been within reach at the time. It is not too much, then, to say that, if S. Paul was a faithful exponent of the mind of Christ, the earliest independent interpretation of the Divine teaching on the subject of marriage is, that no divorce or separation could break the bond. It struck the keynote of all primitive exposition, for, as we shall see, there is an almost unbroken consensus of decision, Patristic and Conciliar, in favour of this view throughout the Church of the first centuries. The peculiar value of the evidence. VI. The Testimony of the whole Catholic WE pass now from the inspired records of Holy Scripture to the rule and practice of the Primitive Church, as far as it may be gathered from the leading Fathers and synodical decrees of the first four centuries of ecclesiastical history. It will be found on examination that they were, on the whole, favourable to allowing separation for adultery, but that, with rare exceptions, and these only in the latter part of the period and confined to one branch of the Church, they recognised a stringent prohibition of remarriage for either party before death had dissolved the original bond. The first stage of this historical evidence will take us down to the union of Church and State, which followed the conversion of the empire in 314 A.D. The weight of it can hardly be exaggerated, for it is the expression of the unbiassed mind of the Church before it was trammelled by civil laws, which, after her incorporation with the State, could hardly fail to acquire a measure of authority over her, however unwillingly, in conflicting cases, it was either enforced or recognised. Church. of Hermas. Beginning with Rome, we have the evidence The Roman furnished by "the Pastor" of Hermas. There is a great variety of opinion touching both its authority The Pastor and its date. If we were disposed to appeal to it as in itself authoritative, stress would be laid upon the fact that Irenæus quotes it as "Scripture"; 1 Clemens Alexandrinus as a "Divine revelation," "12 and Origen as "inspired by God"; 3 and also to the significance of its having been publicly read in the churches during the first three centuries; but it is enough for our purpose to use it simply as an historic witness to the rule of the early Church. For this purpose, all that is requisite is an assurance of the genuineness of the treatise, and the approximate time of its composition. The earliest date is founded on the belief that it was written by Hermas, whom S. Paul saluted in the Epistle to the Romans; 4 the latest assigns it to Hermas, the brother of Pius, Bishop of Rome in the middle of the second century.5 1 Adv. Hær. iv. 20. 2. 3 Comm. in Rom. lib. x. 31. 2 Stromata, I. xxix. 5 Bull's Defensio Fidei, i. 2. 3-6. Dindorf's Præf. ad Hermæ Pastorem. F ment of the recognised law of his time. The conclusion we have formed upon critical grounds makes the writer an undoubtedly authentic person, recognised at the time as a "prophet," who composed the treatise, and sent it to Clement at the close of the first century, or, at the latest, quite at the beginning of the second. In it Hermas speaks, apparently with no hesitation, in advocacy of a judicial separation in case of adultery, but absolutely forbids the remarriage of either of the separated parties in the lifetime of the other. What he says in his Fourth Book on Commandments is especially valuable, as it is no mere obiter dictum, but his deliberate enforcement of the accepted law on the subject upon which he is treating, viz. : "putting away one's wife for adultery." It is set forth in the form of a conversation with "the shepherd, the angel of repentance," in the following words : "I said to him, Sir, permit me to ask you a few His enforce questions. Say on, said he, and I said to him, If any one has had a faithful wife in the Lord, and has detected 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 has not repented, but persists in her fornication, and yet the husband continues to live with her, he will be guilty of her crime and a partaker of 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 has put his wife away, and married another, he also commits adultery. And I said to him, What if the woman put away has repented, and wish to return to her husband: shall she not be taken back by her husband? And he said to me, Assuredly. . . . In view, therefore, of her repentance, 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." 1 Et dixi illi: permitte me pauca verba tecum loqui. Dic, inquit. Et dixi illi; Domine, si quis habuerit uxorem fidelem in Domino et hanc invenerit in adulterio, nunquid peccat vir, si convivat cum illa? Et dixit mihi: Quamdiu nescit peccatum ejus, sine crimine est vir vivens cum illa. Si autem scierit vir uxorem suam deliquisse, et non egerit pœnitentiam mulier, et permanet in fornicatione sua, et convivit cum illa vir; reus erit peccati ejus, et particeps mochationis ejus. Et dixi illi : Quid ergo, si permanserit in vitio suo mulier? Et dixit: Dimittat illam vir; et vir per se maneat. Quod si dimiserit mulierem suam et aliam duxerit, et ipse mochatur. Et dixi illi: Quid si mulier domina pœnitentiam egerit, et voluerit ad virum suum revertere; nonne recipietur a viro suo? Et dixit mihi: Imo. Propter pœnitentiam ergo non |