and loyalty; there we find harmful inducements to unfaithfulness. On this side we find the birth of children and their tuition and upbringing effectively promoted, many avenues of discord closed amongst families and relations, and the beginnings of rivalry and jealousy easily suppressed; on that, very great obstacles to the birth and rearing of children and their education, and many occasions of quarrels, and seeds of jealousy sown everywhere. Finally, but especially, the dignity and position of women in civil and domestic society is reinstated by the former; while by the latter it is shamefully lowered and the danger is incurred “of their being considered outcasts, slaves of the lust of men. … [O]nce divorce has been allowed, there will be no sufficient means of keeping it in check within any definite bounds. Great is the force of example, greater still that of lust; and with such incitements it cannot but happen that divorce and its consequent setting loose of the passions should spread daily and attack the souls of many like a contagious disease or a river bursting its banks and flooding the land.” (Casti Connubii, 90-91)

According to Pope Pius XI, if a society gives civil permission to divorce-and-remarriage-while-one’s-spouse-remains-alive, over time this will unleash a flood of evils, because there will be nothing to check fallen man’s indulgence in the primary temptation to divorce, namely, “the power of unbridled lust, which indeed is the most potent cause of sinning against the sacred laws of matrimony.”¹⁷ When a husband finds himself sexually attracted to another woman, nothing will prevent him from divorcing his spouse and ‘remarrying.’ But when this becomes the social conception of marriage, as something lasting only so long as both spouses encounter no other person toward whom they experience more sexual attraction than they do at that time toward their spouse, then at the marriage ceremony what is entered into is no longer marriage, which essentially involves an intention of lifelong commitment, but illicit sexual unions for mutual convenience lasting only so long as the romantic feeling remains, or at least remains stronger than it does toward a third party. And when ‘marriage’ comes to be viewed that way in a society, that social situation can be only temporary because when a farce becomes recognized as such by all, there is no more social incentive even to go through the farce. More specifically, when ‘marriage’ and the ‘marriage vows’ become known by all to be a meaningless or hypocritical farce, then young people especially come to recognize that simply foregoing marriage altogether, and engaging in unions of convenience, is more honest and emotionally safe. When that happens, marriage as a social institution is lost, and the result within a society is the complete breakdown of the family as an institution, i.e. the extinction of the family. And without families, children are not properly formed, loved, disciplined, educated or prepared to enter into society. The loss of the family is the loss of society. And this is the Pandora’s box opened by the civil sanction of divorce.

What is the source of the notion that civil divorce is morally and theologically acceptable? According to Pope Pius XI, it lies both in the atheistic/deistic notion that marriage was not instituted by God, and in the [Protestant] denial of the Catholic doctrine that Christ raised marriage to the dignity of a sacrament:

To begin at the very source of these evils, their basic principle lies in this, that matrimony is repeatedly declared to be not instituted by the Author of nature nor raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a true sacrament, but invented by man. (Casti Connubii, 49)

When marriage comes to be conceived as though it were merely a civil affair such as a legal contract between business partners, it then comes to be conceived as something invented by man, and therefore subject to redefining by man. In this respect, what historically and theologically lies behind the contemporary effort to redefine marriage is the denial of the sacramentality of marriage. Pope Pius describes how this denial is at the root of the attempt to redefine marriage so as to allow divorce with remarriage while one’s spouse remains alive, and summarizes the arguments of those who propose that the State can and should make marriage dissoluble:

And now considering that the third blessing, which is that of the sacrament, far surpasses the other two, we should not be surprised to find that this, because of its outstanding excellence, is much more sharply attacked by the same people. They put forward in the first place that matrimony belongs entirely to the profane and purely civil sphere, that it is not to be committed to the religious society, the Church of Christ, but to civil society alone. They then add that the marriage contract is to be freed from any indissoluble bond, and that separation and divorce are not only to be tolerated but sanctioned by the law; from which it follows finally that, robbed of all its holiness, matrimony should be enumerated amongst the secular and civil institutions. …

The advocates of the neo-paganism of today have learned nothing from the sad state of affairs, but instead, day by day, more and more vehemently, they continue by legislation to attack the indissolubility of the marriage bond, proclaiming that the lawfulness of divorce must be recognized, and that the antiquated laws should give place to a new and more humane legislation. Many and varied are the grounds put forward for divorce, some arising from the wickedness and the guilt of the persons concerned, others arising from the circumstances of the case; the former they describe as subjective, the latter as objective; in a word, whatever might make married life hard or unpleasant. They strive to prove their contentions regarding these grounds for the divorce legislation they would bring about, by various arguments. Thus, in the first place, they maintain that it is for the good of either party that the one who is innocent should have the right to separate from the guilty, or that the guilty should be withdrawn from a union which is unpleasing to him and against his will. In the second place, they argue, the good of the child demands this, for either it will be deprived of a proper education or the natural fruits of it, and will too easily be affected by the discords and shortcomings of the parents, and drawn from the path of virtue. And thirdly the common good of society requires that these marriages should be completely dissolved, which are now incapable of producing their natural results, and that legal reparations should be allowed when crimes are to be feared as the result of the common habitation and intercourse of the parties. This last, they say must be admitted to avoid the crimes being committed purposely with a view to obtaining the desired sentence of divorce for which the judge can legally loose the marriage bond, as also to prevent people from coming before the courts when it is obvious from the state of the case that they are lying and perjuring themselves, – all of which brings the court and the lawful authority into contempt. Hence the civil laws, in their opinion, have to be reformed to meet these new requirements, to suit the changes of the times and the changes in men’s opinions, civil institutions and customs. Each of these reasons is considered by them as conclusive, so that all taken together offer a clear proof of the necessity of granting divorce in certain cases.

Others, taking a step further, simply state that marriage, being a private contract, is, like other private contracts, to be left to the consent and good pleasure of both parties, and so can be dissolved for any reason whatsoever. (Casti Connubii, 79, 85-86)

Pope Pius then explains what is wrong with those arguments:

Opposed to all these reckless opinions, Venerable Brethren, stands the unalterable law of God, fully confirmed by Christ, a law that can never be deprived of its force by the decrees of men, the ideas of a people or the will of any legislator: “What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.” And if any man, acting contrary to this law, shall have put asunder, his action is null and void, and the consequence remains, as Christ Himself has explicitly confirmed: “Everyone that putteth away his wife and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and he that marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.” Moreover, these words refer to every kind of marriage, even that which is natural and legitimate only; for, as has already been observed, that indissolubility by which the loosening of the bond is once and for all removed from the whim of the parties and from every secular power, is a property of every true marriage.

Let that solemn pronouncement of the Council of Trent be recalled to mind in which, under the stigma of anathema, it condemned these errors: “If anyone should say that on account of heresy or the hardships of cohabitation or a deliberate abuse of one party by the other the marriage tie may be loosened, let him be anathema;” and again: “If anyone should say that the Church errs in having taught or in teaching that, according to the teaching of the Gospel and the Apostles, the bond of marriage cannot be loosed because of the sin of adultery of either party; or that neither party, even though he be innocent, having given no cause for the sin of adultery, can contract another marriage during the lifetime of the other; and that he commits adultery who marries another after putting away his adulterous wife, and likewise that she commits adultery who puts away her husband and marries another: let him be anathema.”

If therefore the Church has not erred and does not err in teaching this, and consequently it is certain that the bond of marriage cannot be loosed even on account of the sin of adultery, it is evident that all the other weaker excuses that can be, and are usually brought forward, are of no value whatsoever. And the objections brought against the firmness of the marriage bond are easily answered. For, in certain circumstances, imperfect separation of the parties is allowed, the bond not being severed. This separation, which the Church herself permits, and expressly mentions in her Canon Law in those canons which deal with the separation of the parties as to marital relationship and co-habitation, removes all the alleged inconveniences and dangers. It will be for the sacred law and, to some extent, also the civil law, in so far as civil matters are affected, to lay down the grounds, the conditions, the method and precautions to be taken in a case of this kind in order to safeguard the education of the children and the well-being of the family, and to remove all those evils which threaten the married persons, the children and the State. Now all those arguments that are brought forward to prove the indissolubility of the marriage tie, arguments which have already been touched upon, can equally be applied to excluding not only the necessity of divorce, but even the power to grant it; while for all the advantages that can be put forward for the former, there can be adduced as many disadvantages and evils which are a formidable menace to the whole of human society. (Casti Connubii, 87-89)

Pope Pius explains that what the Church teaches concerning the indissolubility of marriage is a divine law, instituted by Christ, and therefore unalterable by men, or by the Church. It applies to marriages between unbaptized persons as well as sacramental marriages.¹⁸ As the Council of Trent taught, not even heresy or hardships of cohabitation or even deliberate abuse of one party by the other can dissolve the marriage bond. Therefore none of the reasons offered by those who advocate the dissolubility of marriage are of any value, because those reasons are even weaker excuses than the ones address by the Council of Trent. Rather, those weaker reasons allow only, at most, a separation of the parties as to conjugal relations and co-habitation (divorce a mensa et thoro, i.e. ‘bed and board’).

One response to the Church’s dogma concerning the indissolubility of marriage is to think, as the disciples seemed to think, that if marriage is indissoluble, then it is too difficult a vocation, and that it is therefore better not to marry.¹⁹ If man is no less hard-hearted now than under Moses, then why shouldn’t contemporary man no less than the ancient Hebrews need Moses’s concession to divorce? The answer is that for all mankind, Christ has not only restored the original indissolubility of marriage as God instituted it in the Garden, but has also raised matrimony to the dignity of a New Covenant sacrament. When two baptized persons marry, or when two married but unbaptized persons both receive baptism, the marriage becomes, by that very fact and by the New Covenant sacramental economy Christ established through His Passion and Death on the cross, a sacrament.²⁰ It thereby becomes a marriage “in the Lord.” The sacrament of marriage remains even when one or both spouses commit adultery, as the soul of a baptized person does not by apostasy lose the sacrament of faith (i.e. baptism), so as to need rebaptism upon return to the faith.²¹ Only death breaks the sacramental bond. But marriage under the New Covenant is not only a sign of Christ’s union with the Church. Marriage itself, through baptism, has been made an efficacious means of a unique internal grace in both spouses. This sacramental grace “perfects natural love, it confirms an indissoluble union, and sanctifies both man and wife.”²² Hence under the New Covenant Christ has not left man without a means of grace by which he can faithfully fulfill his marital duties, and uphold the original design of marriage as indissoluble. Pope Pius XI describes the grace received through the sacrament of marriage, explaining that when a baptized man and a baptized woman marry, they

open up for themselves a treasure of sacramental grace from which they draw supernatural power for the fulfilling of their rights and duties faithfully, holily, perseveringly even unto death. Hence this sacrament not only increases sanctifying grace, the permanent principle of the supernatural life, in those who, as the expression is, place no obstacle (obex) in its way, but also adds particular gifts, dispositions, seeds of grace, by elevating and perfecting the natural powers. By these gifts the parties are assisted not only in understanding, but in knowing intimately, in adhering to firmly, in willing effectively, and in successfully putting into practice, those things which pertain to the marriage state, its aims and duties, giving them in fine right to the actual assistance of grace, whensoever they need it for fulfilling the duties of their state.²³

By this grace, they can, if they avail themselves of it, fulfill their marital duties.²⁴ The grace provided through the sacrament of marriage fortifies couples to be faithful and endure difficulties and temptations. It softens hearts, and is precisely why in the New Covenant we do not need the allowance for divorce granted by Moses under the Old Covenant on account of the hardness of their hearts. In this respect Protestant sacramentology implies that the New Covenant is no greater than the Old Covenant, because, for example, in most Protestant sacramentology baptism accomplishes no more in the believer than circumcision did in the Old Covenant.²⁵ Similarly, in most Protestant sacramentology the Supper is no greater than is the Passover meal or the manna from heaven, because intrinsically the Supper accomplishes nothing more than did they, and the New Covenant people are not expected to be more sanctified through it than were the faithful of the Old Covenant through eating the manna or the Passover meal. One could even say justifiably that in Protestant sacramentology, the Supper is lower than its Old Covenant type because the manna in the desert at least had a supernatural origin, while the bread in the Protestant Supper remains ordinary bread with a natural origin. Likewise, the Protestant notion that marriage is not sacramental, and that divorce-with-remarriage is permitted in the New Covenant, makes marriage under the New Covenant no greater than marriage under Moses. And this notion that the New Covenant is effectively no greater than the Old Covenant is a form of the error of the Galatian Judaizers. It is why St. Ambrose said “Anyone saying that one is free to marry a wife that has been put away is not a Christian; he is a Jew.” (Commentary on the Gospel of Luke, 8)²⁶

Allocution to the Sacred Roman Rota (Pope Pius XII, 1940)

The seal of indissolubility is visibly stamped in the unity of the conjugal bond. Indeed it is a bond to which nature tends, but one which is not necessarily caused by the principles of nature, being instead brought about by the exercise of free will. But the mere will of the contracting parties, though it can form the bond, cannot dissolve it. This holds not only for Christian nuptials but for every valid marriage contracted on earth through the mutual consent of the partners ….

But if the will of the spouses having contracted the matrimonial bond cannot dissolve it, can the authority which is above them established by Christ for the religious life of man do so? The bond of Christian marriage is so strong that if it has reached full stability by the use of conjugal rights, no power on earth, not even our own, that is, that of the Vicar of Christ, is able to dissolve it. It is true that we may perceive and declare that a marriage contracted as a valid one was in reality void owing to some impediment or an essential flaw in consent or a substantial defect in form. We can also in certain cases and for serious reasons dissolve marriages not having a sacramental character. We can even dissolve the bonds of a Christian marriage, rescind the “yes” pronounced before the altar, if there is a just and proportionate cause, when it has been established that the marriage has not been brought to completion through realization of matrimonial cohabitation. But once that has taken place no human agency may interfere with the bond. For has not Christ led the matrimonial common life back to the fundamental dignity which the Creator had given it at the dawn of the human race in paradise, to the inviolable dignity of marriage, one and indissoluble. (Allocution to the Sacred Roman Rota)

Here Pope Pius XII teaches that the will of the contracting parties (i.e. the husband and wife) cannot dissolve the marriage bond, and that this is true not only for Christian marriages but for every valid marriage contracted through the mutual consent of the man and the woman. With regard to marriage, the Church has a greater authority than does the couple. And so for non-sacramental marriages and for Christian marriages that have not been consummated, the Church has authority to dissolve those marriages under only two conditions (see the Pauline privilege and the Petrine privilege, discussed below). But in the case of a valid and consummated marriage between two baptized persons, the Church has no authority or power to dissolve such a marriage, for Christ has restored to marriage its “inviolable dignity,” as “one and indissoluble.”

Second Vatican Council (Gaudium et Spes, 1965)

The intimate partnership of married life and love has been established by the Creator and qualified by His laws, and is rooted in the conjugal covenant of irrevocable personal consent. Hence by that human act whereby spouses mutually bestow and accept each other a relationship arises which by divine will and in the eyes of society too is a lasting one. For the good of the spouses and their off-springs as well as of society, the existence of the sacred bond no longer depends on human decisions alone. For, God Himself is the author of matrimony, endowed as it is with various benefits and purposes. All of these have a very decisive bearing on the continuation of the human race, on the personal development and eternal destiny of the individual members of a family, and on the dignity, stability, peace and prosperity of the family itself and of human society as a whole. By their very nature, the institution of matrimony itself and conjugal love are ordained for the procreation and education of children, and find in them their ultimate crown. Thus a man and a woman, who by their compact of conjugal love “are no longer two, but one flesh” (Matt. 19:ff), render mutual help and service to each other through an intimate union of their persons and of their actions. Through this union they experience the meaning of their oneness and attain to it with growing perfection day by day. As a mutual gift of two persons, this intimate union and the good of the children impose total fidelity on the spouses and argue for an unbreakable oneness between them. (Gaudium et Spes, 48)

The mutual gift of two persons to each other, in the matrimonial union having as its purpose the procreation and education of children, by its very nature imposes upon the spouses total fidelity, and argues for an unbreakable oneness between them. The love required for entering this union is not that of mere expediency or contingency. It requires a total gift of self in which each irrevocably bonds himself/herself to the other until death.

IV. The Porneia Clause

Recall that when we considered above the New Testament passages on marriage, we delayed our interpretation of two passages in particular, until we had examined the Church Fathers. We did this in order to approach Scripture within the Tradition, and as informed by the Tradition, rather than attempting to approach Scripture apart from the Tradition and then use our in vacuo interpretation as the standard against which to judge the teaching of the Church Fathers. The two passages in question are Matthew 5:31-32, and Matthew 19:3-9:

It was also said, “Whoever divorces [ἀπολύσῃ] his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.” But I say to you that every one who divorces his wife, except for the reason of fornication [παρεκτὸς λόγου πορνείας], makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” (St. Matthew 5:31-32)

And Pharisees came up to Him and tested Him by asking, “Is there any cause for which it is lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered, “Have you not read that He who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and the two shall become one? So they are no longer two but one. What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?” He said to them, “For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for fornication [μὴ ἐπὶ πορνείᾳ] and marries another commits adultery. (St. Matthew 19:3-9)

Some persons in recent times have proposed that in these two porneia clauses Jesus is referring to cases in which a person has attempted an illicit marriage, such as when a person attempts to marry a close relative. Because consanguinity is an impediment to marriage, then in such a case no marriage has been formed.²⁷ Hence, according to these persons, the porneia clauses mean that when the incest is discovered, the other person may be put away (i.e. divorced), because there has been no marriage at all. And then both persons may marry someone else. (I say ‘marry’ rather than ‘remarry’ because in such a case it is not a remarriage, since the original union was not a marriage.) But, that interpretation of these porneia clauses is not what we find in the Church Fathers. When the Church Fathers discuss these verses, they unanimously take them to be referring to cases of actual marriage.

But even given that these passages are referring to actually married couples, there still remains a critical interpretive question. Do these two exception clauses refer to conditions under which it is both possible and permissible to sever the marriage bond and remarry while the other spouse lives, or do these two exception clauses refer to conditions under which it is only permissible for one spouse to separate from the other with respect to marital relations and cohabitation, the indissoluble marriage bond remaining until one spouse dies? The moral consensus among the Church Fathers, as shown above, is that in these two exception clauses Jesus is referring not to a condition under which the marriage bond may be severed, but only to the condition under which the couple may be separated, the marriage bond itself being indissoluble until death. Hence Haydock says:

A divorce or separation as to bed and board, may be permitted for some weighty causes in Christian marriages; but even then, he that marrieth her that is dismissed, commits adultery. As to this, there is no exception. The bond of marriage is perpetual; and what God hath joined, no power on earth can separate. (Haydock, Commentary on Matthew 5.)

And Ludwig Ott adds:

The so-called fornication clause (μὴ ἐπὶ πορνείᾳ), which in a somewhat different form is found in Mt. 5:32, also (παρεκτὸς λόγου πορνείας), but which does not appear in the parallel passages Mark 10:11, and Luke 16:18, does not, according to the context, imply an exception to the law of indissolubility: for it was Jesus’ intention to restore the original order, which did not know divorce, and to set up His new commandment in conscious antithesis to the lax Law of Moses (cf. Mt. 5:31 et seq.). Unless one wishes to destroy the antithesis and create a contradiction between St. Matthew on the one side and SS. Mark and Luke (such as 1 Cor. 7:10 et seq.) on the other side, one must either understand the clause in the traditional excluding sense, according to which it indeed permits, by way of exception, the putting away of the woman, but not subsequent re-marrying, that is, the so-called separation from bed and board, or in the including sense, according to which an exception from the prohibition of divorce is not laid down, but that the ground for divorce provided for in Deut. 24:1 (‘erwath dabar == something infamous) is drawn into the prohibition of divorce. (Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, p. 463-464.)

Ott shows that given Jesus’s purpose in restoring the original order with respect to marriage, the porneia clauses must either be taken in the traditional sense as giving the occasion under which a separation from bed and board is permitted, or as meaning that even in the case of adultery, divorce in the sense of dissolving the marriage bond is not permitted.

The patristic evidence convinced Anglican Old Testament scholar Gordon Wenham that the porneia clauses in the Gospels should be understood as allowing only separation, not remarriage with a third party while one’s spouse remains alive. He writes:

Furthermore historians find it impossible to imagine how the early church could have come to this view, if Jesus had not forbidden divorce and remarriage to his disciples. Jews and Romans allowed divorce followed by remarriage in some circumstances. If Jesus did too, how on earth could the whole church throughout the Roman empire, within a few decades of the gospels being written, have come to the opposite conclusion? The practice of divorce and remarriage is not an erudite theological doctrine that mattered only to theologians: it potentially affected every Christian family in the church. Surely if earlier church practice had been more liberal allowing divorce and remarriage, somebody would have protested and said, ‘This is not what the apostles taught us’? But whereas there were furious controversies about some other doctrines, there is total unanimity among early Greek writers on the prohibition or remarriage after divorce. (“Jesus and Divorce: Did He permit it?)

The universal belief among the early Christians that divorce-with-remarriage is not allowed can be explained in no other way than that it came from the Apostles themselves, and thus from Christ Himself. Concerning this patristic testimony, and the importance of interpreting Scripture within the Tradition handed down by the Church Fathers, Wenham writes in another article:

Modern Protestants have by and large forgotten that their forefathers, the magisterial reformers, placed great store by the interpretations of the early church. Postenlightenment scholarship has developed a great hermeneutic of suspicion when it comes to reading the church fathers: the automatic assumption is that they have distorted the primitive gospel and its associated practices into a corrupt Frühkatholismus (early Catholicism). This was not the reformers’ view, nor of course that of the early Christian writers themselves. They believed in an essential continuity between the witness of the early church and the teaching of the New Testament. …

Among Greek-speaking fathers both pre- and post-Constantine there is total unanimity. Among the earlier group Hermas, Justin, Athenagoras, Theophilus of Antioch, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, all explicitly condemn remarriage after divorce or clearly presuppose this view. The Constantinian settlement, which made Christianity the official religion of the empire, might have encouraged Christian writers to identify imperial legal practice. which permitted divorce and remarriage, with Christian values, but there is no sign of that happening. Later Greek theologians such as Basil, Gregory Nazianzus, Apollinarius, Theodore of Mopsuestia and John Chrysostom all maintain the traditional Christian position that the Gospels do not permit remarriage after divorce. They regard the exception clause as authorizing or requiring separation, not permitting remarriage afterwards. That this interpretation was the way native Greek speakers understood our Lord’s teaching surely indicates that it is the most natural interpretation.

The evidence of the Latin fathers is equally impressive. It is also carefully and exhaustively analysed by Crouzel. Among those who condemn remarriage after divorce are Tertullian, Ambrose, Innocent, Pelagius, Jerome, and Augustine. There is only one dissenting voice in the West, who cannot be identified, but, because he was once identified with Ambrose, is known as Ambrosiaster. (“Does the New Testament Approve Remarriage After Divorce?“)²⁸

If Jesus were saying that adultery dissolved the marriage bond, He would be contradicting His appeal to the original divine intention for marriage to justify rescinding the Mosaic permission of divorce. Christ’s teaching on marriage would be merely a continuation of that of Moses. Moreover, if one spouse wished to marry someone else, he would have an incentive to incite his spouse to commit adultery in order to provide a legitimate justification for severing the marriage bond to ‘free’ him to marry a third party while his spouse still lived. This is why killing one’s own spouse in order to marry someone else invalidates the attempt to enter into a new marriage:

Can. 1090 §1. Anyone who with a view to entering marriage with a certain person has brought about the death of that person’s spouse or of one’s own spouse invalidly attempts this marriage. (Can. 1090)

The moral consensus of the Church Fathers laid out above shows that these two porneia clauses should be understood as allowing separation as to bed and board, but not a severing of the marriage bond. And this matches the Catholic doctrine taught infallibly at the Council of Trent concerning the indissolubility of marriage. In the Church’s present canon law, only divorce understood as separation of bed and board is allowed either for adultery (Can. 1152) or “grave mental or physical danger to the other spouse” (Can. 1153).²⁹

V. Objections to the Sacramentality and Indissolubility of Marriage

Objection 1: If marriage is a sacrament and thus a means of grace, then why do some Catholic marriages fail, such that the spouses end up living separately?

This is a more specific form of a broader objection, namely, if the sacraments are truly means of sanctifying grace, then why are many Catholics not holy people, even though they receive these sacraments? I have addressed that broader question in comment #22 of Tom’s “Sacramental Graces and Practical Apostasy” post. There I wrote the following:

The Seventh Session of the Council of Trent provides three relevant canons which must be taken together to be rightly understood:

Canon 6. If anyone says that the sacraments of the New Law do not contain the grace which they signify, or that they do not confer that grace on those who place no obstacles in its way, as though they were only outward signs of grace or justice received through faith and certain marks of Christian profession, whereby among men believers are distinguished from unbelievers, let him be anathema.

Canon 7. If anyone says that grace, so far as God’s part is concerned, is not imparted through the sacraments always and to all men even if they receive them rightly, but only sometimes and to some persons, let him be anathema.

Canon 8. If anyone says that by the sacraments of the New Law grace is not conferred ex opere operato, but that faith alone in the divine promise is sufficient to obtain grace, let him be anathema.

Some Protestants (and probably some Catholics) mistakenly conceive of ex opere operato as though the recipient necessarily receives grace by receiving the sacrament. In other words, they think that what is said in Canon 8 is incompatible with the the qualification “on those who place no obstacles in its way” in Canon 6. But that is a misunderstanding of of the meaning of ex opere operato. Ex opere operato does not entail that every recipient of the sacrament receives grace. It means that grace is always given in the sacrament, by an objective efficacy of the sacrament, as a genuine instrumental cause by divine ordination; but the grace that is given can be resisted or blocked, by the recipient who places an obstacle in the way.

The qualification “on those who place no obstacles in its way” had been previously taught by Pope Eugenius IV in his Decree for the Armenians in 1439, who explains that the sacraments contain grace and confer grace upon those who receive them worthily (i.e. do not place an obstacle in its way). (See Denzinger 695).

This general truth regarding the efficacy of the sacraments and the way in which we can place obstacles in the way of the sacrament that prevent us from receiving sanctifying grace applies also to the sacrament of marriage. Success in the marriage relationship is not guaranteed by both spouses being baptized, and thus by the marriage being sacramental. Married couples must strive to fulfill their marital duties, and in doing so, they will find the grace needed to fulfill those duties. Pope Pius XI explains:

[S]omething more is needed in addition to the education of the mind, namely a steadfast determination of the will, on the part of husband and wife, to observe the sacred laws of God and of nature in regard to marriage. … Yet in order that the grace of this sacrament may produce its full fruit, there is need, as we have already pointed out, of the cooperation of the married parties; which consists in their striving to fulfill their duties to the best of their ability and with unwearied effort. For just as in the natural order men must apply the powers given them by God with their own toil and diligence that these may exercise their full vigor, failing which, no profit is gained, so also men must diligently and unceasingly use the powers given them by the grace which is laid up in the soul by this sacrament. Let not, then, those who are joined in matrimony neglect the grace of the sacrament which is in them;[84] for, in applying themselves to the careful observance, however laborious, of their duties they will find the power of that grace becoming more effectual as time goes on. (Casti Connubii, 110-111)

Under the New Coveanant the promise for baptized married couples is that the grace they need to fulfill their marital duties faithfully is available to them through the sacrament of marriage, though they must diligently strive to make use of that grace. Those who do not strive to make use of the grace available to them, or who despair concerning the effort required to fulfill the duties of marriage, are not provided any divine guarantee of success. The grace one receives in the sacrament not only depends on not placing obstaces to the sacraments, but also on the disposition of the recipients of the sacraments. The greater the charity of the person receiving the sacrament, the greater the grace received through the sacrament. But those in a state of mortal sin (i.e. not in a state of grace) must first avail themselves of the sacrament of reconciliation. While in a state of mortal sin, one cannot grow in the grace needed for fulfilling marital duties. Hence the regular reception of the sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance will aid a couple in the grace they receive through the sacrament of marriage.

Objection 2: What about validly married Catholics who subsequently obtain from the State a civil divorce, and then obtain from the State a civil ‘remarriage’ with a third party? Isn’t that the same as divorce?

When Catholic spouses seek a civil divorce from the State, and then, while their spouse is still living, enter into a civil ‘marriage’ with someone other than their spouse, they are in actuality entering into an adulterous relationship. The civil ‘divorce’ they have obtained from the State does not dissolve the marriage bond (because the State has no authority to dissolve the marriage bond). And under the New Covenant it is impossible to be validly married to two or more persons at the same time. Therefore, when two validly married persons enter into a civil ‘marriage’ with a third person after obtaining a civil divorce from the spouse to whom they are validly married, they are in fact entering into a State-sanctioned adulterous relationship with someone who is not their actual spouse. This adulterious relationship is a grave sin, and therefore such persons are not to receive the Eucharist until they are no longer in an adulterous relationship. That some Catholics knowingly live in adulterous relationships is in no way a justification for rejecting what the Tradition teaches concerning the sanctity and indissolubility of marriage.

Objection 3: What about annulments? Aren’t annulments just another form of divorce?

An annulment is not a divorce. An annulment does not break or sever any marriage bond. An annulment is a judgment by the Church that the requisite conditions for the formation of the marriage bond were never satisfied, and thus that the couple is not yet married. For example, if one of the parties did not consent freely but only under coercion, or if one of the parties intended something other than a lifelong union, or intended never to have children, then no marital union was formed. The Catechism states:

The [matrimonial] consent must be an act of the will of each of the contracting parties, free of coercion or grave external fear. No human power can substitute for this consent. If this freedom is lacking the marriage is invalid. For this reason (or for other reasons that render the marriage null and void) the Church, after an examination of the situation by the competent ecclesiastical tribunal, can declare the nullity of a marriage, i.e., that the marriage never existed. In this case the contracting parties are free to marry, provided the natural obligations of a previous union are discharged. (CCC 1628-29)

Colin Donovan explains:

An annulment, properly called a Decree of Nullity, is a finding by a Church tribunal that on the day vows were exchanged at least some essential element for a valid marriage was lacking, such as, one of the parties did not intend lifelong fidelity to the other person or excluded children entirely. Another example would be that one of the parties was incapable of marriage (due to some constitutional weakness, such as mental illness or some psychological condition that prevented making the marital commitment – gross immaturity, homosexuality, etc.).

None of these conditions are assumed they must be proven. A Decree of Nullity does not dissolve the marriage, it cannot. It is a reasoned judgement that one never existed, and as such is capable of human error. If the tribunal is fastidious to Church law and theology and the couple and their witnesses are honest, the decision can be followed in good-faith, including a new marriage. If someone is abusing the process through deceit, however, it would be a very grave sin for that person. A person who innocently enters a second marriage would not be guilty of sin, but the person who abused the process to fraudulently obtain a decree in order to remarry would commit adultery by remarrying. (Annulment/Decree of Nullity)

Some Protestants misunderstand the Catholic teaching concerning annulment, thinking it to be the Church’s claim to have the power to dissolve a valid marriage. But that is not what an annulment is. The Church has the authority to dissolve a valid marriage in only two cases; see the paragraph below on the Pauline and Petrine privileges. The Church has no authority to dissolve a consummated sacramental marriage. Co-habitation or having children together or having joint bank accounts or even being ‘married’ in the eyes of the State do not make a couple to be truly married, if the necessary conditions for the forming of the marriage bond were never present (i.e. being available to be married, not being within the prohibited degree of consanguinity, giving free consent, having a lifelong intention, being open to children, etc.).

There have been abuses of the annulment process, both by the persons seeking an annulment and by members of the Church tribunals that decide annulment cases. But the old principle applies: abusus usum non tollit (abuse does not take away proper use). The fact that the annulment process has been abused in no way justifies revising the doctrine of marriage so as to treat marriage as dissoluble, or to reject the Church’s teaching rooted in Tradition concerning the sacramental character of Christian marriage. A decree of nullity cannot dissolve a sacramental marriage, nor is it an infallible decree. It does not change the ontological status of the couple; rather, it changes their status in relation to Church law (i.e. canon law), but divine law still applies.

For example, a husband who is validly married, and who then lies in his application for an annulment, and receives a decree of nullity based on that lie, would be committing adultery if he then ‘remarried,’ even though this adultery would be invisible from the point of view of canon law. But if a man or woman applying for an annulment believes that at least one of the requisite conditions for a valid marriage was not satisfied, and the Church tribunal determines that the requisite conditions for a valid marriage were not present, both parties can in good conscience believe that they have never been married, not only from the point of view of canon law, but also before God. And in such a case therefore they are each free either to remain single, to marry each other or to marry third parties, since they have not yet been married.

Objection 4: The doctrine that marriage is a sacrament is not in Scripture.

The primary Protestant objection to the Catholic teaching that marriage is a New Covenant sacrament is that no explicit statement that marriage is a sacrament can be found in the New Testament. Hence Martin Luther wrote:

We have said that in every sacrament there is a word of divine promise, to be believed by whoever receives the sign, and that the sign alone cannot be a sacrament. Nowhere do we read that the man who marries a wife receives any grace of God. There is not even a divinely instituted sign in marriage, nor do we read anywhere that marriage was instituted by God to be a sign of anything. To be sure, whatever takes place in a visible manner can be understood as a figure or allegory of something invisible. But figures or allegories are not sacraments, in the sense in which we use the term.”³⁰

And because Luther did not find the sacramentality of marriage made explicit in the New Testament, he concluded that marriage is not a sacrament, and therefore should not be under the jurisdiction of the Church, but under that of the State:

Know therefore that marriage is an outward, bodily thing, like any other worldly undertaking.³¹

[M]arriage is outside the church, is a civil matter, and therefore should belong to the government.³²

Similarly, John Calvin followed Luther in this same line of reasoning. Concerning marriage Calvin wrote:

Lastly, there is matrimony, which all admit was instituted by God, though no one before the time of (Pope) Gregory VII (AD 1073-1085) regarded it as a sacrament. And what sober man could so regard it? Marriage is a good and holy ordinance; so also are farming, building, shoemaking, hair-cutting legitimate ordinances of God, but they are not sacraments. For it is required that a sacrament be not only a work of God but an outward ceremony apointed by God to confirm a promise. Even children can discern that there is no such thing in matrimony.”³³

He, like many Protestants after him, mistakenly inferred from the fact that the Church Fathers refer to many sacred rites (in addition to the seven sacraments) as ‘sacraments’ to the conclusion that the doctrine of sacramental marriage in the New Covenant is a Scholastic novelty. This inference is mistaken because it treats as a novelty what was in actuality an organic development. The Church was never unaware that marriage is a sacrament, but over time the Church came to a greater precision by conceptually and semantically distinguishing between the sacraments Christ had established in the New Covenant, and what are now called sacramentals.³⁴

For Calvin, ‘refuting’ the Catholic doctrine that marriage is a sacrament was relatively easy (covering only a few pages in his Institutes), because one of his criteria for being a sacrament was an explicit statement in Scripture to that effect. He treated the Catholic case for the sacramentality of marriage as though it depended mostly on Scripture, and then showed that Scripture does not explicitly show that marriage is sacrament, at least not as Calvin himself had defined ‘sacrament.’

The fundamental mistake here, by Luther, Calvin and the other early Protestants, was not recognizing that the Apostolic Tradition was handed down not only in written form but also in the speech, training, liturgy, practice and life of each generation of the Church. The early Protestants generally assumed that the entirety of the Apostolic deposit was either contained explicitly in the Scripture, or was logically demonstrable from what was explicitly stated in Scripture. That assumption is itself neither contained explicitly in Scripture nor logically demonstrable from what is explicitly stated in Scripture. So according to its own criterion it is at best a man-made tradition. But Scripture can be rightly interpreted and understood only in the context of the Tradition within which it was transmitted. Apart from that Tradition, many things contained implicitly in Scripture are veiled, though in the light of that Tradition, they can be seen in Scripture. I have written about the Catholic understanding of the relation between Scripture and Tradition in the section titled “Scripture and Tradition” in my dialogue with Michael Horton.

In surveying that Patristic evidence regarding marriage, we find marriage elevated to something sacred and indissoluble, not, as Luther depicted it, a merely secular thing subject to dissolution by the State. Even at the end of the first century St. Ignatius of Antioch says the following regarding couples who wished to marry:

But it becomes both men and women who marry, to form their union with the approval of the bishop, that their marriage may be according to God, and not after their own lust.³⁵

Already for Christians at the end of the first century, the Church, not the State, had ultimate jurisdiction over marriage, indicating as well that for Christians marriage was not a merely secular affair, but a sacred institution, in which husbands are to love their wives as Christ loves the Church, and not reduce them to objects of lust or use. And in the early patristic evidence surveyed above, we see a continual difference between the Catholic conception of marriage with its attending ecclesial laws concerning the indissolubility of marriage, and the Roman civil laws concerning marriage, which allowed divorce and remarriage. The basis for that difference was not a mere stipulation by Christ or the Apostles concerning what may or may not be done by married couples, but a change in the very conception of marriage, as something elevated by Christ to represent explicitly in every family and to the whole world the union of Christ and His Church.

This understanding by the whole Church that marriage is a sacrament is the reason why the Eastern Orthodox also maintain marriage as one of the seven sacraments in the New Covenant. That marriage is a sacrament was never a point of contention between the Orthodox and the Catholic Church in the repeated attempts at reconciliation. And the Coptic Church, which separated from the Catholic Church in the fifth century after the Council of Chalcedon, also maintains that there are seven sacraments, and that marriage is a sacrament. The thesis that the notion that marriage is a sacrament is a Scholastic novelty of the Latin Church does not fit with these pieces of evidence. These pieces of evidence indicate that insofar as there was theological development during the Scholastic era with respect to the sacramental character of marriage, it was in organic continuity with the Tradition that had been received everywhere.

In addition, belief in seven sacraments, including the sacramentality of marriage, was both universal and explicit in the Catholic Church for four centuries prior to the rise of Protestantism. Whenever there is universal belief in a doctrine by the Church, this indicates that it has an Apostolic origin, either explicit or implicit. Tertullian explains:

Grant, then, that all have erred; that the apostle was mistaken in giving his testimony; that the Holy Ghost had no such respect to any one (church) as to lead it into truth, although sent with this view by Christ, John 14:26 and for this asked of the Father that He might be the teacher of truth; John 15:26 grant, also, that He, the Steward of God, the Vicar of Christ, neglected His office, permitting the churches for a time to understand differently, (and) to believe differently, what He Himself was preaching by the apostles—is it likely that so many churches, and they so great, should have gone astray into one and the same faith? No casualty distributed among many men issues in one and the same result. Error of doctrine in the churches must necessarily have produced various issues. When, however, that which is deposited among many is found to be one and the same, it is not the result of error, but of tradition. Can any one, then, be reckless enough to say that they were in error who handed on the tradition? (Prescription Against Heretics, 28)

And St. Augustine likewise writes:

Whatever is held by the whole Church, and was not introduced by any council, but has always been maintained, is rightly held to rest on the authority of the Apostles. (On Baptism, IV. 24)

The catholicity of the Church is itself part of the Tradition. See sections III and IV in the article titled “The Commonitory of St. Vincent of Lérins.” There are multiple aspects and implications of catholicity. Not only does catholicity mean that the Apostolic teaching goes out into every tribe, tongue, and nation; it also implies what is stated in the quotations just cited from Tertullian and St. Augustine, as well as by St. Vincent of Lérins, namely, that what has been accepted by the whole Church is “rightly held to rest on the authority of the Apostles.” And hence according to this criterion, not only the indissolubility of marriage but also its sacramentality, belongs to the Apostolic Tradition.

The sacramental nature of Christian marriage can be seen in St. Paul’s statement: “This is a great sacrament [mystery]; but I speak in Christ and in the church.”³⁶ In the Church Fathers we find an awareness that what has been revealed by Christ is not only the mystery of the union of Christ and His Church, but the significance of marriage as a type of that mystery, and therefore elevated to a higher standard than what Moses allowed. In this way sacramental marriage as sacramental (rather than as merely natural) is also a divinely revealed mystery (i.e. sacramentum), along with baptism and the Eucharist and the other sacraments Christ instituted in the New Covenant. Jesus raised marriage to the dignity of a sacrament not only by showing it to signify His union with His Church, but by making it a means of grace, such that the Mosaic concession concerning divorce could be rescinded, and Christian marriages could rightly signify the union of Christ and His Church through their manifest love, fidelity, perpetuity and indissolubility.

Objection 5: The notion that marriage is a sacrament presupposes that the sexual act is intrinsically sinful.

One mistaken notion among some Protestants is that the Catholic Church’s teaching that marriage is a sacrament is based on an assumption that the sexual act is intrinsically sinful, and therefore that God had to give grace through marriage in order to forgive married couples for the sin of lust during the sexual act. There is simply no truth to this notion. The sexual act is good; it is not a sin. Nor does being in sacramental marriage grant one forgiveness for any sin, including that of lust.³⁷ The purpose of this sacrament, as well as that of the sacrament of Holy Orders, is grace for the service of others. The Catholic Catechism explains:

Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist are sacraments of Christian initiation. They ground the common vocation of all Christ’s disciples, a vocation to holiness and to the mission of evangelizing the world. They confer the graces needed for the life according to the Spirit during this life as pilgrims on the march towards the homeland. Two other sacraments, Holy Orders and Matrimony, are directed towards the salvation of others; if they contribute as well to personal salvation, it is through service to others that they do so. They confer a particular mission in the Church and serve to build up the People of God. Through these sacraments those already consecrated by Baptism and Confirmation for the common priesthood of all the faithful can receive particular consecrations. Those who receive the sacrament of Holy Orders are consecrated in Christ’s name “to feed the Church by the word and grace of God.” On their part, “Christian spouses are fortified and, as it were, consecrated for the duties and dignity of their state by a special sacrament. (CCC 1533-35)

Objection 6: God would never give us something too difficult to bear. But the prohibition of divorce-with-remarriage while one’s spouse remains alive would be too difficult. Therefore, God must not have prohibited divorce-with-remarriage while one’s spouse remains alive.

For Martin Luther, not only adultery but also desertion and or irksome cohabitation were a sufficient ground for divorce-with-remarriage. Calvin, like Luther, believed that adultery justified divorce with remarriage to a third party. For Calvin, Jesus’ condemnation of remarriage as adultery applied only to “unlawful and frivolous divorces.” Regarding Jesus’s statement in Mark 10:11, “And whosoever shall marry her that is divorced commits adultery,” Calvin writes:

This clause has been very ill explained by many commentators; for they have thought that generally, and without exception, celibacy is enjoined in all cases when a divorce has taken place; and, therefore, if a husband should put away an adulteress, both would be laid under the necessity of remaining unmarried. As if this liberty of divorce meant only not to lie with his wife; and as if Christ did not evidently grant permission in this case to do what the Jews were wont indiscriminately to do at their pleasure. It was therefore a gross error; for, though Christ condemns as an adulterer the man who shall marry a wife that has been divorced, this is undoubtedly restricted to unlawful and frivolous divorces.³⁸

Even though Jesus does not say that His prohibition on marrying a divorced person applies only to those divorces that were unlawful or frivolous, Calvin feels free to weaken Jesus’s prohibition by adding that qualifier. And in his “Ecclesiastical Ordinances” adopted by the Little and Large Councils of 1561, Calvin allowed three grounds (besides adultery) for divorce and remarriage: impotence, extreme religious incompatibility, and abandonment.³⁹

The primary factor in Luther and Calvin’s reasoning concerning the permissibility of remarriage to a third party after divorce, is that God would not have given us something too difficult to bear. And because Jews were allowed to remarry after divorce, it couldn’t be that persons under the New Covenant would have less liberty than did the Jews under the Old Covenant. But notice that there are two assumptions at work in that line of reasoning. One is that the grace given under the New Covenant is not greater than that given to the Jews under the Old Covenant. I discussed this above at the end of my survey of Casti Connubii, where I pointed out the way in which this assumption is the error of the Galatian Judaizers. If under the Old Covenant there was not sufficient grace given to reconcile divorced couples, then, according to this assumption, there is not sufficient grace given to reconcile divorced couples under the New Covenant, and thus they too must be free to remarry third parties. But, in fact, whatever Christ requires of us, He provides the grace for us to accomplish. And in removing the Mosaic exception for divorce-with-remarriage, Christ has provided the grace by which our hearts are softened, and divorced couples are capable of remaining continent until their reconciliation. So the premise that God will never give us something too difficult to bear is true; the mistake in this objection is assuming that Christ has not provided mankind with additional grace under the New Covenant to remain continent when separated from one’s spouse in bed and board, until reconciliation or death, whichever comes first.

The second assumption in this line of reasoning is that freedom is fundamentally the power to choose between alternatives, not the power to choose virtuously. (See “Lawrence Feingold on Freedom of the Will.”) When more grace is given, so that we are empowered to do what is right, then our liberty is increased in the sense that we are more easily able to choose virtuously, even if some or many immoral options are closed off to us. So by giving us more grace under the New Covenant, our liberty has been increased, even though the exception Moses gave to the Jews has been removed by Christ.

Objection 7: If an unconsummated sacramental marriage is a marriage, and marriage is indissoluble then either the Petrine Privilege contradicts the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage, or sacramental marriage is not truly indissoluble. Otherwise, an unconsummated relationship is not yet a marriage, in which case Joseph and Mary were not truly married.

A contracted and consummated marriage between two baptized persons is absolutely indissoluble, since not only the State, but also the Church has no authority to dissolve it. But even non-sacramental marriages (i.e. marriage between two unbaptized persons, or between one unbaptized person and one baptized person) cannot be dissolved by any civil law or civil power. Such marriages are not absolutely indissoluble, however; there are two (and only two) cases in which such marriages can be dissolved. These cases are referred to as the Pauline privilege and the Petrine privilege. The Pauline privilege derives from 1 Corinthians 7:12-16. There, St. Paul writes:

But to the rest I say, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he must not divorce her. And a woman who has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to live with her, she must not send her husband away. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband; for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy. Yet if the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave; the brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us to peace. For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife? (1 Cor. 7:12-16)

The Pauline privilege is the Church’s authorization to dissolve a marriage contracted and even consummated between two unbaptized persons if one party of the marriage subsequently is baptized, and the other party refuses to continue to live with him or her peacefully in the married state. So the objection raises a preliminary question: If valid but non-sacramental marriages are intrinsically indissoluble, then how can there be such a thing as the Pauline privilege? The answer to this question involves an implication of the distinction between nature and grace. In the Supplement of St. Thomas’s Summa Theologica, in answer to the question “Whether there can be marriage between unbelievers?” we read:

Marriage was instituted chiefly for the good of the offspring, not only as to its begetting–since this can be effected even without marriage–but also as to its advancement to a perfect state, because everything intends naturally to bring its effect to perfection. Now a twofold perfection is to be considered in the offspring. One is the perfection of nature, not only as regards the body but also as regards the soul, by those means which are of the natural law. The other is the perfection of grace: and the former perfection is material and imperfect in relation to the latter. Consequently, since those things which are for the sake of the end are proportionate to the end, the marriage that tends to the first perfection is imperfect and material in comparison with that which tends to the second perfection. And since the first perfection can be common to unbelievers and believers, while the second belongs only to believers, it follows that between unbelievers there is marriage indeed, but not perfected by its ultimate perfection as there is between believers. (Summa Theologica Supp. Q.59 a.2.)

The natural end of marriage can be pursued by two unbaptized persons, and hence unbaptized persons can be married. But, if two unbaptized persons enter into marriage, and subsequently only one spouse receives baptism, the immediate result is a disparity of cult in which the couple is “unequally yoked.”⁴⁰ In choosing to be baptized, he or she has, for God’s sake, at the same time freely rejected marriage-directed-only-to-a-natural-end. For the baptized spouse the marriage (as everything else he or she does) is now directed also but primarily to a supernatural end, while for the unbaptized spouse the marriage remains directed only to its natural end. Because grace does not destroy nature, the baptism of the one spouse does not remove the other spouse’s freedom to consent (or refuse consent) to union ordered to a supernatural end. If the unbaptized spouse consents (either by choosing to be baptized, or by being willing at least to live in peace with the baptized spouse and not prevent the education of the children in the faith), then the baptized spouse must not divorce him. But if he does not consent, then God dissolves the marriage for the good of the faith, and Church law considers the marriage to be dissolved when the believing spouse remarries. In sum, by the one spouse’s elevation to grace through baptism and the refusal of the other spouse to be baptized, the marriage has become one of disparity of cult, to which neither party freely consented when they initially exchanged vows. So the non-sacramental marriage is indissoluble in itself, but is dissoluble in relation to something higher than itself, namely, the authority of God for the good of the faith and the respect of the free consent of both parties to enter (or not enter) a marriage ordered by grace to man’s supernatural end.⁴¹

The Petrine privilege is the Church’s authorization to dissolve a marriage contracted but not yet consummated between (a) a baptized person and an unbaptized person, or (b) two baptized persons if one of the parties discerns a religious vocation (i.e. to become a monk or nun).⁴² Concerning this privilege canon law reads:

Can. 1142: For a just cause, the Roman Pontiff can dissolve a non-consummated marriage between baptized persons or between a baptized party and a non-baptized party at the request of both parties or of one of them, even if the other party is unwilling. (Can. 1142)

This brings us to the dilemma raised by the objection. If an unconsummated sacramental marriage is a marriage, and marriage is indissoluble how can it be dissolved by the Petrine Privilege? But if an unconsummated relationship is not yet a marriage, then how is it that Joseph and Mary were truly married?

St. Thomas addresses the question “Whether there was a true marriage between Mary and Joseph?” in his Summa Theologica, writing:

Marriage or wedlock is said to be true by reason of its attaining its perfection. Now perfection of anything is twofold; first, and second. The first perfection of a thing consists in its very form, from which it receives its species; while the second perfection of a thing consists in its operation, by which in some way a thing attains its end. Now the form of matrimony consists in a certain inseparable union of souls, by which husband and wife are pledged by a bond of mutual affection that cannot be sundered. And the end of matrimony is the begetting and upbringing of children: the first of which is attained by conjugal intercourse; the second by the other duties of husband and wife, by which they help one another in rearing their offspring.

Thus we may say, as to the first perfection, that the marriage of the Virgin Mother of God and Joseph was absolutely true: because both consented to the nuptial bond, but not expressly to the bond of the flesh, save on the condition that it was pleasing to God. For this reason the angel calls Mary the wife of Joseph, saying to him (Matthew 1:20): “Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife”: on which words Augustine says (De Nup. et Concup. i): “She is called his wife from the first promise of her espousals, whom he had not known nor ever was to know by carnal intercourse.”

But as to the second perfection which is attained by the marriage act, if this be referred to carnal intercourse, by which children are begotten; thus this marriage was not consummated. Wherefore Ambrose says on Luke 1:26-27: “Be not surprised that Scripture calls Mary a wife. The fact of her marriage is declared, not to insinuate the loss of virginity, but to witness to the reality of the union.” Nevertheless, this marriage had the second perfection, as to upbringing of the child. Thus Augustine says (De Nup. et Concup. i): “All the nuptial blessings are fulfilled in the marriage of Christ’s parents, offspring, faith and sacrament. The offspring we know to have been the Lord Jesus; faith, for there was no adultery: sacrament, since there was no divorce. Carnal intercourse alone there was none.”⁴³

Here he explains that there are two perfections to a thing. The first perfection consists in its very essence, and the second perfection consists in its operation. Marriage in its essence is formed by the mutual giving and receiving of each party to the other irrevocably in order to live a covenant of faithful and fruitful love. The essence of marriage makes possible its second perfection, namely its operation, the begetting and raising of children. And the first act in the begetting and raising of children is the conjugal act by which the marriage is consummated.⁴⁴ For this reason, even though Mary remained perpetually a virgin, she and Joseph were truly married.

Why then, is a consummated sacramental marriage absolutely indissoluble, while an unconsummated sacramental marriage is not absolutely indissoluble? Pope Pius XI explains why a consummated sacramental marriage is absolutely indissoluble:

If we wish with all reverence to inquire into the intimate reason of this divine decree, Venerable Brethren, we shall easily see it in the mystical signification of Christian marriage which is fully and perfectly verified in consummated marriage between Christians. For, as the Apostle says in his Epistle to the Ephesians, the marriage of Christians recalls that most perfect union which exists between Christ and the Church: “Sacramentum hoc magnum est, ego autem dico, in Christo et in ecclesia;” which union, as long as Christ shall live and the Church through Him, can never be dissolved by any separation. And this St. Augustine clearly declares in these words: “This is safeguarded in Christ and the Church, which, living with Christ who lives for ever may never be divorced from Him. The observance of this sacrament is such in the City of God . . . that is, in the Church of Christ, that when for the sake of begetting children, women marry or are taken to wife, it is wrong to leave a wife that is sterile in order to take another by whom children may be hand. (Casti Connubii, 36)

The absolute indissolubility of sacramental marriage is based in the absolute indissolubility of the union of Christ with His Church. The divine law concerning marriage is based, in other words on a Christological and ecclesiological truth entailing the utter falsehood of ecclesial deism. In the Supplement to St. Thomas’s Summa Theologica, in answer to the question “Whether before the marriage has been consummated one consort can enter religion without the other’s consent?” we read the following:

Before marital intercourse there is only a spiritual bond between husband and wife, but afterwards there is a carnal bond between them. Wherefore, just as after marital intercourse marriage is dissolved by carnal death, so by entering religion the bond which exists before the consummation of the marriage is dissolved, because religious life is a kind of spiritual death, whereby a man dies to the world and lives to God.

Before consummation marriage signifies the union of Christ with the soul by grace, which is dissolved by a contrary spiritual disposition, namely mortal sin. But after consummation it signifies the union of Christ with the Church, as regards the assumption of human nature into the unity of person, which union is altogether indissoluble.

Before consummation the body of one consort is not absolutely delivered into the power of the other, but conditionally, provided neither consort meanwhile seek the fruit of a better life. But by marital intercourse the aforesaid delivery is completed, because then each of them enters into bodily possession of the power transferred to him.⁴⁵

The conjugal act is not only an operation following upon marriage, but is and effects an additional union, namely, the one flesh union of the spouses. After the marriage has been ratified but prior to its consummation, the couple are truly married, but the marriage is only a spiritual union, having been formed by their mutual free acts of the will, through which their hearts are joined. At that point, their marital unity is not yet a bodily union, because they have not yet become one flesh. Hence at that point the sacramental signification of their marriage is imperfect, because it does not yet reflect the incarnation [enfleshment] of Christ and His one flesh union with His Bride, the Church. The ratified but unconsummated marriage signifies the spiritual union of Christ with the soul by grace. But this union can be lost through mortal sin. Hence even a sacramental marriage in that stage (i.e. prior to consummation) is not absolutely indissoluble. By contrast, the one flesh union of Christ with His Bride and mystical Body, the Church, is absolutely indissoluble. Consummation of a sacramental marriage makes that marriage absolutely indissoluble because in a sacramental marriage the conjugal act signifies the irrevocable one-flesh union of Christ and His Church. Once the signification of the sacrament of matrimony is perfected through its consummation, the marriage thereby becomes absolutely indissoluble.⁴⁶ This is why treating consummated sacramental marriages as though they are dissoluble is a typological denial of the indissolubility of the union of Christ with His Church, and with His human nature; it is a denial of Christ’s faithfulness and love for His Church. It is the error of ecclesial deism.

VI. Implications

The traditional patristic understanding of the indissolubility of marriage and divorce as separation in bed and board has many implications, both for understanding Scripture and for the reunion of Protestants and the Catholic Church. Once we understand that when Jesus says “whoever divorces [ἀπολύσῃ] …,” He is referring to a separation of bed and board, then we understand why it is true that “whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” (Mt. 5:32) If by ‘divorce’ He were referring to a dissolution of the marriage bond, it would not make sense that to marry a divorced person is to commit adultery.⁴⁷

But if the Tradition is right concerning the absolute indissolubility of sacramental marriage, then Protestantism need to recover this doctrine and revise its theology of marriage. For example, the Westminster Confession of Faith claims the following concerning divorce and remarriage:

In the case of adultery after marriage, it is lawful for the innocence party to sue out a divorce, and, after the divorce, to marry another, as if the offending party were dead. Although the corruption of man be such as is apt to study arguments unduly to put asunder those whom God hath joined together in marriage: yet, nothing but adultery, or such willful desertion as can no way be remedied by the Church, or civil magistrate, is cause sufficient of dissolving the bond of marriage: wherein, a public and orderly course of proceeding is to be observed; and the persons concerned in it not left to their own wills and discretion in their own case. (WCF Chap. XXIV para. 5-6)

This notion that adultery allows for divorce with remarriage is contrary to the Tradition found in the moral consensus of the Church Fathers.

In 2009, when Neal and I argued that sola scriptura reduces to solo scriptura, one response we received is that the Reformed faith is not biblicism, because it recognizes the authority of tradition, even though it treats tradition as subordinate in authority to Scripture. One of our points had been that when a person picks his ecclesial leaders on the basis of their agreement with his own interpretation of Scripture, he has adopted only the appearance of being under their authority, because the ground for their ‘authority’ entails that he himself retains ultimate ecclesial authority. Similarly, however, when what gets to count as Tradition is only what agrees with one’s interpretation of Scripture, then Tradition is not acting as an authority, but only as a convenient accouterment to Scripture for supporting one’s own interpretation and ideology.

The Reformed faith represents itself as being in greater agreement with the Apostolic tradition than is the Catholic Church. But unless one holds some form of ecclesial deism, the claim to be in agreement with the Apostolic Tradition can be true only if one’s theology is in agreement with the consensus of the early Church Fathers. Otherwise the claim is a vacuous claim, because if one were in fact not in agreement with the Apostolic Tradition, the patristic data and one’s relation to it would be just the same.

How do we find the Apostolic tradition in the Church Fathers? Whenever the Church Fathers provide us with a moral consensus on a particular question, we can know that this belongs to the Apostolic Tradition.⁴⁸ To reject the moral consensus of the Church Fathers is to undermine the very claim to be faithful to the Tradition. That is in part because rejecting the moral consensus of the Church Fathers is exactly what it would look like to reject absolutely the authority of Tradition.

This is why, for example, the Reformed rejection of the unanimous patristic consensus concerning baptismal regeneration is problematic for the Reformed claim to be faithful to the Tradition. But as our study above shows, the Church Fathers provide a moral consensus concerning the indissolubility of marriage. So just as in the case of baptismal regeneration, the Reformed (and Protestant) rejection of the moral consensus in the Church Fathers concerning the indissolubility of marriage between baptized persons is equally problematic, because it calls into question the Reformed claim to be following the early Church Tradition allegedly abandoned by the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages, and exposes Reformed confessionalism for the biblicism that it actually is. In addition, this deviation from the patristic teaching on this subject calls into question the correctness of the Protestant notion that marriage is not a sacrament. That is, if as I have shown, we cannot trust the Reformed claim that the dissolubility of Christian marriage is in keeping with the Apostolic Tradition known and practiced by the early Church, then the Reformed denial of the sacramentality of marriage is likewise called into question. The sacramentality of marriage is what grounds and guards its absolute indissolubility; rejecting the sacramentality of marriage opens the door to denying the absolute indissolubility of Christian marriage. As John Witte points out, “Because they [i.e. the early Protestants] rejected the sacramental concept of marriage as an eternal enduring bond, the reformers introduced divorce in the modern sense, on grounds of adultery, desertion, cruelty, or frigidity, with a subsequent right to remarry at least for the innocent party.”⁴⁹

The second difficulty for the Reformed position with respect to marriage is that it is ad hoc. The Reformed tradition holds that in important respects the Catholic Church departed from the Apostles’ teaching present in Scripture and the early Church Fathers. But when present Catholic doctrine is shown to be the patristic teaching (as with baptismal regeneration and the indissolubility of marriage), defenders of the Reformed faith posit an apostasy from the Apostolic Tradition by the early Church. Then, when it is pointed out to them that Protestantism presupposes ecclesial deism, they deny it and claim to stand in the Tradition found in the Church Fathers. But then when it is pointed out that their position differs from the moral consensus of the Church Fathers, they posit an apostasy and heretical accretions. So what makes this position ad hoc is that it claims to recognize the authority of Tradition, but yet it posits an apostasy whenever it holds a position contrary to the moral consensus of the Church Fathers, while denying an apostasy whenever it holds a position that agrees with the moral consensus of the Church Fathers. And this reveals that the Reformed faith is not treating the Apostolic Tradition in the Church Fathers as an authority that governs its interpretation of Scripture, but only as a useful resource from which to locate proof-textual support for its own interpretation of Scripture.

VII. Conclusion

Why has the Catholic Church always taught that marriage is indissoluble, and thus that divorce is impossible? It is no accident that there is a correlation between believing in the possibility of divorce and remarriage, and believing some form of ecclesial deism. If the bond between Christ and His Church can be broken, then how much more can the sign of that bond be broken.⁵⁰ Where we find ecclesial deism, there, undoubtedly, we should expect to find acceptance of divorce with remarriage. But where the indissolubility of Christian marriage is preserved, there we should expect to find a belief in the indefectibility of the Church. And so it is. The indissolubility of Christian marriage is a testimony to the world of Christ’s unfailing love for His Church, and therefore to the sure promise of eternal life in the world to come, for all those who believe and are baptized.⁵¹ The indissoluble union of Christ and His Church is a consequence of the indissoluble union of Christ and His human nature. Hence ecclesial deism’s rejection of the indissoluble union of Christ and His Church is an implicit denial of Christ’s resolve never to give up His humanity.⁵²

Origen explains why the indissolubility of marriage makes ecclesial deism impossible, writing:

For because of her [i.e. the Church], He Himself also became flesh, when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, (John 1:14) and they are no more two, but now they are one flesh, since it is said to the wife, Now you are the body of Christ, and members each in his part; (1 Cor. 12:27) for the body of Christ is not something apart different from the church, which is His body, and from the members each in his part. And God has joined together these who are not two, but have become one flesh, commanding that men should not separate the church from the Lord. And he who takes heed for himself so as not to be separated, is confident as one who will not possibly be separated and says, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? (Rom. 8:35) Here, therefore, the saying, What God has joined together, let not man put asunder, (Matt. 19:6) was written with relation to the Pharisees, but to those who are superior to the Pharisees, it could be said, What then God has joined together, let nothing put asunder, neither principality nor power; for God, who has joined together is stronger than all those which any one could conceive and name.⁵³

Because the Church is the Bride of Christ, she is also one Body with Him. And what God has joined together, no man can separate. The union of Christ and the Church is an indissoluble union, to which every other marriage points by signification. In this way the indissolubility of marriage teaches man the true nature of love. In our present society, love is often confused with emotions and feelings and sexual desire. Not uncommonly we hear a spouse seek a divorce on the ground that he “no longer loves” his spouse, or is no longer “in love.” Statements of that sort reveal an egregious misunderstanding concerning the nature of love as a mere feeling, emotion, or passion. Love, in its essence, is an act of the will; it is a choice, whether or not it is accompanied by feelings of affection, romance, attraction, passion, or fulfillment. The complete giving of oneself in the exchange of vows on the wedding day is not an exchange of testimonies concerning the present state of one’s internal emotions or feelings. That would contradict the very words that are spoken, which offer onself irrevocably and receive the other person “for better and for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death parts us.” Emotions and feelings are fickle, and can come and go, from year to year, or even day to day. Only an act of the will is that by which one can make the wedding vow; and only an act of the will, now aided by grace and the gift of agape, is that whereby such vows are kept. That is true love.

Of course love as an act of the will nurtures affection and joy in the other, seeking out and delighting in the goodness and beauty of the other. But love is not fundamentally feelings of affection or delight in the presence of the other person, or feelings of attraction to or longing for the other person. When love is conceived as a mere feeling, the other person is reduced to an object of one’s own pleasure. What is present in such a relation is only mutual egoism and self-gratification, not love. Hence the Church’s doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage preserves for society the true understanding of love, preventing society from mistaking the selfishness of mutual-use relations for love. When Protestant pastors oversee the ‘remarriage’ of divorced persons to third parties while their spouses are still living, or admit persons in such relations to the Lord’s Supper, they are complicit in the couple’s adultery, and in spreading the false doctrine that marriage is about one’s own gratification.

How do we as a society recover an awareness of the indissolubility of marriage? Christians need to return to the Apostolic Tradition concerning marriage and affirm with one voice the indissolubility of marriage, both in our personal lives and practice, and as institutions, denominations, and confessions. Recently a prominent Evangelical figure, Pat Robertson, claimed that if one’s spouse has Alzheimers, then divorce and remarriage are permissible. Robertson’s position is merely the logical extension of the exceptions allowed by Luther and Calvin; as justifications for divorce and remarriage, there is no principled difference between Alzheimers, and irksome cohabitation (Luther) and impotence (Calvin). The only solution to this problem is recovering a sacramental conception of marriage, because as the Catholic Encyclopedia notes, only a sacramental conception of marriage can ensure the indissolubility of marriage:

Those who now endeavour to reform the civil statutes in the interest of honest trials, may succeed in abating some of the evils flowing from lax methods of administering the divorce statutes in some of the states, and in obtaining restrictive legislation in all of them, but it is not probable that the demoralization will be stopped until the majority of the people of the civilized nations return to the belief in the supernatural sanction of marriage and “that it is a sacramental union, productive of the graces necessary to bear with one another’s shortcomings; and indissoluble union as that of soul and body, which can be dissolved only in death. This means a return to the Catholic view of marriage, and this return alone can remove the national evil of divorce.” (Divorce (in civil jurisprudence)

The widespread rise of divorce with remarriage over the last century has destroyed millions of families and left a wake of victims: men, women, and children. It has distorted our social awareness of the family as an essential and natural institution, and led to attempts to redefine the legal definition of marriage and the family. Only by a recovery of the ancient Christian doctrine concerning marriage, a doctrine that only the Catholic Church has retained, can the evil of divorce be overcome.

1. CCC 1614-1615, 1640.
2. (cf. 2384).
3. CCC 1650.
4. Catholic Encyclopedia article “Divorce (in moral theology).”
5. From the Protestant point of view, nothing more binding is formed during Christian weddings than during the weddings of non-Christians, nothing on the order of grace. That is also demonstrated by the fact that Protestant pastors almost always treat a civil divorce as a dissolution of the marriage bond (divorce a vinculo matrimonii).

   This is why Protestant ecclesial communities treat legally divorced persons as no longer married, and allow them to remarry other persons. They do this because in Protestantism, what marriage is, essentially, is a legal contract, not a sacrament. Whenever the State declares that legal contract to be dissolved, the Protestant ecclesial communities treat the marriage to be dissolved, and treat both spouses as free to remarry. That is true even if those couples divorced for reasons as minimal as “irreconcilable differences.” If the spouses remarry other persons, while both spouses remain alive, Protestant ecclesial communities treat those remarriages as actual marriages. And this shows that for Protestant ecclesial communities, the marriage bond is fundamentally a legal contract overseen fundamentally by the State, and that the State, not the Church, has fundamental and definitive authority to determine who is married and to whom.

   By denying the sacramental character of marriage, Protestantism takes marriage out of the domain of the Church, and makes it fundamentally a legal institution of the State, defined and governed by the laws of the State. And when marriage is conceived merely as a civil matter, it can be defined, formed and dissolved by the State. This allows divorce and ‘remarriage’ to be commonplace, especially in a society operating under the principles of political liberalism. Regarding the problems inherent in the presuppositions underlying political liberalism, see Pope Leo XIII’s Libertas Praestantissimum (On the Nature of Human Liberty).

6. What God has Joined …: The Sacramentality of Marriage, (Alba House, New York, 1990), p. 165.
7. CCC 1613.
8. Living with another man is what attempting to marry again, while her husband remains alive, would be. St. Paul uses this phrase [lives with another man] precisely because any remarriage while her husband remains alive would not be marriage at all, but would merely be living with another man.
9. An example of the justification of separation, to avoid sharing in the other spouse’s adultery can be found in St. Justin Martyr’s Second Apology, chapter 2. There, St. Justin describes the following account:

   A certain woman lived with an intemperate husband; she herself, too, having formerly been intemperate. But when she came to the knowledge of the teachings of Christ she became sober-minded, and endeavoured to persuade her husband likewise to be temperate, citing the teaching of Christ, and assuring him that there shall be punishment in eternal fire inflicted upon those who do not live temperately and conformably to right reason. But he, continuing in the same excesses, alienated his wife from him by his actions. For she, considering it wicked to live any longer as a wife with a husband who sought in every way means of indulging in pleasure contrary to the law of nature, and in violation of what is right, wished to be divorced from him. And when she was overpersuaded by her friends, who advised her still to continue with him, in the idea that some time or other her husband might give hope of amendment, she did violence to her own feeling and remained with him. But when her husband had gone into Alexandria, and was reported to be conducting himself worse than ever, she— that she might not, by continuing in matrimonial connection with him, and by sharing his table and his bed, become a partaker also in his wickednesses and impieties— gave him what you call a bill of divorce, and was separated from him. But this noble husband of hers—while he ought to have been rejoicing that those actions which formerly she unhesitatingly committed with the servants and hirelings, when she delighted in drunkenness and every vice, she had now given up, and desired that he too should give up the same—when she had gone from him without his desire, brought an accusation against her, affirming that she was a Christian.

   Also, Canon 70 of the Council of Elvira, in AD 306, reads as follows: “A husband who knows of his wife’s adultery and who remains with her may not commune [i.e. receive the Eucharist] even prior to death. If he lived with his wife for a period of time after her adultery and then left her, he may not commune for ten years.” See also the quotation from St. Gregory of Nazianzen in the body of this article, in which the moral corruption of the children is given as a reason for separating from the spouse committing adultery. In the Supplement of St. Thomas’s Summa Theologica we read, “For an innocent husband is free to remain with an adulterous wife in the hope of her amendment, but not if she be obstinate in her sin of adultery, lest he seem to approve of her disgrace.” (Summa Theologica Supp. Q.59 a.3.)

10. Ep. clxxxviii, can. ix, and Ep. cxcix, can. xxi, in P.G., XXXII, 678, 721.
11. See his “Exposition on the Sermon on the Mount,” Bk 1.
12. The exceptions here are the Pauline and Petrine privileges, discussed below.
13. The Catholic Encyclopedia article titled “Divorce” notes:

    In these cases, also, the popes pronounced decidedly for the indissolubility of marriage, e.g. Innocent I, “Epist. ad Probum”, in P.L. XX, 602; Leo I, “Epist. ad Nicetam Aquil.”, in P.L., LIV, 1136; Gregory I, “Epist. ad Urbicum Abb.”, in P.L., LXXVII, 833, and “Epist. ad Hadrian. notar.”, in P.L., LXXVII, 1169. This last passage, which is found in the “Decretum” of Gratian (C. xxvii, Q, ii, c. xxii), is as follows: “Although the civil law provides that, for the sake of conversion (i.e., for the purpose of choosing the religious life), a marriage may be dissolved, though either of parties be unwilling, yet the Divine law does not permit it to be done.”

14. The Catholic Encylopedia article adds:

    The same declaration [that such persons are forbidden to marry] is to be found in the Second Council of Mileve (416), canon xvii (Labbe, IV, 331); the Council of Hereford (673), canon x (Labbe, VII, 554); the Council of Friuli (Forum Julii), in northern Italy (791), canon x (Labbe, IX, 46); all of these teach distinctly that the marriage bond remains even in case of dismissal for adultery, and that new marriage is therefore forbidden.

15. Such conditions include: insufficient age, antecedent and perpetual impotence of either party, already being married to someone else, being a baptized Catholic attempting to marry an unbaptized person without a dispensation, having Holy Orders, having taking solemn religious vows of celibacy, abduction, crime [having murdered the other spouse], consanguinity, affinity (in-laws), spiritual relationship [e.g. god-parent, sponsor], legal relationship [adopted parent, etc.].
16. Pius VI, Rescript. ad Episc. Agriens., 11 July 1789. As quoted by Pope Pius XI in Casti Connubii, 34.
17. Casti Connubii, 97.
18. Though see the discussion below concerning the Pauline and Petrine privileges.
19. Cf. Mt. 19:10.
20. Casti Connubii, 39.
21. Casti Connubii, 41.
22. Casti Connubii, 38.
23. Casti Connubii, 40.
24. Casti Connubii, 41.
25. See the opening line of The Church Fathers on Baptismal Regeneration.”
26. See the last paragraph in comment #106 of the “Solemnity of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary into Heaven” thread.
27. The Council of Trent decreed:

    Moreover, the holy council, moved by the same and other very grave reasons, restricts the impediment which arises on account of the affinity contracted from fornication, and which dissolves the marriage afterward contracted,[25] to those only who are united in the first and second degree; in more remote degrees it ordains that affinity of this kind does not dissolve the marriage afterward contracted. (Council of Trent, Session XXIV, Decree Concerning the Reformed of Matrimony, Chapter IV)

28. See also the book Wenham co-authored with William Heth titled Jesus and Divorce.
29. Code of Canon Law: Separation with the Bond Remaining.
30. LW: 36, p. 92.
31. LW: 45:25.
32. LW: 54: p. 363.
33. Institutes Bk. IV chap. 19. 34.
34. See the section titled “The number of the sacraments” in the Catholic Encyclopedia article on the sacraments. See also the Catholic Encyclopedia article on the sacramentals.
35. Epistle to St. Polycarp, c. 5.
36. Eph. 5:32.
37. Lust should not be conflated with sexual desire; lust is willfully entertained or engagement in disordered sexual pleasure. See the Catholic Encyclopedia entry on lust.
38. Harmony of the Evangelists, 384.
39. Ecclesiastical Ordinances, Corpus Reformatorum, x.10-14.
40. 2 Cor. 6:14.
41. For an Old Testament example of marriages dissolved by God for the good of the faith, see Ezra chapters 9-10.
42. Pope Alexander III (AD 1159-1181) writes of this in a letter to the Bishop of Brescia (see Denzinger, 395). See also the statement by Pope Innocent III in AD 1206, recorded in Denzinger 409. See also canon 6 of Session XXIV of the Council of Trent, listed above.
43. Summa Theologica III Q.29 a.2.
44. See also Summa Theologica Supp. Q.42 a.4.
45. Summa Theologica Supp. Q.61 a.2.
46. The sexual act without the spiritual union of marriage is not a consummation of anything. See the quotation from St. Leo the Great listed in the body of the article, regarding concubinage.
47. Similarly, when St. Joseph discovered that Mary was with child, he decided to divorce her privately [λάθρᾳ ἀπολῦσαι αὐτήν]. (Mt. 1:19) The verse explains that his righteousness lay behind his decision, but his righteousness is revealed in two ways. First, he did not want to shame Mary, and therefore he intended the divorce to be private. Second, he intended to divorce her, because to live voluntarily with a person who is committing fornication is to cooperate in their sin. (See footnote 9, above.) The purpose of the divorce was not to break the marriage bond so that he could remarry.
48. See my reply to Objection 4, above.
49. John Witte, “The Meaning of Marriage.”
50. Cf. Eph. 5:31-32.
51. See Apostolicam Actuositatem, 11.
52. See “Among You Stands One Whom You do not Know.”
53. Origen, Commentary on the Book of Matthew, Bk XIV.17.

Virgin of the Annunciation
by Guido Reni (early 17th century)

This is also a subject where Catholics and Reformed Christians find strong agreement. We both recognize the gravity of this sin. Unfortunately though, this is not the case with all churches. In high school, before my conversion through Young Life, I occasionally attended a Methodist church where there was little mention of sin, Christ, or redemption. One of my most poignant memories is a conversation between a group of other students and a member of the church staff who was defending his subscription to Playboy Magazine. He argued that the magazine honored women by showing their beauty. Stories like this should make all Christians weep, but it should also highlight the fact that Catholics and Reformed Christians are fighting the same battle.

Since coming into the Catholic Church I’ve tried to maintain relationships with my Reformed friends as best as possible. As these relationships have continued to grow I’ve also been able to form deep friendships with Catholics as well. In the context of these relationships I have been struck by the different approaches of these groups in the fight against habitual sin. For the Reformed the battle seems to be fought primarily through Bible study, accountability groups, prayer, and attentiveness to solid preaching. For the Catholics, however, the sacraments are paramount. This is not to say that Catholics do not love accountability groups, Bible study, preaching, and prayer.  When it comes to how we believe God is transforming us, however, Catholics take comfort that their Savior is healing them through the sacraments.

This is not because Catholics believe the sacraments have magical voodoo powers to cure. On the contrary, we believe that the sacraments are where we encounter Jesus Christ, and the means He established by which we are more deeply united with Him and grow in sanctification. As I reflect on my own struggles with various forms of habitual sin throughout my entire Christian life, I realize that I’ve always known what I needed. I’ve always known the answer: more of Jesus.  Union with the living Christ is the ultimate remedy for the sickness of sin. This is what Christ offers us in the sacraments: deeper union with him.

This does not mean that Catholics are more sanctified or that they necessarily sin less than Protestants. The tragedy of the recent sex scandal within the Catholic Church demonstrates this point all too well. Though certain priests were partaking of the sacraments, they were still living in a horrible pattern of habitual sin. But this is precisely why the Catholic sacraments are not magic. An unrepentant man can partake of the sacraments and still be an unrepentant man. This reality can be seen in Jesus’ own ministry. For some, an encounter with Christ meant judgment, not forgiveness and transformation. The grace offered to us in the sacraments is resistible. And the measure of grace we receive through the sacraments depends on our disposition. The greater our love for Christ, the more grace we receive from Christ through the sacraments. Conversely, those who approach the sacraments in mortal sin and without contrition, receive no grace from the sacraments.

For years I prayed that God would free me from particular habitual sins. However, I never expected this prayer to be answered in the form of the Catholic sacraments. Yet this is where Christ has met me and this is where I believe He will continue to transform me. I am speaking here from experience and am fully aware of the limited strength of an experiential argument. Nonetheless, I have to share my story. When God does something incredible it is hard not to tell others. My hope and prayer is that my own story will encourage you to continue reading Called To Communion and further consider the claims of the Catholic Church, especially as you consider your own desire to grow in holiness for Christ.

On this day, March 7, 1274, St. Thomas Aquinas fell asleep in the Lord.  In the old calendar, this was his feast day.  And so in his honor, I would like to show how St. Thomas Aquinas explains that the sacraments do not dispense the need for faith and repentance in the recipient. A recipient may place an impediment such that the sacrament does not have its effect, but this is not to say that the sacrament is not inherently efficacious.

If a sacrament was efficacious, wouldn’t that mean that it always has its effect regardless of the disposition of the recipient? No. We do not disprove the tendency of a rock to fall to the ground by catching it. We only prove that something might hinder the rock from doing what it would have otherwise accomplished. One who places an impediment in between a sacrament and his own reception is like one who stops a rock from falling.

Sacraments contain grace like words contain information. The sacrament will confer that grace upon the recipient, so long as he places no obstacle in its path, just as a word will convey information to the hearer so long as the hearer does not place an obstacle in its path (such as deliberately ignoring the word or sticking his fingers in his ears).

I have already responded once to the repeated claims that the Catholic doctrine on sacramental efficacy amounts to belief in magic. You can read that response here. But I would like to show that if one were familiar with the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, he would already know how misplaced and uninformed these sort of accusations are.

The first thing one should know about the Catholic doctrine of sacraments is that their function is to confer grace. Reformed Protestants view the few sacraments they retain as signs of, not causes of grace. God is the cause of grace, they argue. They are right that God is the cause of grace, but their doctrinal error is caused by a failure to distinguish between types of causes. God is the principal cause of grace, and the sacrament is the instrumental cause of grace.¹ Thus, to say that sacraments cause grace is not to deny that God is the origin of that grace.

Since sacraments cause grace, what is true of grace is also true of the sacrament as its cause. As St. Thomas often repeats, grace does not destroy nature but rather perfects it. This is an easy way to recognize the falsity of the Protestant caricature that Catholics view sacramental efficacy as a magical override of nature. Free will belongs to man’s nature; hence sacraments do not destroy man’s free will. Rather, sacraments confer grace which perfects man’s will. A man’s will can place an impediment to reception of the sacramental grace. For example, if a man were forcibly baptized against his will, the sacrament would not have its effect. St. Thomas says, “in order that a man be justified by Baptism, his will must needs embrace both Baptism and the baptismal effect.”²

What about forgiveness of sins? Does man have to repent or can he simply receive the sacrament of baptism, penance, or extreme unction? Many Protestants would say that the Catholic Church teaches that one must simply receive the sacraments and that one’s will to repent is not important, or at the very least, not essential. But St. Thomas says, “there is no remission of sins, even in Baptism, without an actual change of the will, which is the effect of Penance.”³ Repentance is essential to forgiveness. The sacraments do not forgive one’s sin in spite of one’s impenitence; that is impossible. Furthermore, properly speaking, forgiveness of sins is an effect of penance as a virtue. That is, forgiveness of sins is a proper result of a man repenting of his sins. The grace is conferred by penance as a sacrament, but its proper cause is the virtue of penance.⁴

According to St. Thomas, ‘“the power of the sacraments which is ordained unto the remission of sins is derived principally from faith in Christ’s Passion.”⁵ And he goes on to say:

No sin can be forgiven save by the power of Christ’s Passion: hence the Apostle says that “without shedding of blood there is no remission.”⁶ Consequently no movement of the human will suffices for the remission of sin, unless there be faith in Christ’s Passion, and the purpose of participating in it, either by receiving Baptism, or by submitting to the keys of the Church. Therefore when an adult approaches Baptism, he does indeed receive the forgiveness of all his sins through his purpose of being baptized, but more perfectly through the actual reception of Baptism.⁷

We have seen that according to Catholic doctrine, repentance is necessary for forgiveness of sins and that man may freely reject the graces offered to him in the sacrament. As stated above, faith is also necessary. St. Thomas also says that, “she [the Church] does not intend to give Baptism save to those who have right faith, without which there is no remission of sins.”⁸ Thus faith, repentance, and assent are all necessary components of receiving sacramental grace.⁹ As with other issues of contention, the sandy ground on which the Protestant objection was built washes away once we examine the authentic Catholic doctrine.

St. Thomas Aquinas, pray for us that we might be able to better understand the mysteries of the sacraments and more so that we would often avail ourselves to them and be found worthy recipients of the grace that they confer unto salvation.  Amen.

1. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica 3.62.4
2. Ibid., 3.69.9
3. Ibid., 3.86.2
4. Ibid., 3.86.6
5. Ibid., 3.62.5
6. Hebrews 9:22
7. Ibid., 3.69.1
8. Ibid., 3.68.8
9. This applies even to children because these things which they are not able to produce are produced by the Church. Thus in child baptism, the Church believes, wills, and repents on his behalf.

The Forerunners of Christ with Saints and Martyrs
Fra Angelico (about 1423-24)

(1) On Judgment Day, every man will be judged and recompensed for each of his thoughts, words, and deeds, whether good or evil. “For we must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ, that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” (2 Cor 5:10) “[E]ach will receive his own reward according to his own labor.” (1 Cor 3:8) “With good will render service, as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free.” (Eph 6:8-9) “I will give to each one of you according to your deeds.” (Rev 2:23) “[L]et the one who is righteous, still practice righteousness; and let the one who is holy, still keep himself holy. Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done.” (Rev 22:11-12)

(2) Some persons, by grace and agape, store up treasure in heaven. “But store up for yourselves treasure in heaven.” (Matt 6:20; cf. Rev 19:8) This is not a material treasure, but a treasure of merit, and it is made possible only by grace. The ability of any righteous man to merit anything comes from the merit of Christ. “It is a defined article of the Catholic Faith that man before, in, and after justification derives his whole capability of meriting and satisfying, as well as his actual merits and satisfactions, solely from the infinite treasure of merits which Christ gained for us on the Cross.”¹ So all the merit of the saints is in this way merited by Christ.

(3) There is a communion of the saints, (1 Cor. 12, Job 1:5, Col. 1:24, Apostles’ Creed) by which we can aid one another in the Body of Christ through our prayers and sacrifices. All who are joined to Christ by sanctifying grace (and thus are sharers in His divine life) are united into one society by their participation in the one divine life. In the section on the “Communion of saints” in his Sermon-Conferences on the Apostles’ Creed, St. Thomas Aquinas explains this as follows:

Just as in a physical body the operation of one member redounds to the good of the whole body, so it works in a spiritual body, that is to say, in the Church. Since all the faithful are one body, the good of one is communicated to another. Paul writes: “Thus, we who are many are one body in Christ,] individuals, yet members one of the other” [Rom 12:5]. Thus, among other matters which should be believed that the apostles handed down, there remains the communion of goods in the Church. This [doctrine] is called “the communion of saints.” Among all the other members of the Church, however, the principal member is Christ, for He is the Head of the Church: “[And] He put down everything under His feet, and] He put himself as Head over the whole Church, which is His Body, [the fullness of Him who fulfills everything in everyone]” (Eph. [1:22-23]). Therefore the good of Christ is communicated to all Christians, as the wisdom of the Head is communicated to all the members. This communion comes about through the sacraments of the Church, in which the strength of the passion of Christ for conferring grace and for forgiving sins operates.

(4) The treasury of merit consists of the superabundant merits of Christ, as well as the merits of the saints; the treasury of merit is one because of the communion of saints in the Body, Christ being the Head.² The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches the following about the treasury of merit:

We also call these spiritual goods of the communion of saints the Church’s treasury, which is “not the sum total of the material goods which have accumulated during the course of the centuries. On the contrary the ‘treasury of the Church’ is the infinite value, which can never be exhausted, which Christ’s merits have before God. They were offered so that the whole of mankind could be set free from sin and attain communion with the Father. In Christ, the Redeemer himself, the satisfactions and merits of his Redemption exist and find their efficacy. This treasury includes as well the prayers and good works of the Blessed Virgin Mary. They are truly immense, unfathomable, and even pristine in their value before God. In the treasury, too, are the prayers and good works of all the saints, all those who have followed in the footsteps of Christ the Lord and by his grace have made their lives holy and carried out the mission in the unity of the Mystical Body.” (CCC 1476-1477)

(5) The injustice of sin has a two-fold directionality (both away from God, and toward a created good), which entails two sorts of debts of punishment, the former eternal, and the latter temporal, as I explained in more detail in “this section of “St. Thomas Aquinas on Penance.”

(6) Merit cannot be transferred, but meritorious acts can make satisfaction for another, by giving to God a gift of greater value than what was taken by the sin. This is how Christ’s own actions in His passion and death made satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. (See “Catholic and Reformed Conceptions of the Atonement.”) But it is also the way the meritorious acts of the saints can make satisfaction for others’ debt of temporal punishment. St. Thomas writes, “All the saints intended that whatever they did or suffered for God’s sake should be profitable not only to themselves but to the whole Church.”³

(7) Christ gave the power of the keys to St. Peter (Matthew 16:19), by which the Magisterium of the Church, as Christ’s authorized representative (in persona Christi, ἐν προσώπῳ Χριστοῦ [2 Cor 2:10]), can forgive sins (John 20:23) through the merit and satisfaction of Christ’s Passion. Pope Clement VI (1291 – 1352) wrote, “Upon the altar of the Cross Christ shed of His blood not merely a drop, though this would have sufficed, by reason of the union with the Word, to redeem the whole human race, but a copious torrent. . . thereby laying up an infinite treasure for mankind. This treasure He neither wrapped up in a napkin nor hid in a field, but entrusted to Blessed Peter, the key-bearer, and his successors, that they might, for just and reasonable causes, distribute it to the faithful in full or in partial remission of the temporal punishment due to sin.”⁴

(8) The debt of eternal punishment is forgiven only by the merits of Christ. This follows from the Council of Trent, which taught, “If anyone asserts that this sin of Adam … is taken away … by any remedy other than the merit of the one mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ …”⁵ In other words, the translation from that state in which man is born a child of the first Adam to the state of grace and of the “adoption of the sons” of God through the second Adam, is only by the merit of Christ. And if a person falls from grace by way of mortal sin, his restoration to a state of sanctifying grace is again only by the merit of Christ. No saint can make satisfaction for anyone’s justification.

(9) The debt of temporal punishment for sins committed after baptism “must be expiated either on this earth through the sorrows, miseries and calamities of this life and above all through death, or else in the life beyond through fire and torments or “purifying” punishments.”⁶ That is because as explained in the first paragraph above, every sin must be recompensed, both in its vertical dimension against God and in its horizontal dimension against other creatures. It might seem that since Christ’s passion made sufficient satisfaction for all sins, therefore no debt of temporal punishment remains. That is true for baptism, but not for penance, as St. Thomas Aquinas explains here.

(10) The Church, by the authorization of Christ, and through the communion of saints, can draw from the one treasury of merit and satisfaction to reduce or remove the debt of temporal punishment for anyone united to the Body through sanctifying grace. And that is just what an indulgence is:

An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints.⁷

St. Thomas says, “He who gains indulgences is not thereby released outright from what he owes as penalty, but is provided with the means of paying it.”⁸ It is salutary to make use of the treasury of merit for the debt of temporal punishment; it is even better to be a depositor, storing up treasure in heaven.

1. Catholic Encyclopedia article on ‘Merit.’ cf. Council of Trent, Sess. VI, cap. xvi; Sess. XIV, cap. viii.
2. Protestantism’s extra nos notion of imputation and denial of venial sin does not allow it to acknowledge a treasury of merits to which saints have contributed, as I explained here.
3. Quodlib., II, q. vii, art. 16.
4. Corpus Juris. Extrav. Com., lib. V, tit. ix. c. ii.
5. Session V.
6. Indulgentarium Doctrina. See the footnotes at the link for the supporting evidence for this doctrine.
7. CCC 1471.
8. Supplement.25.1 ad 2um.

Since as we have learned from your report, it sometimes happens because of the scarcity of water, that infants of your lands are baptized in beer, we reply to you in the tenor of those present that, since according to evangelical doctrine it is necessary “to be reborn from water and the Holy Ghost” (John III:5) they are not to be considered rightly baptized who are baptized in beer.

Shortly thereafter the fraternity was disbanded and the seminarians were ordered to brew tea instead.

Well we’ve been told we needed some more humor on CTC so there it is.  This does, however, lead into a more serious point regarding the sacraments.   All sacraments have both form and matter.   And not just any matter, the matter must signify.  If it does not signify what it effects, it is not a sign; and since all sacraments are signs of divine grace, if it is not a sign then it is not a sacrament.

Water, not beer (sorry frat boys), was chosen for baptism because it signifies the cleansing from sin which baptism actually effects.  It could not have been beer because beer is not a sign of cleansing.   The same goes for the other sacraments: some matter, which of itself does not effect grace (water does not cleanse from sin even if you use it three times), when combined with the proper form (intention, formulae, etc.) actually effects grace because of God’s promises.  This is Catholic sacramentalism — more on that doctrine in the future…

Here’s a transcript:

Matt: For those that are watching, and maybe those that are church-planting or they’re pastors and they are watching the broadcast, touch on this indicative vs. imperative, and needing the imperatives to flow out of the indicatives. You talk about that in the book; just elaborate on that, since you just mentioned it.

Darrin: The idea is that the imperative is what we do, and the indicative is what is true about God, and about how He relates to us. So in the Scripture, you can always take God’s commands back to who God is (the foundation of who God is), and how He relates to us. And so, for instance, in the Ten Commandments, as an example: Exodus 20. God gives Israel His commandments, but in Exodus 20:2 He says, “I’m the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” So, all the commands that He gives are based out of this indicative that “I’m the Lord; I’ve rescued you, so obey me, not in order to be saved, but I saved you, now you can obey me.” And I think that that’s probably a really good example of how this works. And so, you can do this with all of Scripture. You can trace back all the imperatives back to, if it is not in the context of the chapter or the book, its in the bigger picture that God says, “I will be your God; you will be my people, I will put my Spirit within you, I will cause you to obey.” All those kind of things come back to who God is and the reality that He is the one who motivates us, through His Spirit, to obey. And so it absolutely empowers us to do the right thing, and it causes us to rest in the gospel, and I love what Bunyan said, this is the charge against Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress. They said to Bunyan, Ok Bunyan, if you keep telling people that they are loved and accepted apart from their spiritual performance, they’re going to do whatever they want to do. And Bunyan replied, If I keep assuring them of God’s love for them in Christ apart from their performance, they’re going to do whatever He wants them to do. And I think that’s where this indicative/imperative thing comes in. So its not that we are, cheap grace, easy, it is, no, I go back to the reality that God has rescued me, that I was enslaved, that the bad news was really bad for me. He rescued me, now I get to obey Him. And I think that’s what that does to the human heart when you get this indicative/imperative.

There is a point of common ground here with Catholic doctrine. We agree that “We love because He first love us.” (1 John 4:19) That is, the agape that has been poured out into our hearts (Rom 5:5) by the Holy Spirit is itself a gift from God, who loved us first, and gave Himself for us. (Gal 2:20) It is not as though God first hates us, and we must do many things in order to get God to love us. Rather, God loved us so much, that He gave His only begotten Son for us. (John 3:16) And while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom 5:8) While the devil roams the earth like a lion, seeking those whom he may devour (1 Pet 5:8, Job 1:7), Christ is the Good Shepherd who has come to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10), not wishing that any perish (2 Pet 3:9), but desiring all men to be saved (1 Tim 2:4). So it is true that because of the greatness of the gift God has given to us in sending His Son as an atonement for our sins, our response of obedience is motivated by gratitude and love.

But the indicative-imperative hermeneutical paradigm (IIHP) Darrin refers to above is fundamentally flawed, because of the theological assumptions it brings to the text of Scripture. It presupposes that in God’s redemptive plan, He left no room for us to participate in His salvific work. That is, intrinsic to the IIHP is the presupposition of a complete separation of the indicative and the imperative, such that because everything God has done falls under the indicative, therefore everything we do must fall under the imperative, and none of what we do falls under the indicative. But in truth, in God’s gracious plan, we are called to participate in Christ’s work of redemption, and thus participate in the indicative, not merely express gratitude at the level of imperatives, for what God has already fully accomplished. I will give examples below of six areas where the IIHP leads to error, but I should first point out that the depth of the error caused by the IIHP depends on how consistently a person applies it. The more a person insists on forcing everything into the IIHP, the more he errs in these six areas. Fortunately, many proponents of the IIHP are not consistent in their application of the IIHP. But they variously avoid the errors I discuss below only by arbitrarily failing to apply the IIHP, or by failing to realize the scope of its implications when applied consistently. As I will show below, because the IIHP has to fit everything into either the indicative or imperative categories, it has to place the application of Christ’s work to our lives in the indicative category, as though the application of Christ’s work to our lives is something Christ has already done, and in which we cannot participate or cooperate.

I. Suffering
As Christians our suffering is meaningful in this life because it is a participation in Christ’s sufferings, and therefore an opportunity for loving sacrifice for God, and growing in our union with God. But the IIHP makes all our suffering pointless; it makes persecution and martyrdom meaningless, because given the IIHP, Christ has already done everything required for our salvation, and therefore there is no need for us to suffer in sickness or in persecution or martyrdom. In this way the IIHP makes God into a moral monster who subjects His children to needless horrendous sufferings, even though everything necessary for their salvation has already been accomplished. See “A Catholic Reflection on the Meaning of Suffering.”

II. Evangelism
Because the IIHP does not allow any truth to be in both the indicative and the imperative categories, therefore, nothing in the imperative category has any indicative soteriological consequence. Our obligation to bring the gospel of Christ to the world, and our activity toward the fulfillment of that obligation, is therefore of no soteriological consequence, either for ourselves or for others. According to the IIHP, the imperative only flows from the indicative; the imperative can have no effect upon the indicative. Given the IIHP, God has already decreed, without any foresight of future faith or sin, to save some and pass over others. Whether we evangelize or not, the number and identity of the elect has been fixed and cannot be either increased or decreased. Given the IIHP, then whether one spends one’s whole life evangelizing the world, or never evangelizes a single person throughout one’s whole life, the number and identity of the elect remains the same. And this evacuates all urgency from the task of evangelism, precisely because it evacuates all soteriological meaningfulness from evangelistic activity. Just as in an atheistic worldview the implication that our present choices make no ultimate difference makes those choices meaningless, so in the IIHP paradigm, the implication that our present evangelistic choices make no ultimate difference makes these choices likewise meaningless.

Regarding our genuine participation in God’s salvific work, St. Thomas Aquinas writes:

“In this way God is helped by us; inasmuch as we execute His orders, according to 1 Corinthians 3:9: “We are God’s co-adjutors.” Nor is this on account of any defect in the power of God, but because He employs intermediary causes, in order that the beauty of order may be preserved in the universe; and also that He may communicate to creatures the dignity of causality [ut etiam creaturis dignitatem causalitatis communicet].” (Summa Theologica I Q.23 a.8 ad 2.)(my emphasis)

St. Thomas quotes St. Paul’s statement that [the Apostles] are God’s “co-adjutors.” In the Greek this reads: θεοῦ γάρ ἐσμεν συνεργοί. “For we are God’s co-workers.” St. Paul is speaking about the work of preaching the gospel and building up the Church through prayer, preaching, administering the sacraments, teaching and service. God entrusts this to men not because of any limitation on His part, but because in His goodness He wishes to bestow upon us the unfathomable dignity of being genuine causal agents not only in the order of nature, but also in the supernatural order, i.e. in the order of grace. For St. Thomas and the whole Catholic tradition, God graciously extends to creatures not only the gift of salvation, but also the gift of being genuine causal agents in the salvation of others, thereby freely and truly participating in Christ’s work of redeeming the world. St. Paul speaks of this when he says, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body (which is the Church) in filling up that which is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.” (Col 1:24)

III. Sacraments
Because the IIHP places the application of Christ’s redemptive work under the indicative category, the IIHP makes the sacraments unnecessary. If baptism were regenerative, as the Church Fathers taught, it would not fit exclusively into the indicative or the imperative category. Therefore, given the IIHP, baptism cannot be regenerative. If the Eucharist were a means by which we receive the fruit of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross,¹ then it would not be something we do only out of gratitude; our salvation would in some sense depend upon it, and thus it would not fit into only the indicative category. Thus given the IIHP, the sacraments are “means of grace” only in the sense that they are means by which we gain knowledge of what Christ has already done for us.

But in truth, the sacraments are the divinely established means by which we receive not primarily knowledge, but the grace Christ merited for us on the cross — a true participation in the divine nature (2 Pet 1:4).² And therefore the sacraments, rightly understood, do not fit into the IIHP, because synergism of any sort does not fit into the IIHP. In the reception of the sacraments both God and man are acting: God by conferring grace through the sacrament, and man by administering, approaching and receiving the sacrament. The synergistic aspect of sacraments as means of grace (where grace is not just knowledge of what Christ has already done, but a participation in the divine life offered to us through Christ’s sacrifice) makes them incompatible with the IIHP. Hence in the IIHP, the sacraments are watered down to mere divine reminders of what God has already done. And given that notion of the sacraments, if one already knows what God has done, there is no reason to receive the Lord’s Supper weekly. One might do it quarterly, but even then one does it only because Christ has commanded it. There is no other reason to do it regularly, given the IIHP.

IV. Sanctification
What the IIHP does to the sacraments, it does to sanctification in general. There is no room for synergism in the IIHP; nothing soteriological hangs on what we choose to do or not do. Everything we do is in the imperative category, and therefore nothing we do or don’t do has any implications for the indicative category. So in the IIHP, sacraments, prayer and works done out of agape are not means of grace, by which we grow in sanctification. Sanctification is something God is monergistically doing in us, automatically. Insofar as we do anything in sanctification, it is only God working out in us the application of what Christ already did on the cross. We do not have to concern ourselves about doing anything to grow in sanctification. If we choose to do anything, such as pray, or do good works out of agape, we should do so only out gratitude for what Christ has already done for us, not as though our doing so plays any role [in the indicative category] toward our salvation. And so the IIHP reduces all imperatives to brute imperatives, by removing any soteriological reason for them, and thus reducing them to arbitrary divine stipulations. For any remaining imperatives regarding sanctification, the IIHP moves them over to the indicative category by claiming that we do not need to concern ourselves about them, since if we need to do something, God will cause us to do it. And that is how the IIHP construes verses that admonish believers to “work out [our] salvation in fear and trembling.” (Phil 2:12)

Jesus says, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” (John 14:15) “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” (John 14:21) If we love Jesus, we will keep His commandments, and in return God the Father will love us more, and Christ will love us more, and disclose Himself to us. That is, the more we conform to Christ, the more we are loved by God. Two chapters later Jesus says, “for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came forth from the Father.” (John 16:27) Jesus is teaching that our degree of loving obedience to His commandments makes us an object of greater (or lesser) love by the Father. The IIHP tries to make sense of that by turning the order around, claiming that if God loves us more, then He will make us (freely) love Him more. In this way, the greater love we will enjoy from the Father based on our obedience, is what will bring about that obedience in the first place. And therefore, we don’t need to strive to keep His commandments, because nothing soteriological hangs on our striving. If we are going to love Him more, and then be loved more by Him, this will be only because He will make us do this. Ultimately, nothing on the imperative side can cross over to the indicative side. Wherever it may seem in Scripture that the imperative side affects the indicative side, the indicative side has already decreed and determined the imperative side. So therefore there is ultimately nothing on the imperative side that can change the indicative side. This is why within the IIHP it ultimately does not matter how grateful one is, or how much one is (or is not) motivated by gratitude to live a holy life. On the indicative side, Christ has already accomplished one’s salvation, and whatever remaining sanctification needs to be done will be instantaneously and painlessly accomplished by Christ at the moment of one’s death. So in the IIHP there is ultimately no need to strive for holiness now.

V. Judgment
The IIHP entails that what Christ has done has already fully determined what will happen to us on Judgment Day. The application of Christ’s completed work was fully applied to us at the moment we were monergistically regenerated, such that all our past, present, and future sins are all already forgiven.³ Nothing we can do can ‘unforgive’ any sin we might ever commit. In addition, Christ’s perfect obedience was irreversibly imputed to us at that moment. Hence, at the Judgment, according to the IIHP, God will not judge us according to our works, but according to Christ’s perfect obedience, which has been imputed to us. The justification God declares at the moment we are regenerated when we first come to faith, is a proleptic announcement of God’s verdict on the Day of Judgment. According to the IIHP, to be regenerated now, is already to have heard the verdict on Judgment Day. Thus according to the IIHP, our observance (or failure thereof) of the imperatives has no bearing on what will happen to us on the Day of Judgment, because the imperative cannot affect the indicative.

But this is not what the Scripture teaches. Jesus said, “And I say to you, that every careless word that men shall speak, they shall render account for it in the day of judgment.” (Matt. 12:36) Later in Matthew He says, “For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and will then recompense every man according to his deeds.” (Matthew 16:27) In Matthew chapter 25 Jesus separates the sheep from the goats on the basis of their works toward the needy. In Romans 2:6-8 St. Paul says that on the day of final judgment, God “will render to every man according to his deeds: to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life. But to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation.” Later in Romans he writes, “For we shall stand before the judgment seat of God…. So then each one of us shall give account of himself to God.” (Romans 14:10,12) In his first letter to the Corinthians St. Paul writes, “Now he who plants and he who waters are one; but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.” (1 Cor 3:8) In the next chapter he writes, “Therefore do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men’s hearts; and then each man’s praise will come to him from God.” (1 Cor 4:5) We will be judged not on the basis of an extra nos imputation, but on the basis of our works and our hidden motives. In his second letter to the Corinthians St. Paul writes, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” (2 Corinthians 5:10) In his letter to the Galatians, St. Paul writes:

“Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh shall from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit shall from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we do not grow weary. So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.” (Gal 6:7-10)

St. Paul’s imperative is not based on Christ having already done everything, such that our obedience has no soteriological consequence; it is based in part on the coming Judgment. Hence he says:

“With good will render service, as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free.” (Eph 6:8-9)

St. Peter teaches the same message: “And if you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each man’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay upon earth.” (1 Peter 1:17) The IIHP has no room for “fear” for Christians, because the imperatives have no affect on the indicatives, i.e. have no soteriological consequence. But the Apostle John, along with Jesus, St. Paul, and St. Peter, likewise teaches: “By this, love is perfected with us, that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.” (1 John 4:17) The more perfect our love for God (in imitation of Christ), the more confidence we may have on the day of Judgment. But in the IIHP, our confidence regarding the Day of Judgment is based entirely on what Christ has done for us, not on what we do in gratitude.

In the book of Revelation we find the same teaching regarding Judgment. Jesus, speaking to the Church at Thyatira, says, “And I will kill her children with pestilence; and all the Churches will know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts; and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds.” (Rev 2:23) Later John writes, “And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds.” (Rev 20:12-13) The Bible ends with this same message, a message fitting for Advent:

“[L]et the one who is righteous, still practice righteousness; and let the one who is holy, still keep himself holy. Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done.” (Rev 22:11-12)

Christ does not say that He comes to render to each man according to what He (i.e. Christ) has done, but according to what each man has done. In the Church Fathers, the “obedience of faith” (Rom 1:5, 16:26) brought about by the gospel of Jesus Christ is a love (i.e. agape) that has been infused into our heart by the Holy Spirit (Rom 5:5) and that fulfills the law (Rom 13:8,10, Gal 5:14, Jam 2:8). ( See “St. Augustine on Law and Grace.”)

VI. Apostasy
Because the IIHP entails that everything we do is on the imperative side, and therefore nothing we do or don’t do has any implications on the indicative side, therefore, according to the IIHP, we can never lose our salvation. But for fifteen hundred years (and to this day) the Catholic Church believed (and still believes) that justification can be lost. The Orthodox also have always believed that justification can be lost. There are many places in the Fathers where we see that justification can be lost. Here is one example from St. Augustine:

If, however, being already regenerate and justified, he relapses of his own will into an evil life, assuredly he cannot say, ‘I have not received [grace],’ because of his own free choice he has lost the grace of God, that he had received.” (On Rebuke and Grace, chpt. 6:9)

But we can find the same teaching in the New Testament. Jesus tells us, “Anyone who does not remain in Me will be thrown out like a branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be burned.” (John 15:6). And St. Paul says, “On the contrary, you yourselves wrong and defraud, and that your brethren. Or do you not know that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, Nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-10) In this context, he is talking to believers about their wronging each other, even to the point of taking each other to court. His statement would make no sense if it had no applicability to the Corinthian believers’ wrongdoing to each other. His exhortation to them to stop wronging each other, by reminding them of the destiny of those who commit [mortal] sin, presupposes that they too could, by their wrongdoing, lose their possession of the kingdom of God. That is, they could genuinely fail to enter into heaven.

A few chapters later he says, “But I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.” (1 Cor 9:27) The disqualification he speaks of that of failing to receive the “imperishable” prize of eternal life, i.e. salvation. (verse 25) He then goes on in chapter 10 to talk about the Israelites who were ‘baptized’ in the cloud, but then disobeyed God in the desert, and perished under God’s displeasure. They were idolaters, which as St. Paul showed in 1 Corinthians 6, cannot inherit the kingdom of God. They were immoral and God killed 23,000 of them in one day. Then he says, “Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” (1 Cor 10:12) The fall that he is talking about is falling from grace. The very warning would make no sense unless St. Paul believed it is truly possible to fall, just as did those Israelites. If we could not lose our salvation, then instead of warning them about taking heed lest they fall, St. Paul would be enjoining them not to worry, since they could not possibly fall.

In his letter to the Galatians he says, “You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.” (Gal 5:4) That verse makes no sense if it is impossible to be severed from Christ and to fall from grace. Later in that same chapter he writes, “Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Gal 5:18-21). He is speaking to Christians. If Christians cannot lose their salvation, then there could be no warning about not inheriting the kingdom of God; it would make no sense. The warning is an actual warning, because it is truly possible, through committing the mortal sins he lists there, to lose one’s salvation, to be cut off from Christ, and to not inherit the kingdom of God. He gives these lists of mortal sins frequently: (Rom 1:28-32; 1 Cor 6:9-10; Eph 5:3-5; Col 3:5-8; 1 Tim 1:9-10; 2 Tim 3:2-5).

In the book of Hebrews we find the same doctrine about the real possibility of losing one’s salvation. “For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they then commit apostasy, since they crucify the Son of God on their own account and hold him up to contempt.” (Heb 6:4-6) These enlightened persons have tasted the heavenly gift and become partakers of the Holy Spirit (through baptism, which was early in the Fathers called the sacrament of illumination/enlightenment), and then rejected Christ. But it would be impossible for them to fall away if they were never regenerated (and hence justified) in the first place. And yet they do fall away — the warning is not merely hypothetical. Such persons cannot be restored to repentance by baptism, because in baptism we are crucified with Christ (Rom 6), and Christ died only once. They can be restored only by the sacrament of penance.

Later in Hebrews the author writes about the apostasy of Christians, “For if we sin deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful prospect of judgment, and a fury of fire which will consume the adversaries. A man who has violated the law of Moses dies without mercy at the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the man who has spurned the Son of God, and profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Heb 10:26-31) The writer speaking as a Christian to Christians, says that if “we” sin deliberately [he's speaking of mortal sin] after receiving the knowledge of the truth, we face the fearful prospect of judgment and a fury of fire. How do we know he is talking about justified people? Because he explicitly says that a man who “was sanctified” by “the blood of the covenant,” who then profanes this blood and outrages the Spirit of grace, will deserve much worse punishment than those (Israelites) who violated the law of Moses and died without mercy at the testimony of two or three witnesses. Then he says that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Under what condition is it fearful? Under this condition: when we who are sanctified by the blood of Christ, then sin deliberately [i.e. commit mortal sin]. Such a person forfeits all the benefits of the grace of the New Covenant, and, if he dies in that condition, is punished in the eternal fires of hell. Yes, that is something to fear. The Christian is not told not to fear this possibility because he can never lose his salvation. That would not make sense. Rather, the warning (about falling into the “fury of fire” [i.e. hell]) is precisely to Christians. The warning implies the real possibility of Christians losing their salvation.

These passages about apostasy do not fit into the IIHP, and those in the IIHP struggle to make sense of them. They try to preserve the IIHP by claiming that if a person falls away, he was never saved in the first place. In other words, in such cases the imperative side did not affect the indicative side, because there was never anything on the indicative side for such persons in the first place. Of course this implies for anyone else in the IIHP, that it might turn out that there is not anything on the indicative side for him as well. But in the IIHP, you’re not supposed to let that possibility concern you, because there is nothing you can do about it anyway, since the imperative cannot affect the indicative.

Conclusion
To be clear, I am not suggesting that Darrin falls into these six errors. I don’t know Darrin’s particular theology; here I am merely presenting the implications of the IIHP. Many IIHP advocates do not fall into all of these errors, but only because they do not consistently follow the IIHP. Insofar as they arbitrarily apply the IIHP to some areas, and arbitrarily do not apply it in others, their position is ad hoc. But when the IIHP is applied consistently, it leads to the theological errors described above. Because the IIHP presupposes monergism, it eliminates the meaningfulness from all our choices and actions after coming to faith, and thus entails temporal nihilism. This arises from conceiving of redemption not as restoring us to a period of probation during this earthly life, as God had given to Adam and Eve, but as a replacement plan in which God scraps His original plan, and decides to do it all for us, leaving us with nothing to do but to be grateful while waiting to die.⁴ But the consistent teaching of Scripture, the Church and the Church Fathers has been that Christ calls us to share in His sufferings (Rom 8:17), to become co-workers with Him, both in evangelism and in working out our salvation in fear and trembling, by means of the grace He merited for us now infused into our hearts through the sacraments, such that we love Him by keeping His commandments, and thus inheriting eternal life on the Day of Judgment. The gospel is one of participation in Christ’s death and resurrection, through baptism (Rom 6) and the Eucharist (John 6). When Jesus was asked what should be done to inherit eternal life, He asked the inquirer what the Law said, and the man stated the two great commandments. Then Jesus said, “You have answered correctly: Do this, and you will live.” (Luke 10:28) That is, keep those two greatest commandments, and you will inherit eternal life. The IIHP has no room for any of this, because no “do this” can have any effect on the indicative. But that does not mean we should toss out Jesus’ words and the teaching of the Church Fathers in order to hold on to the IIHP; it means rather that the IIHP is a flawed and misleading paradigm.

1. See “Eve, the Eucharist and the Bride of Christ.”
2. See comment #3 in the “Pelagian Westminster?” thread, where I explain the difference between the Protestant and Catholic conceptions of grace.
3. See Reformed Imputation and the Lord’s Prayer.
4. See comment #2 in the “Pelagian Westminster?” thread.

We will summarize the significance of each type of statement and add some light commentary where expedient. The appendix will contain a few brief responses to anticipated objections as well as some scholarly support for early Christian belief in this doctrine and suggestions for further reading.

I – Affirmation of Change During Consecration
II – Simple Identification of Consecrated Species as the Body and Blood
III – Demand of Extraordinary Reverence
IV – Appendix

Introduction

The claim that the Church fathers believed in Transubstantiation is not a claim that any particular father commanded a precise understanding of the doctrine as formulated by Trent. Any given Church father could no sooner express this doctrine precisely in its developed form than could any given ante-Nicene father express the Niceno-Constantinoplitan doctrine of the Trinity. Yet this does not mean either that they did not believe it, or even that it existed in mere “seed form.” The Nicene doctrine of the Trinity can be detected not only in the early Christian writings and in the New Testament, it is an unavoidable development. That is, anything other than the Niceno-Constantinopolitan doctrine of the Trinity would be contrary to the Tradition of the Church. Likewise, the affirmations that the fathers made about the Eucharist were not only compatible with Transubstantiation, they were incompatible with anything less.

I – Affirmation of Change

Statements that directly affirm a change in the species clearly indicate that the speaker believed in what we now call Transubstantiation. The word ‘transubstantiation’ comes from the Latin trans (across) and substantiare (substantiate). ² It simply means a change of substance. There are only two types of changes, substantial and not-substantial (i.e. accidental). That is to say, if a thing changes, it either changes into another substance (into another thing) or some non-essential feature of it changes. But if a non-essential feature of something changes, we continue to refer to it in the same way. When a man gets a hair cut, we continue calling him a man; but when a log is burnt, we begin calling it a pile of ash.

In some rare cases we do change a name for something after it undergoes an accidental change. But we only do this when the name is associated with the thing accidentally. Thus we no longer call a bachelor a bachelor after he marries (an accidental or relational change). We call him a husband. Yet the name “bachelor” is an accidental term in the first place. He is a man; he is accidentally a bachelor and later becomes accidentally a husband. Throughout the change he is referred to as a man, because that is what we call him in reference to his essence.

Now bread is not called “bread” accidentally but essentially. Therefore the only time it would be proper to call it something else is when it had changed (substantially) into something else. e.g. If we burnt it into a pile of ash, we would call it a pile of ash. We would not call it something other than bread if it only changed accidentally.

But the fathers spoke of the bread differently after the consecration. They referred to it as “the Body” which is compatible only with a substantial change. Therefore, when the fathers spoke of a change in the Eucharist, they were speaking of a substantial change. Since Transubstantiation simply means “substantial change,” they were speaking of what we now call Transubstantiation.

We will clearly see the concept of “substantial change” in the fathers below. Additionally, in AD 1079, nearly 500 years before the Reformation at the sixth council of Rome, Berengarius affirmed the following in an oath:

…the bread and wine which are placed on the altar are substantially changed into the true and proper and living flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, our Lord…³

The Fourth Lateran Council in AD 1215 also declared:

Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the species of bread and wine; the bread (changed) into His body by the divine power of transubstantiation, and the wine into the blood…⁴

This was again confirmed by Pope Innocent III (AD 1208), the Second Council of Lyons (AD 1274), Pope Benedict XII (AD 1341), the Council of Constance (AD 1415), and the Council of Florence (AD 1439). ⁵ This shows that in denying Transubstantiation, the Protestants rejected centuries of official Church teaching. Later some Protestants claim to be rejecting only Trent’s declaration. But as we have already seen, there were official councils and documents that affirmed a substantial change in the sacrament long before Trent. Now let us examine the fathers to see whether or not they believed that the bread changed into something else during consecration or whether it remained the same.

For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change (transmutation) of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus. – St. Justin Martyr First Apology 66

Notice that St. Justin does not merely affirm that the food (bread) has been changed, but that it had been changed specifically by the Eucharistic prayer. The change in species is related to the host independently of the communicant. There is no hint here, or elsewhere in the fathers, that it depended on anything but the power of the Holy Spirit working in the consecration. This rules out the heresy of receptionism.⁶

When, therefore, the mixed cup [wine and water] and the baked bread receives the Word of God and becomes the Eucharist, the body of Christ, and from these the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they say that the flesh is not capable of receiving the gift of God, which is eternal life—flesh which is nourished by the body and blood of the Lord, and is in fact a member of him? – St. Irenaeus Against Heresies 5:3

For as the bread, which is produced from the earth, when it receives the invocation of God, is no longer common bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two realities, earthly and heavenly; so also our bodies, when they receive the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, having the hope of the resurrection to eternity. – Ibid. 4.18.5

We give thanks to the Creator of all, and, along with thanksgiving and prayer for the blessings we have received, we also eat the bread presented to us; and this bread becomes by prayer a sacred body, which sanctifies those who sincerely partake of it. – Origen Against Celsus 8:33

The bread and the wine of the Eucharist before the holy invocation of the adorable Trinity were simple bread and wine, but the invocation having been made, the bread becomes the body of Christ and the wine the blood of Christ. – St. Cyril of Jerusalem Catechetical Lectures 19:7

He once in Cana of Galilee, turned the water into wine, akin to blood, and is it incredible that He should have turned wine into blood? – Ibid. 22.2

St. Cyril goes on to explicitly profess what the Church is doing in the consecration, or rather, what God is doing in the consecration:

Then having sanctified ourselves by these spiritual Hymns, we beseech the merciful God to send forth His Holy Spirit upon the gifts lying before Him; that He may make the Bread the Body of Christ, and the Wine the Blood of Christ; for whatsoever the Holy Ghost has touched, is surely sanctified and changed. Ibid. 23.7

Now we, as often as we receive the Sacramental Elements, which by the mysterious efficacy of holy prayer are transformed into the Flesh and the Blood, ‘do show the Lord’s Death.’ – St. Ambrose On the Christian Faith 4, 10:125

We ought . . . not regard [the elements] merely as bread and cup, but as the body and blood of the Lord, into which they were transformed by the descent of the Holy Spirit. – Theodore of Mopsuestia Catechetical Homilies 5:1

He did not say, ‘This is the symbol of My Body, and this, of My Blood,’ but, what is set before us, but that it is transformed by means of the Eucharistic action into Flesh and Blood.” – Theodore of Mopsuestia Commentary on Matthew 26:26

Rightly then do we believe that the bread consecrated by the word of God has been changed [Gr., metapoieisthai] into the Body of God the Word. For that Body was bread in power, but it has been sanctified by the dwelling there of the Word, who pitched his tent in the flesh. The change that elevated to divine power the bread that had been transformed into that Body causes something similar now. In that case, the grace of the Word sanctified that Body whose material being came from bread and was, in a certain sense, bread itself. In this case, the bread “is sanctified by God’s word and by prayer”⁷, as the Apostle says, not becoming the Body of the Word through our eating but by being transformed [Gr., metapoiumenos] immediately into the body by means of the word, as the Word himself said, ‘This is my Body.’ …He shares himself with every believer through the Flesh whose material being [Gr., sustais] comes from bread and wine . . . in order to bring it about that, by communion with the Immortal, man may share in incorruption. He gives these things through the power of the blessing by which he transelements [Gr., metastoikeiosas] the nature of the visible things [to that of the Immortal]. – St. Gregory of Nyssa The Great Catechism 37

He [Jesus] disseminates Himself in every believer through that flesh, whose substance comes from bread and wine, blending Himself with the bodies of believers, to secure that, by this union with the immortal, man, too, may be a sharer in incorruption. – Ibid.

The bread again is at first common bread; but when the mystery sanctifies it, it is called and actually becomes the Body of Christ – St. Gregory of Nyssa Sermon on the Day of Lights or on The Baptism of Christ

You ought to know what you have received, what you are going to receive, and what you ought to receive daily. That Bread which you see on the altar, consecrated by the word of God, is the Body of Christ. That chalice, or rather, what the chalice holds, consecrated by the word of God, is the Blood of Christ. Through those accidents the Lord wished to entrust to us His Body and the Blood which He poured out for the remission of sins. – St. Augustine Sermons 227

St. Augustine here anticipates the developed form of the doctrine of Transubstantiation with surprising clarity. According to St. Thomas Aquinas many years later, the accidents of the bread and wine remain after Transubstantiation without a subject. (Summa 3.77.1) ⁸ It is through these “accidents” that the Lord’s Body and Blood are revealed to us. That is why we say that the Body and Blood are contained under the species of bread and wine. The bread and wine, as substances, no longer exist as they have been wholly converted into the precious Body and Blood. ⁹

The Lord Jesus wanted those whose eyes were held lest they should recognize him, to recognize Him in the breaking of the bread¹⁰. The faithful know what I am saying. They know Christ in the breaking of the bread. For not all bread, but only that which receives the blessing of Christ, becomes Christ’s Body.” – St. Augustine Sermons 234:2

It is not man that causes the things offered to become the Body and Blood of Christ, but he who was crucified for us, Christ himself. The priest, in the role of Christ, pronounces these words, but their power and grace are God’s. ‘This is my body,’ he says. This word transforms the things offered. – St. John Chrysostom Against the Judaizers 1.6

St. John Chrysostom explains that it is not the priest that effects the change; rather it is Christ Himself. This is why the claim that it amounts to a magician’s trick (or ‘monkey trick’ in the words of John Calvin) is false. It is not a trick but a miracle.

Far be it from me to censure the successors of the apostles, who with holy words consecrate the body of Christ, and who make us Christians. – St. Jerome Letter to Heliodorus

You will see the Levites bringing the loaves and a cup of wine, and placing them on the table. So long as the prayers and invocations have not yet been made, it is mere bread and a mere cup. But when the great and wonderous prayers have been recited, then the bread becomes the body and the cup the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ….When the great prayers and holy supplications are sent up, the Word descends on the bread and the cup, and it becomes His body. – St. Athanasius Sermon to the Newly Baptized

St. Athanasius, the great champion of Trinitarian orthodoxy, could not be any more explicit in affirming that a substantial change occurs at the consecration.

The following is a dialogue from Theodoret’s Eranistes on the subject of the miracle of consecration and the ‘change in nature’ it effects:

Eran.–You have opportunely introduced the subject of the divine mysteries for from it I shall be able to show you the change of the Lord’s body into another nature. Answer now to my questions.
Orth.–I will answer.
Eran.–What do you call the gift which is offered before the priestly invocation?
Orth.–It were wrong to say openly; perhaps some uninitiated are present.
Eran.–Let your answer be put enigmatically.
Orth.–Food of grain of such a sort.
Eran.–And how name we the other symbol?
Orth.–This name too is common, signifying species of drink.
Eran.–And after the consecration how do you name these?
Orth.–Christ’s body and Christ’s blood.
Eran.–And do yon believe that you partake of Christ’s body and blood?
Orth.–I do.”
- Theodoret of Cyrus Eranistes 2

Christ said indicating (the bread and wine): ‘This is My Body,’ and ‘This is My Blood,’ in order that you might not judge what you see to be a mere figure. The offerings, by the hidden power of God Almighty, are changed into Christ’s Body and Blood, and by receiving these we come to share in the life-giving and sanctifying efficacy of Christ. – St. Cyril of Alexandria Commentary on Matthew 26, 27

The body which is born of the holy Virgin is in truth body united with divinity, not that the body which was received up into the heavens descends, but that the bread itself and the wine are changed into God’s body and blood. But if you enquire how this happens, it is enough for you to learn that it was through the Holy Spirit, just as the Lord took on Himself flesh that subsisted in Him and was born of the holy Mother of God through the Spirit. And we know nothing further save that the Word of God is true and energises and is omnipotent, but the manner of this cannot be searched out. But one can put it well thus, that just as in nature the bread by the eating and the wine and the water by the drinking are changed into the body and blood of the eater and drinker, and do not become a different body from the former one, so the bread of the table and the wine and water are supernaturally changed by the invocation and presence of the Holy Spirit into the body and blood of Christ, and are not two but one and the same. – St. John of Damascus Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 4:13

St. John Damascene explains that Christ does not “come down” and hide Himself among the host as is often caricatured. The bread is assumed into His Body, that is, it is lifted up to His heavenly Body by a miracle which is analogically compared to the process by which ordinary food is assumed into the higher unity of a human being upon its consumption. In fact, non-miraculous transubstantiation (change of substance) occurs anytime we eat anything. Food is transformed into human beings by consumption and analogically, the bread is transformed into the Body of Christ by the miracle of the Eucharistic consecration.

II – Simple Identification of the Species

On the topic of the Eucharist, the Council of Trent declared:

If any one denieth, that, in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist, are contained truly, really, and substantially, the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and consequently the whole Christ; but saith that He is only therein as in a sign, or in figure, or virtue; let him be anathema. – Session 13, Canon I

The following quotations will show that the early fathers would not have been anathematized by this canon. At the same time, those modern Christians who deny Transubstantiation are, by their rejection of Christ’s substantial presence, at odds with this canon of the Catholic Church. As argued above, it is not enough to profess a belief in Christ’s presence in the reception of the Eucharist, even if it is professed to be a substantial presence. The Church fathers made little or no mention of the communion process in describing the Real Presence as we will see below. Christ’s presence does not depend on our reception or our faith. The significance of the simple identification statements is that they do not merely say Christ is present alongside the host, or within the host, or that He is present with us in receiving this sacrament. They explicitly affirm that this host is the Body of Christ.

The fathers affirmed that His presence was contained in the Body and Blood and such simple identification is consistent only with a host that had been substantially changed, i.e. a consecrated host. If the fathers were speaking (merely) in a symbolic manner, they would be able to call the bread the Body even before the consecration. That is, if nothing actually changed about the bread itself during the consecration, then it would not be wrong to call it the Body before the consecration. But we saw above that the fathers did change how they referred to the host after the consecration. Further, we will see below that the fathers consistently referred to the consecrated host as the Body and to the unconsecrated host as bread. This is not only consistent with Transubstantiation–it doesn’t make sense unless we affirm the doctrine. Finally, some fathers even explicitly denied that the term “Body” was a merely symbolic reference.

I take no pleasure in corruptible food or in the delights of this life. I want the bread of God, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, who is the seed of David; and for drink I want his Blood which is incorruptible love. -St. Ignatius to the Romans 7:3

They [those with heterodox opinions] abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. – St. Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans 7:1

The Docetists denied that Christ had a physical Body. Naturally, they denied His metaphysical presence in the Eucharist. St. Ignatius is condemning their heresy. ¹¹

If the Lord were from other than the Father, how could he rightly take bread, which is of the same creation as our own, and confess it to be his body and affirm that the mixture in the cup is his blood? – St. Irenaeus Against Heresies 4:33–32

If Christ was speaking metaphorically, there would be no difficulty in explaining what St. Irenaeus was attempting to explain. Either St. Irenaeus had not considered the idea that Christ might be referring to the bread as His Body metaphorically, or he (Irenaeus) was taking it for granted that Jesus spoke literally. Since St. Irenaeus refrained from explaining the matter, it is clear that he was asking the question rhetorically and was taking it for granted that Christ spoke literally and that his readers would have already known this.

He has declared the cup, a part of creation, to be his own blood, from which he causes our blood to flow; and the bread, a part of creation, he has established as his own body, from which he gives increase unto our bodies. – Ibid. 5:2

‘And she [Wisdom] has furnished her table’¹² refers to his [Christ’s] honored and undefiled body and blood, which day by day are administered and offered sacrificially at the spiritual divine table, as a memorial of that first and ever-memorable table of the spiritual divine supper – St. Hippolytus Fragment from Commentary on Proverbs

It is not bread and wine that are offered as a memorial, but the actual Body and Blood.

Formerly, in an obscure way, there was manna for food; now, however, in full view, there is the true food, the flesh of the Word of God, as he himself says: ‘My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.’¹³ – Origen Homilies on Numbers 7:2

Among the early fathers, Origen and the Alexandrian tradition in general favored allegorical interpretations and leaned heavily in that direction. On several other occasions, Origen referred to the Eucharist as a symbol, as did his predecessor, St. Clement of Alexandria. Yet he also referred to it as the “true Body,” associating the Eucharist with John 6 where Jesus Himself explicitly affirmed the same.

After having spoken thus [at the Last Supper], the Lord rose up from the place where he had made the Passover and had given his body as food and his blood as drink, and he went with his disciples to the place where he was to be arrested. But he ate of his own body and drank of his own blood, while he was pondering on the dead. With his own hands the Lord presented his own body to be eaten, and before he was crucified he gave his blood as drink. – Aphraahat the Persian Sage Treatises 12:6

We speak in an absurd and godless manner about the divinity of Christ’s nature in us — unless we have learned it from Him. He Himself declares: ‘For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him’¹⁴. It is no longer permitted us to raise doubts about the true nature of the body and the blood, for, according to the statement of the Lord Himself as well as our faith, this is indeed flesh and blood. And these things that we receive bring it about that we are in Christ and Christ is in us. Is this not the truth? Those who deny that Jesus Christ is the true God are welcome to regard these words as false. He Himself, therefore, is in us through His flesh, and we are in Him, while that which we are with Him is in God. – St. Hilary of Poitiers The Trinity 8.14

It would not make sense to bring up the possibility of doubting the veracity of the Eucharist, were it only a symbol. It is not feasible to think that anyone ever doubted that the bread represented Christ’s Body. St. Hilary’s quotation is only intelligible if we assume He was speaking of the possibility of doubting that the consecrated bread is actually the Body. Furthermore, his addition of the word “indeed” so as to match our Lord’s words, would be intentionally deceitful and misleading were he not intending to convey the actual and simple identification of the consecrated host as Christ’s Body. No one adds “indeed” to something meant to be understood metaphorically.

Since then He Himself declared and said of the bread, ‘This is My Body,’ who shall dare to doubt any longer? And since He has Himself affirmed and said, ‘This is My Blood,’ who shall ever hesitate, saying, that it is not His Blood? – St. Cyril of Jerusalem Catechetical Lectures 22.1

Unfortunately there are many Christians today who dare to doubt it; and what’s worse, many of them profess to be in harmony with the early Church fathers on this issue.

Do not, therefore, regard the bread and wine as simply that; for they are, according to the Master’s declaration, the body and blood of Christ. Even though the senses suggest to you the other, let faith make you firm. Do not judge in this matter by taste, but be fully assured by the faith, not doubting that you have been deemed worthy of the body and blood of Christ. . . . [Since you are] fully convinced that the apparent bread is not bread, even though it is sensible to the taste, but the body of Christ, and that the apparent wine is not wine, even though the taste would have it so, . . . partake of that bread as something spiritual, and put a cheerful face on your soul” – Ibid. 22:6,9

Notice that St. Cyril does not merely state that the true Body is present among the bread in some mystical sense but that the apparent bread is actually not bread. The introduction of the sense experience into the question of identification clearly shows that he is meaning to identify the host with the Body.

Perhaps you may be saying, ‘I see something else; how can you assure me that I am receiving the body of Christ?’ It but remains for us to prove it. And how many are the examples we might use! . . . Christ is in that sacrament, because it is the body of Christ. – St. Ambrose The Mysteries 9:50, 58

Notice the order of the last sentence. According to St. Ambrose, we do not say it is Christ’s Body because Christ is in the sacrament; rather Christ is in the sacrament because it is Christ’s Body.

When [Christ] gave the bread he did not say, ‘This is the symbol of my body,’ but, ‘This is my body.’ In the same way, when he gave the cup of his blood he did not say, ‘This is the symbol of my blood,’ but, ‘This is my blood’; for he wanted us to look upon the [Eucharistic elements] after their reception of grace and the coming of the Holy Spirit not according to their nature, but receive them as they are, the body and blood of our Lord. – Theodore of Mopsuestia Catechetical Homilies 5:1

Here Theodore explicitly rejected a merely symbolic view of the Eucharist.

Christ was carried in his own hands when, referring to his own body, he said, ‘This is my body.’¹⁵ For he carried that body in his hands. – St. Augustine Explanations of the Psalms 33:1:10

What you see is the bread and the chalice; that is what your own eyes report to you. But what your faith obliges you to accept is that the bread is the body of Christ and the chalice is the blood of Christ. – St. Augustine Sermons 272

It does not require faith to understand something as a symbol. It does require faith to assert that what appears to be bread is actually the Body of Christ. It would not have made sense for St. Augustine to demand that men believe (against their senses) that something was a symbol. If one wanted to object that perhaps St. Augustine was simply exhorting men to believe that Jesus was actually present along with the bread, he (the objector) would have to use another text as proof because here St. Augustine said explicitly that the bread is the Body, not that the Body is present along with the bread or in the ceremony.

When you see the Lord immolated and lying upon the altar, and the priest bent over that sacrifice praying, and all the people empurpled [made purple in coloring] by that precious blood, can you think that you are still among men and on earth? Or are you lifted up to heaven? – St. John Chrysostom On the Priesthood 3.4.177

According to St. John Chrysostom, Christ is literally present on the altar.

‘Because the Bread is one, we, the many, are in one Body’¹⁶. ‘Why do I say communion?’ he says; ‘for we are that very Body.’ What is the Bread? The Body of Christ! What do they become who are partakers therein? The Body of Christ! Not many bodies, but one Body. For just as the bread, consisting of many grains, is made one, and the grains are no longer evident, but still exist, though their distinction is not apparent in their conjunction; so too are we conjoined to each other and to Christ. For you are not nourished by one Body while someone else is nourished by another Body; rather, all are nourished by the same Body. – St. John Chrysostom Homily on the First Epistle to the Corinthians 24.2.4

When you see [the Body of Christ] lying on the altar, say to yourself, ‘Because of this Body I am no longer earth and ash, no longer a prisoner, but free. Because of this Body I hope for heaven, and I hope to receive the good things that are in heaven, immortal life, the lot of the angels, familiar conversation with Christ. This body, scourged and crucified, has not been fetched by death . . . . This is that Body which was blood-stained, which was pierced by a lance, and from which gushed forth those saving fountains, one of blood and the other of water [symbolizing the sacraments of Communion or the Eucharist and Baptism] , for the world.’ . . . This is the Body which He gave us, both to hold in reserve [for worship] and to eat, which was appropriate to intense love; for those whom we kiss with abandon we often even bite with our teeth. – Ibid. 24.4.7

Let us therefore in all respects put our faith in God and contradict Him in nothing, even if what is said seems to be contrary to our reasonings and to what we see. Let His word be of superior authority to reason and sight. This too be our practice in respect of the Mysteries [Sacrament of Eucharist or Communion], not looking upon what is laid before us, but taking heed also of His words. For words cannot deceive; but our senses are easily cheated. His word has never failed; our senses err most of the time.
When the word says, ‘This is my Body,’ be convinced of it and believe it, and look at it with the eyes of the mind. For Christ did not give us something tangible, but even in His tangible things all is intellectual. So too with Baptism: the gift is bestowed through what is a tangible thing, water, but what is accomplished is intellectually perceived: the birth and the renewal. If you were incorporeal He would have given you those incorporeal gifts naked; but since the soul is intertwined with the body, He hands over to you in tangible things, that which is perceived intellectually. How many now say, ‘I wish I could see His shape [Gr. ton tupon], His appearance, His garments, His scandals.’ Only look! You see Him! You touch Him. You eat Him. He had given to those who desire Him, not only to see Him and fix their teeth in His flesh, and to embrace Him and satisfy all their love. St. John Chrysostom Homily on Matthew 82.4

And not as common flesh do we receive it [the Eucharist]; God forbid: nor as of a man sanctified and associated with the Word according to the unity of worth, or as having a divine indwelling, but as truly the life-giving and very flesh of the Word himself. – Council of Ephesus, Session 1, Letter of St. Cyril to Nestorius

Notice that the third ecumenical council directly rejects the idea that the divine presence of Christ merely “indwells” in the Eucharist; rather the Eucharist “truly” is the “very flesh of the Word Himself.” This is incompatible with Reformed doctrine even while many Reformed Christians claim to accept the first four ecumenical councils. Notice, in case one would object that the context is reception, that St. Cyril is not talking about the act of reception, nor is there any reference to the reception as a cause of the Real Presence. His claim regards what is received rather than what happens when we receive. Objectively, what is received is the consecrated host, and this host is received as the true Body.

After the disciples had eaten the new and holy Bread, and when they understood by faith that they had eaten of Christ’s body, Christ went on to explain and to give them the whole Sacrament. He took and mixed a cup of wine. Then He blessed it, and signed it, and made it holy, declaring that it was His own Blood, which was about to be poured out . . . Christ commanded them to drink, and He explained to them that the cup which they were drinking was His own Blood: ‘This is truly My Blood, which is shed for all of you. Take, all of you, drink of this, because it is a new covenant in My Blood. As you have seen Me do, do you also in My memory. Whenever you are gathered together in My name in Churches everywhere, do what I have done, in memory of Me. Eat My Body, and drink My Blood, a covenant new and old. – St. Ephraim Homilies 4,4

According to St. Ephraim, the Eucharist was explained directly to the disciples by Christ Himself at the Last Supper. This is why the early Christians did not need to rely exclusively on the Scriptures to discern the doctrine of Transubstantiation. Indeed, the earliest Christians did not have access to the New Testament. This is the source of the Apostolic doctrine of Transubstantiation. The Church has always confessed the Eucharist to be the true Body because Christ had explained this to the Apostles, and the Apostles explained it to the Churches.

The bread and the wine are not merely figures of the body and blood of Christ (God forbid!) but the deified body of the Lord itself: for the Lord has said, ‘This is My body,’ not, this is a figure of My body: and ‘My blood,’ not, a figure of My blood. And on a previous occasion He had said to the Jews, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. For My flesh is meat indeed and My blood is drink indeed. And again, He that eateth Me, shall live. – St. John of Damascus Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 4:13

Again, St. John Damascene rejected a merely figurative view of the Eucharistic species. Notice that he was not only rejecting memorialism. He was referring to the very bread and wine (that is, the species of bread and wine) when he said that they “are not merely figures.” He insisted, as we have seen consistently from the fathers, in identifying the consecrated hosts themselves as the Body and Blood. He also associated the Eucharist with John 6.

III – Extraordinary Reverence

A third type of statement shows that the Church fathers believed that extraordinary reverence, even adoration, should be given to the species itself. Of course, many Protestants who do not believe in Transubstantiation exhibit significant reverence for the act of communion but not for the species itself. The quotations below show that the early Church went beyond a mere respect for the communion rite. They hallowed and revered the consecrated host. Respect for the host would also be consistent with Consubstantiation but Consubstantiation is not consistent with adoration of the consecrated host.

In the context of the Eucharist, Tertullian explains the Tradition of the Church:

We take anxious care lest something of our Cup or Bread should fall upon the ground. – Tertullian The Crown 3:3-4

Similarly, Origen wrote:

You are accustomed to take part in the divine mysteries, so you know how, when you have received the body of the Lord, you reverently exercise every care lest a particle of it fall, and lest anything of the consecrated gift perish… how is it that you think neglecting the word of God a lesser crime than neglecting His body? – Origen Homilies on Exodus 13:3

And St. Cyprian of Carthage wrote:

He [Paul] threatens, moreover, the stubborn and forward, and denounces them, saying, ‘Whosoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily, is guilty of the body and blood of the Lord’¹⁷. All these warnings being scorned and contemned—[lapsed Christians will often take Communion] before their sin is expiated, before confession has been made of their crime, before their conscience has been purged by sacrifice and by the hand of the priest, before the offense of an angry and threatening Lord has been appeased, [and so] violence is done to his body and blood; and they sin now against their Lord more with their hand and mouth than when they denied their Lord. – St. Cyprian of Carthage On the Lapsed 15–16

Finally, St. Augustine wrote:

He walked here in the same flesh, and gave us the same flesh to be eaten unto salvation. But no one eats that flesh unless he first adores it; and thus it is discovered how such a footstool of the Lord’s feet is adored; and not only do we not sin by adoring, we do sin by not adoring. – St. Augustine Commentary on Psalms 98:9

St. Augustine affirmed that the Flesh we eat in the Eucharist is the same Flesh as when Christ walked the earth. Consequently, it is proper and right to adore it (the Eucharist). In fact, it is a sin not to adore it according to St. Augustine. But if the Eucharist had not actually been changed into the Flesh of Christ, it would be idolatry to adore it. Thus, either St. Augustine was advocating idolatry or he believed in Transubstantiation.

Approaching [the Eucharist] therefore, do not come forward with the palms of the hands outstretched nor with the fingers apart, but making the left [hand] a throne for the right since this hand is about to receive the King. Making the palm hollow, receive the Body of Christ, adding ‘Amen’. Then. carefully sanctifying the eyes by touching them with the holy Body, partake of it, ensuring that you do not mislay any of it. For if you mislay any, you would clearly suffer a loss, as it were, from one of your own limbs. Tell me, if anyone gave you gold-dust, would you not take hold of it with every possible care, ensuring that you do not mislay any of it or sustain any loss? So will you not be much more cautious to ensure that not a crumb falls away from that which is more precious than gold or precious stones?
Then, after you have partaken of the Body of Christ, come forward only for the cup of the Blood. Do not stretch out your hands but bow low as if making an act of obeisance and a profound act of veneration. Say ‘Amen’. and sanctify yourself by partaking of Christ’s Blood also. While the moisture is still on your lips, touch them with your hands and sanctify your eyes, your forehead, and all your other sensory organs. Finally, wait for the prayer and give thanks to God, who has deemed you worthy of such mysteries.- St. Cyril of Jerusalem Catechesis Mystagogica V, 11-22

Notice that St. Cyril demanded that the faithful approach with great reverence. This would be unfitting if they did not believe that the bread and wine had actually become the Body and Blood of the Lord. He, like St. Augustine, also exhorted adoration of the sacrament.

Additionally, the well known practice of the ante-Nicene Christians carrying the consecrated Eucharist to the sick and shut-in only makes sense given that the bread had become the Body. If not, it would suffice to eat any bread so long as one believed that he was consuming Christ. Rather, the early Christians even risked their lives to transport the Eucharist. This is consistent only with Transubstantiation. St. Hippolytus also warned those Christians who did reserve consecrated hosts to be careful lest it should be consumed by an unbeliever or even a mouse. ¹⁸

Finally, on a slightly different note, St. Ignatius of Antioch explains that only an ordained presbyter or bishop can consecrate the Eucharist.

Let that Eucharist be held valid which is offered by the bishop or by one to whom the bishop has committed this charge. – St. Ignatius of Antioch Epistle to the Smyrnaeans 8:1

If the Eucharist were a mere symbol, it would not make any sense whatsoever to talk about a “valid” Eucharist or an “invalid” Eucharist. It could still make sense to speak of an illicit Eucharist, but not of an invalid Eucharist. If the bread and wine only symbolized, and did not actually become the Body and Blood, then anyone anywhere could achieve the same thing (symbolize Christ’s Body) whether or not they were ordained. It might be the case that they were wrong in doing so, since they should have done it in the context of the Church, but nevertheless it would not be invalid. This is additional evidence that Transubstantiation was believed by the Church from her earliest days.

IV – Appendix

i – Objections

1. Is the doctrine of Transubstantiation dependent on Aristotlean metaphysics?

On the contrary, (then) Lutheran scholar, Jaroslav Pelikan writes:

The victory of orthodox Christian doctrine over classical thought was to some extent a Pyrrhic victory, for the theology that triumphed over Greek philosophy has continued to be shaped ever since by the language and the thought of classical metaphysics. For example, the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 decreed that “in the sacrament of the altar… the bread is transubstantiated into the body [of Christ],and the wine into [his] blood,” and the Council of Trent declared in 1551 that the use of the term “transubstantiation” was “proper and appropriate.” Most of the theological expositions of the term “transubstantiation,” beginning already with those of the thirteenth century, have interpreted “substance” on the basis of the meaning given to this term by such classical discussions as that in the fifth book of Aristotle’s Metaphysics; transubstantiation, then, would appear to be tied to the acceptance of Aristotelian metaphysics or even of Aristotelian physics.

Yet the application of the term “substance” to the discussion of the Eucharistic presence antedates the rediscovery of Aristotle. In the ninth century, Ratramnus spoke of “substances visible but invisible,” and his opponent Radbertus declared that “out of the substance of bread and wine the same body and blood of Christ is mystically consecrated.” Even “transubstantiation” was used during the twelfth century in a nontechnical sense. Such evidence lends credence to the argument that the doctrine of transubstantiation, as codified by the decrees of the Fourth Lateran and Tridentine councils, did not canonize Aristotelian philosophy as indispensable to Christian doctrine.¹⁹

2. Does patristic reference to Eucharistic symbolism indicate disbelief in an actual change?

On the contrary, Catholics affirm that the Eucharist is also symbolic. Protestant historian Adolf Harnack helps explain the ancient mind on the topic of symbolism:

What we nowadays understand by “symbol” is a thing which is not that which it represents; at that time [antiquity] “symbol” denoted a thing which in some kind of way really is what it signifies.²⁰

The Fathers clearly teach the Real Presence of Christ, that the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ. Harnack’s explanation of the ancient understanding of what it means to be a symbol explains how the Fathers could believe that the Eucharist was truly the Body and Blood of Christ and also a symbol. However, the Eucharist is real in a way that other “symbolic” things are not (this is understood now and in antiquity). This shows the weakness of the argument that denies the reality of the sacrifice of the Eucharist by relegating the mystery to symbolism. Since the modern mind apprehends ‘symbolism’ to mean that something is not real, whereas the ancient mind did not, this argument is weak. That is, the patristic use of the word ‘symbol’ in reference to the Sacrament does not connote what the modern use of the term ‘symbol’ connotes to us. And because of this, the patristic use of the term ‘symbol’ to refer to the Eucharist does not imply that the Fathers thought of the Eucharist as “merely symbolic” à la Zwingli.

3. Do some patristic statements indicate that a particular father disbelieved in substantial change?

Even if it were shown that a Church father disbelieved in Transubstantiation, it would only prove that that particular father was in error on this point. As shown above, the Church authoritatively defined it as dogma on several occasions including no less than four ecumenical councils. Here are some example quotations that are sometimes used in an attempt to justify one’s disbelief in Transubstantiation:

And extending His hand, He gave them the bread which His right hand had made holy: ‘Take, all of you eat this, which My word has made holy. Do not regard as bread that which I have given you; but take, eat this Bread, and do not scatter the crumbs; for what I have called my Body, that it is indeed. One particle from its crumbs is able to sanctify thousands and thousands, and is sufficient to afford life to those who eat of it. Take, eat, because this is my Body, and whoever eats it in belief, entertaining no doubt of faith, because this is My Body, and whoever eats it in belief eats it in Fire and Spirit. But if any doubters eat of it, for him it will be only bread. And whoever eats in belief the Bread made holy in My name, if he be pure, he will be preserved in his purity; and if he be a sinner, he will be forgiven.’ But if anyone despise it or reject it or treat it with ignominy, it may be taken as a certainty that he treats with ignominy the Son, who called it and actually made it to be His Body. – St. Ephraim Homilies 4,4

One way to read the bolded phrase above is to claim that St. Ephraim believed that the consecrated host was really bread but that if you had faith, you could receive Christ. Thus, the doubters only receive bread because they do not have the faith to receive the Body. The problem with this way of reading the phrase is that he explicitly states in this same passage that it is the Body. Above, we quoted from this same passage showing that St. Ephraim went into great detail and used explicit language to affirm his belief that the bread truly becomes the Body. Since he clearly affirmed a substantial change, either we must conclude that he contradicted himself, or “for him it will be only bread” must be read in another way.

In fact, there is another feasible way to read this phrase. The phrase should be understood as referring to the effect of the sacrament rather than the sacrament itself. A believer receives the Body unto salvation, but the doubter does not receive any benefit; for him it has the same effect as would normal bread. Since this way is fully compatible with the rest of what St. Ephraim said and the other way is a contradiction, this is the more probable way of interpreting his statement.

Another one sometimes used is this quotation from St. Augustine:

They said therefore unto Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” For He had said to them, “Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto eternal life.” “What shall we do?” they ask; by observing what, shall we be able to fulfill this precept? “Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He has sent.” This is then to eat the meat, not that which perisheth, but that which endureth unto eternal life. To what purpose dost thou make ready teeth and stomach? Believe, and thou hast eaten already.²¹

We have seen above that St. Augustine affirmed that the bread become the Body and that the communicants must adore it before receiving. So how is this quotation compatible with his other statements? St. Augustine is not denying Transubstantiation by affirming that we can receive Christ by faith. As St. Thomas Aquinas explained, there are two ways to receive Christ: spiritually and sacramentally. ²² To receive Him by faith is to receive Him spiritually, and to receive Him by consumption of the Eucharistic species is to receive Him sacramentally. Ideally, one would receive Christ in both ways at each communion. But in the case of the doubter above, he receives only sacramentally and does not receive spiritually because he lacks faith. St. Augustine in this passage is referring to the spiritual reception of Christ’s Body which is not opposed to the sacramental reception and far less does it disprove his belief in a substantial change in the Eucharist.

Two other quotations often used to argue against the historicity of Transubstantiation are from Pope Gelasius and Theodoret:

Surely the sacrament we take of the Lord´s body and blood is a divine thing, on account of which, and by the same we are made partakers of the divine nature; and yet the substance of the bread and wine does not cease to be. And certainly the image and similitude of Christ´s body and blood are celebrated in the action of the mysteries. – Pope Gelasius Tractatus de duabus naturis 14

You are caught in the net you have woven yourself. For even after the consecration the mystic symbols are not deprived of their own nature; they remain in their former substance figure and form; they are visible and tangible as they were before. But they are regarded as what they are become, and believed so to be, and are worshipped as being what they are believed to be. Compare then the image with the archetype, and you will see the likeness, for the type must be like the reality. For that body preserves its former form, figure, and limitation and in a word the substance of the body; but after the resurrection it has become immortal and superior to corruption; it has become worthy of a seat on the right hand; it is adored by every creature as being called the natural body of the Lord. – Theodoret, Dialogue II

On the contrary, W.R. Carson writes:

…it is assumed wrongly that by the words “nature” and “substance” the Fathers cited, writing centuries before heresies had made accurate definition and precise terminology necessary, intended to mean what the Tridentine Fathers meant by them. This is demonstrably untrue. The words ‘substance’ and ‘nature’ are synonymous with what at Trent were called the ‘species’ or ‘accidents.’ This is surely evident (a) from the context of the various passages, where a conversion (metabolen), to use Theodoret’s word, of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, is mentioned; (b) from the fact that they constantly and uniformly speak of such ‘nature’ and ‘substance’ as symbols; (c) from Leibnitz’ (a Protestant authority) well-known observation that the Fathers do not use these terms to express metaphysical notions.(53) (d) As regards Theodoret, from the confession of the Lutherans of Madgeburg that he is opposed to their doctrine and cannot be read with safety.(54) It should be added that the passages attributed to Theodoret and St. Gelasius occur in works that are considered spurious by many competent critics.²³

This list is not an exhaustive; more could be cited for and against the doctrine but this is representative and contains the majority of the strongest objections from patristic sources.

4. Does Transubstantiation undermine the true corporeality of Christ’s Body?

John Calvin erroneously claimed that the ubiquity of Christ’s presence on Catholic altars was impossible because it would undermine the true corporeal nature of Christ’s risen Body.

On the contrary, this is false because Christ is not present in the sacrament as a thing is present in a place. St. Thomas explained that here. ²⁴ That is, Christ is present metaphysically (or “after the manner of a substance”). It could also be said that He is present ‘supernaturally’ as opposed to ‘naturally.’ His Body is not subjected to physical laws and cannot be said to be present physically, insofar as ‘physically’ denotes that the thing belongs to the physical order in the way that ordinary physical objects do. ²⁵ Therefore, Transubstantiation is consistent with the true corporeality of Christ’s risen Body. ²⁶

5. Do the Eastern Orthodox reject Transubstantiation?

On the contrary, the Catholic Church affirms that the Eastern Churches have a valid Eucharist and that they have correct doctrine in respect to the Eucharist.²⁷ This is evidenced by the fact that there is an open invitation (on the side of the Catholic Church) for Eastern Orthodox brothers and sisters to receive Catholic communion. This would be impossible were the Church to understand them as rejecting the essential elements of Transubstantiation.

6. Is Transubstantiation tantamount to cannibalism?

On the contrary, this objection assumes the error of reducing the Eucharistic reception to a purely physical process. In the Eucharist Christ is not received physically, but spiritually and sacramentally as explained above. Also see this post on the Real Presence and Cannibalism.

ii – Additional Reading

Council of Trent on the Eucharist

Fr. Al Kimel on Transubstantiation (Long but well worth the read.)

W. R. Carson – The Antiquity of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation

Books:

Eucharist, by Louis Bouyer
A Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist, by Abbot Vonier, Peter Kreeft, and Aidan Nichols
The Hidden Manna: A Theology of the Eucharist, by James T. O’Connor

Finally, Protestant historian J. N. D. Kelly writes:

Eucharistic teaching, it should be understood at the outset, was in general unquestioningly realist, i.e., the consecrated bread and wine were taken to be, and were treated and designated as, the Savior’s body and blood.²⁸

Hippolytus speaks of ‘the body and the blood’ through which the Church is saved, and Tertullian regularly describes the bread as ‘the Lord’s body.’ The converted pagan, he remarks, ‘feeds on the richness of the Lord’s body, that is, on the Eucharist.’ The realism of his theology comes to light in the argument, based on the intimate relation of body and soul, that just as in baptism the body is washed with water so that the soul may be cleansed, so in the Eucharist ‘the flesh feeds upon Christ’s body and blood so that the soul may be filled with God.’ Clearly his assumption is that the Savior’s body and blood are as real as the baptismal water. Cyprian’s attitude is similar. Lapsed Christians who claim communion without doing penance, he declares, ‘do violence to his body and blood, a sin more heinous against the Lord with their hands and mouths than when they denied him.’ Later he expatiates on the terrifying consequences of profaning the sacrament, and the stories he tells confirm that he took the Real Presence literally. ²⁹

In Conclusion, it is clear that the doctrine of Transubstantiation extends in concept to the earliest days of the Church, was upheld and affirmed by several popes and ecumenical councils, and was then rejected by Protestants in the sixteenth century. The patristic support is heavily on the side of the Catholic dogma.

1. Such a defense will be written in the future on Called to Communion.
2. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=transubstantiation&searchmode=none
3. As quoted by Denzinger Sources of Catholic Dogma, 355
4. Ibid., 430
5. Ibid., 424, 465, 544, 581, 698
6. See also Council of Trent, Session 13, Canon IV: “If any one saith, that, after the consecration is completed, the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ are not in the admirable sacrament of the Eucharist, but (are there) only during the use, whilst it is being taken, and not either before or after; and that, in the hosts, or consecrated particles, which are reserved or which remain after communion, the true Body of the Lord remaineth not; let him be anathema.”
7. 1 Tim 4:5
8. There are strong reasons to believe this particular metaphysical nuance of the doctrine but the council of Trent did not directly canonize this Thomistic idea. In other words, there is some room for speculation on these grounds. One can accept Trent without affirming strict Aristotlean metaphysics. It should also be stated that Aristotle, for this very reason, would have rejected Transubstantiation as an impossibility since accidents cannot, according to him, exist without a subject. Ordinarily, St. Thomas would agree, but he considers this a uniquely miraculous event.
9. Council of Trent, Session 13, Canon II
10. Luke 24:16,30-35
11. See also Kelly, J.N.D., Early Christian Doctrines, pp. 197-198
12. Proverbs 9:2
13. John 6:55
14. John 6:56-57
15. Matthew 26:26
16. 1 Cor 10:17
17. 1 Corinthians 11:27
18. For more, see Chadwick, Henry The Early Church, pp. 262, 266
19. Pelikan, Jaroslav The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition, p. 44; emphasis added.
20. Harnack, Adolf History of Dogma 1888, I. p. 397
21. NPNF1: Vol. VII, Tractates on John, Tractate 25, 12.
22. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica 3.80.1
23. Carson, W. R. The Antiquity of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation which can be read online here.
24. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica 3.76.5
25. Unfortunately, the modern mind often uses the word “physical” to denote that something is “actual” as if “physical” were the opposite of “imaginary” or “untrue.” This is due in large part to the influence of materialism on the modern way of thinking. But the term “physical” means that the aspect described is relegated to the physical world, i.e. to matter. This is clearly not true of the Real Presence of Christ; hence we say metaphysical rather than physical, supernatural rather than natural.
26. See also St. Gregory of Nyssa The Great Catechism, 37 in which he anticipated and explained the answer to Calvin’s objection.
27. This is not to say that there aren’t Eastern Orthodox Christians who deny the dogma.
28. Kelly, J. N. D. Early Christian Doctrines p. 440
29. Ibid., pp. 211-212

But a recent encounter with a “battle buddy” in the military reminded me how much this question had previously troubled me. My friend “Mike” considers himself Catholic. He was raised going to church and attended Catholic schools. But he does not attend mass on many weekends, and has not been to confession in years. He would not agree with the Church on the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, or on her rejection of birth control, pornography, or masturbation as being morally licit.

At first blush, there appears to be a disconnect between Mike’s lifestyle and the Catholic teaching that real graces are received through the sacraments regardless of the state of the recipient. That is, if the Catholic sacramental teaching were true, one might reasonably anticipate that all recipients of the sacraments would show signs of being recipients of grace. Is the Catholic sacramental doctrine proven false by the prevalent reality of apostate Catholics?

This problem stopped bothering me after I entered the Church because I came to appreciate what the Church of Christ truly is. The Church is, first and foremost, a place for sinners seeking healing. It is a place for us who are afflicted with an interior moral leprosy. What the Catholic Church appreciates particularly well is that all sin has consequences, not just eternal, but temporal too. We have all heard a hurtful comment made at church before, and have seen the harm such comments can have. Our flaws and sins are so magnified by the beauty of faith.

So we should anticipate, and we in fact see, that when the Church gathers in local groupings of sinners, the waves of sin-consequences flow together into an upheaval, a confused sea. In the Church you see whole families falling away because of apathy toward the faith. You see people hurting people. This does not mean that grace is inactive; it means that our sinfulness is at times overwhelmingly substantial.

But you also see love conquering over sin in so many instances. You see the grace of God acting through His followers to touch suffering people who live in pitiable conditions. You see brilliant people walking away from certain worldly success to give themselves over to service. You see some of the closest families (often large families) pouring out love one to another in everything they do. These signs of hope give evidence of Christ’s efficacious graces flowing through the flock and tempering, eventually conquering sin in our lives.

Besides realizing that the Church was a place for sinners, and as such I should expect to see sinfulness in spite of the riches of grace available in the sacraments, there is another reason I stopped concerning myself about the inherent efficacy of the sacraments. The catechesis being done in Catholic homes – homes touched by the moral failings of western society in general – got lousy for a long time. Take Mike, for example, who does not even know that the Church still teaches from a Catechism.

This poor catechesis, this failing of parents and teachers, leaves the Church’s children in great peril of abandoning the faith even though they receive the sacraments. The children do not recognize what it is they are receiving (cf. 1 Corinthians 11:29). They do not recognize the snares of the world into which they walk. The lack of teaching also leaves a whole host of people self-describing as “Catholic” even though they have sacramentally removed themselves from the Church, self-made excommunicants. In this way the average American knows scads of “catholics,” but knows a much smaller number of faithfully practicing Catholics. This gives an exaggerated and undeserved perception that the Church’s sacraments are failing to live up to expectations.

Finally, the widespread apostasy of Catholic-raised men and women, in spite of their having received efficacious sacraments, is understood by looking at the Catholic teaching on free will. The Christian sacramental initiation is not a mystical vesting of salvation. That is, it does not give us the legal right to enter Heaven. If it did, St. Paul would not have referred to beating his body in order to make his “calling and election sure.” (2 Peter 1:10.) It would be a mistaken view of grace to see it as so powerful as to blow away our own sinful wills. Grace perfects nature, it does not commandeer it.

The lived reality in the Catholic Church is the complex and metaphysical interplay between man’s freedom to sin or pursue holiness; Satan’s and other evil spirits’ actual influence of men and women into evil practices; and God’s loving grace to bolster men and women in the face of these challenges. His grace is not simply dispositive in a way that robs us of our freedom, nor is it inadequate to allow us salvation. With the Catholic Church of the modern day in western nations, we see but one snapshot of what the complex interplay of good and evil with human freedom can look like.

We all sin so much, and our sins can so easily hurt the Church and those around us. The true shock, then, is not that the Catholic Church is so replete with sin, but that the Catholic Church holds together at all, preaching Christ and calling on His mother in every generation as “blessed.” May we not settle for apathy and disunity, but strive each and every day for vigilant holiness and sacramental unity.

Three years ago, a few friends of mine (including Sean Patrick of Called to Communion) were lamenting that there wasn’t a book that reexamined the Protestant claims about Saint Paul from a Catholic point of view. What we wanted was a book that demonstrated the “Catholic Perspective on Paul.” So I set to work on it. After three years, it’s finally finished and published…The Catholic Perspective on Paul.

If you’re looking for a complete and simple resource to equip you with the Catholic presentation of Paul’s view of salvation, faith and works, baptism, the Eucharist, the sacraments, the priesthood, celibacy, and redemptive suffering, then this new book is for you.

The Catholic Perspective on Paul intends to show once and for all that Saint Paul was thoroughly Catholic, and that Protestant and liberal prejudices against the Catholic perspective on Paul are unwarranted. If we read Paul in his words, we find none other than the great Catholic Apostle of Rome.

You can preview the book for free at amazon.com.

Please watch the book’s trailer on YouTube to get a feel for the book:

Both the new book on Saint Paul and my previous book The Crucified Rabbi: Judaism and the Origins of Catholic Christianity are available at amazon.com in paperback and Kindle formats. Please click here to view them.

 The Minor Seminary: A Background

What is a minor seminary, anyway? Simply put, it is a boarding schoolhouse where young men from junior high school onward can conduct their schooling and spiritual growth in an environment that prepares them for post-secondary seminary studies. It does not obligate a young man to be ordained, or even to continue seminary at more advanced levels. Rather, it gives interested young men solid early formation while enjoying protection from the pressures and distractions of secular secondary education so that they can remain focused on what may be their blossoming vocation to the priesthood.

While these institutions had all but entirely died out in the English-speaking world, there are hints at a resurgence. The Institute of the Incarnate Word (IVE), a Catholic religious order, recently formed the Blessed Jose Sanchez del Rio Minor Seminary in Minnesota for boys in grades 7 to 12. The order already operates several minor seminaries overseas, and hopes to expand this effort in the English-speaking part of the Catholic Church.

Supernatural Call

As the IVE website notes, the minor seminary is a ‘good idea’ because “God calls who He wills when He wills.” This reveals something about the Catholic view of the calling to receive Holy Orders. God does not choose the individuals whom He wills to call in response to certain of a man’s intellectual accomplishments; God chooses these individuals in advance. Because of this, there is no reason to think that God would not begin some of His callings with young men. Indeed, many Catholic priests and seminarians describe experiencing their call to the priesthood even from their early youth. So Catholics should not ‘wait and see’ if a man turns out to seem worthy of ordination before investing in his formation, but rather should begin investing when a young man shows an interest.

The Reformed, and generally Protestant, view of the calling to the ministry does not necessarily conflict with the idea that God calls whom He wills when He wills. And the Reformed pastor will certainly tell you that his calling to the ministry was a supernatural one. But in practice, I think that most Reformed will reject the idea that a young man in his high school years has the intellectual capacity to receive, discern, or understand the call from God. But on the other hand, the average Reformed pastor likely would not have qualms with a seminarian’s claim that he has known since 12 or 14 years that he was called.

So, I think that the Catholic and Reformed views about God calling young men to ministry are not that distinct at a theoretical level. But at least in practice, if a young man approached his pastor or parents and said that he felt called to the ministry, our approaches differ. The Reformed might say, “I think that’s great,” but then probably would not take positive steps to foster this in any particular way. They would probably treat it similarly to a boy saying he had a sense he was meant to be a doctor – “That’s great, you’ll need to work hard at the appropriate age.” The Catholic, on the other hand, should say, “I think that’s great, and because this might be your calling, and because such a calling is so precious to the Church, we must take positive steps to foster it and to see to your proper spiritual and intellectual formation.” This is the first difference, then, that helped me to understand and appreciate how it is that the Catholic Church could send boys off to seminary.

Free Will, Free Response

The second particularly Catholic principle that helped me appreciate the concept of the minor seminary is the freedom of man to respond to God’s calling. The Catholic Church maintains that God has given man free will, and desires that man use this liberty for God’s greater glory. This belief percolates into our present discussion of vocational discernment because it places a burden upon Catholic adults to foster the young man’s potential vocation. Should a man show signs of being called, and we neglect to train him up properly, we leave him prone to abuse his freedoms and neglect God’s calling.

A common scenario is the family who waits until after their son finishes college before encouraging him to consider the priesthood. They want him to experience life a bit before making such a serious and permanent commitment. But in the process, he is heavily influenced and distracted by his secular experiences, leaving his vocation to wither. We have frustrated God’s calling by leaving the man’s free will floating in the waters of secular temptations or distractions.

The Reformed are less likely to view the operation of a young man’s free will like this. They will probably say that if God wills to call a particular man to the ministry, God will efficaciously carry out that will. In short, if the man becomes ordained, that was God’s will, and if the man does not become ordained, that was God’s will too. This unintentionally avoids the burden Catholics face, to foster a young man’s potential vocation lest he should miss his calling by abusing his free will.

Conclusion

The Reformed and Catholic beliefs about God’s “calling” about the priesthood or pastorate have far more in common than not. But only the Catholic Church operates minor seminaries to train young men for ordained ministry. We agree that God can call whom He wills when He wills, and probably even agree that God could begin this calling from a young age. While in practice, I think the Reformed are strained to see how a junior high school boy could perceive or receive such a significant calling from God, in principle there is no reason why they could not let this boy begin something similar to the minor seminary model, say to study ancient Greek from home. Let us help each other, especially the young among us, to be willing and ready to obey God’s call.