DAY 123
CHALLENGE
If Matthew’s exceptive clauses on divorce don’t mean you can get remarried (see Day 122), what do they mean?
DEFENSE
There are a number of possibilities.
In Matthew 5:32, Jesus states: “Every one who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”
Social conditions in the ancient world pressured divorced women to remarry, so to divorce a woman was, in effect, to make her an adulteress—unless she already was one. Matthew may mean that a husband could divorce an adulterous wife without being guilty of forcing her into adultery, for she had already chosen that path.
Adultery thus might be a valid ground for divorce, but it would not permit remarriage. Note that Jesus says that anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery, without making any exceptions (cf. Day 82). This was the classical understanding of the exceptive clauses found in the writings of the Church Fathers.
Another theory points out that the word used in Greek for “unchastity” (porneia) and “adultery” (moicheia) are different, suggesting that “unchastity” should be taken as a reference to something other than adultery, such as sex with someone else before a marriage had been consummated. If infidelity were discovered before consummation, a person might be able to divorce and remarry, because marriage only becomes indissoluble when it is consummated (CCC 2382).
On either of the above theories, Matthew may have included the exceptive clauses to bring out this aspect of Jesus’ teaching because he previously mentioned that Joseph had planned to divorce Mary when, prior to their living together, she was discovered to be with child. Yet he calls Joseph “a just man” (Matt. 1:19). How could he be just if divorce was always wrong? Thus Matthew may have included the exceptive clauses to make it clear how Joseph’s intent could be reasonable for a just man to divorce.
Another theory, which has been argued in recent years, is that the word porneia here refers to incestuous marriages that were practiced by Gentiles but forbidden by the Jewish Law. Matthew may have wished to make it clear for his Jewish readers that such Gentile marriages were not valid. For a defense of this view, see John P. Meier, The Vision of Matthew, 248–57.