The early Christian writers
(2nd-3rd centuries)
In the 2nd century, Justin Martyr
(100-165) approved that a wife could ask for divorce if her husband led a
prodigal life, in order not to participate in his sinful way of life (Justin, Apologia
Secunda, 2, 443-444). At around the same time, the Shepherd of Hermas (written
c. 142-155) considered adultery as one of the tria graviora delicta
alongside murder and apostasy. For this reason, the author of this great
classic of the early Church called for the expulsion of an adulteress wife (cf.
Mandatum, IV, 1) and wrote that if a person fell again into adultery
after a first forgiveness, he or she had to be excommunicated from the Church
and abandoned in the hands of Divine Justice. As a consequence, since marriage
was considered a <<domestic church>>, the excommunication also
effected and ruptured the matrimonial bond (C.J. Dumont,
<<L’indissolubilité>>, 204-206).
At the end of the 3rd century,
Tertullian (155-225) enumerated various grounds for which the practice of the
African Church allowed the separation of the spouses. Amongst these, one finds
marital discord, anger, hatred, injury, insult, and other kinds of accusations
(Tertullian, De monogamia, 10).
In his Commentary on Matthew,
Origen (185-254) pointed out that the question regarding whether a husband was
justified in dismissing a wife guilty of serious offences other than
fornication—like witchcraft, infanticide, and damaging one’s home—is a great
canonical problem. Patsavos observes that Origen failed to commit himself
unequivocally but seemed to say that in the Gospel, Jesus did not exclude the
possibility of divorce in such an instance: <<from his cautious reply one
readily discerns his leaning towards an affirmative stand>> (L.J.
Patsavos, <<The Orthodox Position>>, 56-57). In the same Commentary,
he also reported on an existent tradition expressed by certain local superiors,
which was lenient towards the divorce and remarriage of a woman who was the
victim of adultery (Origen, Commentarius in Evangelium secundum Matthaeum,
14; 16, 23-24). Origen acknowledged three times that this practice was opposed
to the teaching of Scriptures (cf. D. Salachas, <<Matrimonios>>, 54).
However, he also admitted that it was not <<without reason>> and
that it was tolerated out of condescension (symperiphora) to prevent
worse consequences. Altan adds that in the case reported by Origen, one finds a
trait of oikonomia or the power of condescendence applied to a situation
of hardness of heart (ob duritam cordis), just like the one encountered
by Moses in the Old Testament (cf. A. Altan, <<Indissolubilità>>,
102-103, 106). (Kevin Schembri, Oikonomia, Divorce and Remarriage in the
Eastern Orthodox Tradition [Kanonika 23; Valore, Italy: Pontificio
Instituto Orientale, 2017], 193-94)
