The logia on divorce

Mark 10:9: “What God has united, man must not divide.”

Mark 10:11–12: ““The man who divorces his wife and marries another is guilty of adultery against her.  And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another she is guilty of adultery too.”

Luke 16:18: “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another is guilty of adultery, and the man who marries a woman divorced by her husband commits adultery.”

Matthew 5:32: “Everyone who divorces his wife, except for the case of fornication, makes her an adulteress; and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

Matthew 19:6: “What God has united, man must not divide.”

Matthew 19:9: “The man who divorces his wife—I am not speaking of fornication—and marries another, is guilty of adultery.”

1 Corinthians 7:10–12: “A wife must not leave her husband—or if she does leave him, she must either remain unmarried or else make it up with her husband—nor must a husband send his wife away.”

Hypothetical reconstruction of the earliest form of the more common logion: “The man who divorces his wife and marries another is guilty of adultery.”

Mishna Gitin 9:10, as reported in the Babylonian Talmud Gitin 90a (Soncino trans. modified by CD): “The school of Shammai say: a man should not divorce his wife unless he has found her guilty of some unseemly conduct, as it says, because he hath found some unseemly thing in her. [See Deutoronomy 24:1].  The school of Hillel, however, say [that he may divorce her] even if she has merely spoilt his food,  since it says,  because he hath found some unseemly thing in her.  R. Akiba says, [he may divorce her] even if he finds another woman more beautiful than she is, as it says, it comes to pass, if she find no favour in his eyes. [Again, a reference to Dt 24:1.]”  Dt 24:1 reads in the NRSV: “Suppose a man enters into marriage with a woman, but she does not please him because he finds something objectionable about her, and so he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house … .”  The Hebrew is more ambiguous.

Marriage as a “mystery”

Ephesians 5:25–33: “Husbands should love their wives just as Christ loved the Church and sacriWced himself for her to make her holy.  He made her clean by washing her in water with a form of words so that when he took her to himself she would be glorious, with no speck or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and faultless.  In the same way, husbands must love their wives as they love their own bodies; for a man to love his wife is for him to love himself.  A man never hates his body, but he feeds it and looks after it; and that is the way Christ treats the Church, ³⁰because it is his body—and we are its living parts.  For this reason, a man must leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one body. [Gn 2:24]  This mystery has many implications; but I am saying it applies to Christ and the Church.  ³³To sum up; you too, each one of you, must love his wife as he loves himself; and let every wife respect her husband.”

Two witnesses

Dt. 19:15: in ore duorum vel trium testium stabit omne verbum.  “In the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall stand.”

Mt. 18:16: in ore duorum testium vel trium stet omne verbum.  “In the mourth of two witnesses or three let every word stand.”

1 Cor. 13:1: in ore duorum vel trium testium stabit omne verbum. As in Dt. 19:15.