ACC ~ Matthew 19 v3

WHY ASK ABOUT DIVORCE?

INCOMPLETE WORK ON MATTHEW: To one who is chaste, marriage is good. Love that is wholesome and complete does not even perceive vices. If a man loves his wife, he does not even think about a law for dissolving marriages. Such a law seems unnecessary.

But when someone begins inquiring about law aimed at dissolving marriage, there is already some sense of alienation present. Where alienation is found, fornication is lurking in the wings. Suppose you see someone who is searching out physicians. You probably would conjecture that he is sick. In the same way also, when you see either man or woman searching out information on the laws of dissolving marriages, you might not be far from wrong in conjecturing that some alienation has occurred between them and that one or the other may be wanton.

So does the question of this passage arise out of alienation. HOMILY 32. [1]

[1] PG 56:799.

THEY TESTED HIM BY ASKING

CHRYSOSTOM: Note their craftiness from the very form of their questioning. They did not say to him, “You told him not to dismiss his wife,” for he had already spoken about this law. [1] They did not mention those words but started off from that point. Thinking to make the ambush greater and wanting to trap him into saying something against the law, they did not say, “Why did you command such and such?” But, as if nothing had been said, they asked, “Is it lawful?” expecting that he would have forgotten what he had said. And they were ready if … he said, “It is lawful to put away,” to bring against him the things he himself had spoken and to say, “Why did you say the opposite?” And if he repeated what he had earlier said, they were ready to challenge him with the words of Moses. THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW, HOMILY 62.1. [2]

[1] Mt 5:31-32.

[2] PG 58:596-97; NPNF 1 10:381-82.