CASE TWENTY-EIGHT
QUESTION I
C. 1.
They are proved to be twice-married, who have one wife before baptism and another after.
Will those born to the wife before baptism not be admitted to a joint share of the inheritance? Shall they be called natural, because it seems that no marriage is lawful except one entered after baptism? The Lord himself, when asked by the Jews if it was lawful to send away a wife, said it could not be done, and added [Mt. 19:16], “What God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” Do not imagine that he was speaking about wives taken after baptism, for the Jews had asked him this, and he was replying to the Jews.
I ask, and ask persistently: if a man, who once was a catechumen and afterwards a believer, had the same wife before and after, and he had children with her while a catechumen and other children while a believer, should they be called brothers? And when their father dies, do these not have a joint share of the inheritance with the others, or does his spiritual regeneration deprive them of the name of children? Such conclusions and ideas would be absurd.
Since the Law forbids calling what God has joined a sin, what argument could justify such a outrage, which is supported not by authority, but erected on an idle opinion?
C. 10.
Unless a Jew adheres to the Faith, let him be separated from his believing wife.
The bishop of the city should warn Jews who take Christian women in marriage that they must become Christians if they intend to live with them. If they refuse after being warned, let them be separated, because an unbeliever cannot stay united to one who converts to the Christian Faith.
Children who are born under such circumstances follow the Faith and condition of their mother. Likewise, those born to unbelieving women and believing men follow the Christian religion, not the Jewish superstition.
Gratian: This is so established, lest the believer, who sought the unbeliever’s salvation, perish in unbelief along with the unbeliever. So the same council [c. 59] legislated that children of Jews and other converts to the Faith should avoid unbelievers’ company:
C. 11.
Let believers be separated from their relatives’ company, lest they be ensnared by error.
We decree that the sons and daughters of Jews be separated from their company, lest they become ensnared again in error. They are to be assigned to monasteries or God-fearing Christian men and women, so that they learn faithful worship under their influence and advance in morals and belief under their preferable instruction.
Also, [from the same, c. 61]:
C. 12.
Jews who accept the Faith should not associate with unbelievers.
As evil company often corrupts good morals, how much more might it corrupt those prone to vice? So Hebrews who convert to the Christian Faith are not to associate with those who still practice their old worship, lest they be subverted by associating with them. Should any of those baptized not avoid unbelievers’ company and still present themselves as Christians, let them be publicly cut off.
Also, the Sixth Synod, [c. 11]:
C. 13.
None may eat, live, or receive medical treatment with Jews.
Let neither clergy or laity eat their unleavened bread, live with them, call them in when they are sick, receive medicine from them, or wash with them at the baths. If anyone does this, let him be deposed if a cleric, and excommunicated if a lay person.
Also, from the Council of Adge [c. 40]:
C. 14.
Let clerics and laity avoid association with Jews and not keep company with them.
So let clerics and laity neither associate with Jews or keep company with them, because, as they do not eat Christian food, it is unworthy and sacrilegious for Christians to eat their food. Otherwise, they will condemn as unclean what the Apostle [cf. 1 Tim. 4:1-5] permits to us, and Christians will start to appear inferior to Jews, because we take the food they offer us, while they refuse what we offer them.
Part 5.
Gratian: The foregoing plainly indicates that marriage exists between unbelievers. The Apostle’s words [Rom. 14:23], “Whatever is not of Faith is sin,” do not mean that everything unbelievers do is sin, but that everything done against conscience prepares for Hell. Hence Ambrose, “Everything done otherwise than as approved is sin.”
1. Also, Augustine on the same text [cf. d. G. a. C. 28 q. 1 c. 1], “Everything done otherwise than as approved is sin. Yet not everything done with Faith is good. Culpable ignorance is injurious.” Hence, the Apostle also says [Rom. 14:22], “Blessed is he who does not condemn himself by what he approves,” that is, he who does not damn himself when he says what is right.
Or, everything not of Faith is called sin because whatever is not done from Faith availing to salvation is accounted useless before the Lord. Hence Augustine says, “The whole of an unbeliever’s life is sin, and what is done without God does not count as good, for where knowledge of eternal and unchangeable Truth is lacking, the best morals are but false virtue.”
2. Also, when he says [d. G. a. C. 28 q. 1 c. 1; cf. C. 28 q. 1, c. 9 pr.], “The unbeliever does not practice true modesty with his spouse,” the modesty is not true as to its effect, that is, as to the reward of eternal salvation. Just as among heretics the sacraments are not true, not as to their form, but as to their power, so the virtues among unbelievers are not true, not because they are not true in themselvesfor Jerome said, “The Romans obtained the empire by their virtues”but because they do not bring about eternal salvation.
3. Also, the words of Ambrose [d. G. a. C. 28 q. 1 c. 1], “That which transgresses the ordinance of God cannot be considered marriage. Rather when it occurs, it must be corrected,” does not prove there is no marriage between unbelievers. No command of the Lord prohibits Gentiles from joining Gentiles. Their marriage, therefore, does not transgress God’s ordinance, that is, contravene it. That authority orders the separation of those joined contrary to the ordinance of God and the Church, such as unbelievers with believers, blood relatives with blood relatives, or those impeded by affinity with each other. If any of these join with each other, they must be separated.
Hence Ambrose, in the book On the Patriarchs, [I, ix, on Abraham]:
C. 15.
Believers should not associate in marriage with unbelievers.
Beware, Christian, of giving your daughter to a Gentile or a Jew. Beware, I say, of marrying a Gentile, a Jew, or a foreigner, that is, a heretic or someone not of your Faith. The first fidelity in marriage is the grace of chastity.
1. That she is a Christian is not enough, unless you have both been initiated through the sacrament of Baptism. You should both rise together in the night for prayer and beseech the Lord with mutual entreaties.
C. 17.
One who associates with Jewish error through the marriage bond is to be deprived of Christian Communion.
If anyone joins himself by conjugal association to Jewish error, any Christian woman has carnal intercourse with a Jew, or any Jewish woman with a Christian man, and then admits this immorality, let him be separated immediately from Christian assembly and fellowship and the Communion of the Church.
Gratian: Also, Augustine’s words [d. G. pr. a. C. 28 q. 1. c. 1], “There is no ratified marriage without God,” do not deny the existence of marriage between unbelievers. A lawful but unratified marriage is one thing, a ratified but unlawful marriage is another, and a lawful ratified marriage is yet another.
A lawful marriage is contracted according to the legal institutions or the customs of the region. Among unbelievers, this is not ratified, because their marriages are not permanent and exclusive. Before their legal forum, after giving a bill of repudiation, they can lawfully separate and join others, something contrary to the Law of Heaven, which they do not observe.
Marriage between believers is ratified, because once they enter a marriage, it cannot later be dissolved. Some of these are lawful, as when a wife is given by her parents, receives a dowry from her spouse, and is blessed by a priest. This kind of marriage is called lawful and ratified. The marriages of some, who eschew solemnities and take a spouse through consent alone, are not lawful marriages, but merely ratified.
CASE TWENTY-NINE
QUESTION II
Gratian: The second question concerns condition. Can a woman lawfully send away a man she thought to be free if afterwards she discovers he was servile? Many arguments prove that the woman cannot lawfully leave the slave. In Christ Jesus, there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free [cf. Col. 3:11]. Nor is there in Christian marriage, for same law rules all in the Faith of Christ.
CASE THIRTY-TWO
QUESTION V
C. 16.
When the Jews asked Christ whether one might dismiss one’s wife for any reason, he responded [cf. Mt. 19:4-5], “Have you not read that the Creator from the beginning made them male and female? What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” Then he concluded his reply by saying that no one could dismiss his wife, save on account of fornication [Mt. 19:9].
QUESTION VI
It appears that one guilty of a crime cannot punish another for the same crime. Hence, when the Jews accused the adulteress, they received a sentence of equity from the Lord [Jn. 8:7], “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her.” The Gospel also commanded [cf. Lk. 6:42], “You Hypocrite, first cast out the beam from your own eye, and then cast out the speck from your brother’s eye.”
CASE THIRTY-FIVE
QUESTION I
1. Unions with blood relatives were first permitted, or better commanded, among the People of God for another reason. From the beginning, God intended to bring salvation to the human race by founding the primitive Church among a people united by blood relationship. Hence he first chose the apostles, whom he set up as the foundation of the Church, from the Jewish people. They converted many of these to God by their preaching and were themselves the origin of the Church.
Then, when the Jewish people were abandoned in the blindness of their unbelief [cf. Rom. 7:10], the preaching of the Gospel passed to the Gentiles, who had been alien to Christ by both belief and blood. So, spurning union with his blood relatives, he chose a wife from another family, fulfilling the prophet’s prediction [cf. Is. 50:1], “For your wicked deeds I have put your mother away as an adulteress and as one repudiated,” and again what was said through another prophet [cf. Hos. 2:23], “I shall not say to my people, you are my people.”
Source. Legal History Sources – Translated by John T. Noonan, Jr. GRATIAN, THE DECRETUM OF GRATIAN. Edited and supplemented by Augustine Thompson, O.P. Assistant Professor of Medieval Christianity, University of Oregon. 1993.