Christ's Teaching Concerning Divorce in the New Testament

In this day of widespread divorce and little regard for the sanctity of marriage and especially its indissolubility it is good to find what Jesus really taught on the subject. Protestatns are weak on marriage and weak in its defence. For instance, Dr. James Dobson cousels that divorce is sometimes permissible and then proceeds to tell his readers he will not hear what the Bible says on the subject, because he believes some marriages just end. The volume opens with an Introductory Chapter which gives in a summary manner the discussion and conclusions contained in the body of the work. Although not absolutely necessary to the reader, such summary will prove, it is hoped, a useful guide through the close, and at times technical, discussion of texts, which is found in the following chapters. Of these chapters, several (chaps. ii-vi) have already appeared in the pages of the" New York Review." They are now reproduced with but slight modifications, mostly entailed by the adaptation of their text to the form which has been adopted for the remaining chapters of the work. The other chapters (chaps. vii-ix) are devoted to a close study of the passage of St. Matthew's Gospel (xix, 3-12) which has afforded most difficult to Catholic theologians and exegetes, and which has been the main reason for non-Catholic scholars to assert that Christ authorized the practice of divorce for the cause of a consort's unfaithfulness. The two Appendices which follow are meant, each in its own way, to complete the discussion of St. 'Matthew's xix, 3-12. Next comes the usual form of a Jewish bill of divorce, .as likely of interest to the reader. The subjoined Bibliography gives only the principal works connected with the general question at issue. The volume concludes with three Indices by means of which the topics treated, the Scriptural passages examined or referred to, and the Jewish authorities quoted or mentioned, will easily be found.