Chapter XVII. 51. “Again,” says He, “ye have heard that it hath been said to them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oath:155 But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; neither by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your communic- ation be Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more156 than these cometh of evil.” The righteousness of the Pharisees is not to forswear oneself; and this is confirmed by Him who gives the command not to swear, so far as relates to the righteousness of the kingdom of heaven. For just as he who does not speak at all cannot speak falsely, so he who does not swear at all cannot swear falsely. But yet, since he who takes God to witness swears, this section must be carefully considered, lest the apostle should seem to have acted contrary to the Lord’s precept, who often swore in this way, when he says, “Now the things which I write unto you, behold, before God I lie not;”157 and again, “The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is blessed for evermore, knoweth that I lie not.”158 Of like nature also is that asseveration, “For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel to marry another when the divorced wife has not committed fornication than when any one divorces his wife and then marries another? Not because this is not adultery, but because it is a lesser sort.” The Apost. Constitutions (vii. 2) say, “Thou shalt not commit adultery, for thou dividest one flesh into two,” etc. Weiss: “Jesus everywhere takes it for granted that in the sight of God there is no such thing as a dissolution of the marriage bond” (Leben Jesu, i. 529). President Woolsey, on the other hand, unhesitatingly declares, that, by Christ’s precepts, marriage is dissolved by adultery, so that the innocent party may marry again. According to this passage, the woman di- vorced on other grounds than adultery seems to be declared adulterous if she marry. According to Matt. xix. 9 the man who puts away his wife for adultery, seems to be permitted to marry without becoming adulterous himself. According to Mark x. 12 the woman had the privilege in that day of putting away her husband, but “there is no evidence in the Hebrew Scriptures that the woman could get herself divorced from her husband.” To the able treatment of Augustin, which might seem either exceedingly fearless or mawkish at the present day, according to the stand-point of the critic, the reader would do well to read Alford and Lange on this passage; Stanley on 1 Cor. vii. 11; and Woolsey, art. “Divorce” in Schaff-Herzog Encycl. Whatever may be the exact meaning of our Lord concerning the marriage of the innocent party, it is evident that He regards the marriage bond as profoundly sacred, and warrants the celebrant in binding the parties to marriage to be faithful one to the other “till death do you part.” He Himself said, “What, therefore, God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Mark x. 9). 155 Jusjurandum; Vulgate, juramenta; Greek, τοὺς ὅρκους. 156 Amplius; Vulgate, abundantius. 157 Gal. i. 20. 158 2 Cor. xi. 31. Chapter XVII 59 Chapter XVII