In this connection we might note the blunder in Ezech. xxv, 9. The prophet is inveighing against Moab, Ammon and Edom; the Hebrew text has "Beth-Jesimoth, Baal-Meor and Cariathaim." This last word, it is true, occurs in rather a curious form, viz., p, but the LXX, absolutely oblivious of the locality in question, split up the last two Hebrew names and read: Βεθιαισμουθ επανω πηγης πολεως παραθαλασσιαs. It is not difficult to see how they got this out of the Hebrew but it shows a complete ignorance of Moabitic geography. St. Jerome cites their translation, but makes no comment. We have said enough to show that the translators of the Greek Bible were weak in the historical geography of the Holy Land, and we have also shown that even their knowledge of Hebrew was at times deficient. And in doing this we do them no injustice. It is as we should expect. The translators were, it is true, "Hebrews of the Hebrews," but they essentially belonged to the dispersion. They lived outside the Holy Land and many of them probably had never set foot in it. Hebrew was not for them the regular medium of conversation. Greek, that κown StaλEKTOS, which we find in their translation and which the recently-discovered papyri have brought so vividly before us, must have been their normal speech. The traveller in civilized parts of Egypt now is amazed at the many languages he hears spoken. English, French and Arabic are at the ready command of many. And so also the traveller of the days of Ptolemy Philadelphos would have found the Egyptians at least bilingual in his day: the natives would use the demotic descendant of the language enshrined in the monuments, that curious form of speech which is only now yielding up its secrets to the learned investigator, and they would also speak Greek, being compelled thereto by the fact that it was the only medium of communication with the countless strangers who flocked into the land, and with that vast horde of mercenaries who filled the armies of the Ptolemies. The Hebrews would keep their own tongue or rather its Arabic form as the Assouan Papyri have recently shown us in so startling a manner, but they, too, would be compelled to speak Greek outside their own circles. We do the translators no discredit, then, when we point out where their weakness lay. Indeed, we should be loath to throw discredit on them, for the more we study their Bible the more we marvel at the work they succeeded in doing. It was through them and them alone that the Gentile world was to learn God's revealed truth. The Word of Life Himself was to use their version and His Apostles were to spread it all over the world. Even in the West it was for long years the Bible, for the old Vulgate, as St. Jerome calls it, was nothing but a literal rendering of the LXX. It is only in these latter days that the LXX has fallen into the background; and that is due to the glorious labors of one who built up his vast scholarship on the study of the Greek Bible and its various translators and who was only thus enabled to give us that Vulgate edition which justly ranks as "The Queen of Versions." HUGH POPE. DIVORCE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT AN EXEGETICAL STUDY (VI). Francis E. Gigot In our last article, we examined the passage of St. Matthew (v, 31-32) which sets forth Our Lord's teaching concerning divorce with the significant clause: παρεκτος λογου πορνείας “except because of fornication." The passage, as we pointed out, is one of the antitheses grouped together by our first Evangelist in the fifth chapter of his Gospel, for the general purpose of illustrating the manner in which Christ's doctrine, although in direct opposition to the received interpretation of the Law by the Jewish authorities of the time, nevertheless did not destroy but fulfilled the Law (Cfr. Mt. v, 17-20). Thus viewed, Mt. v, 31-32: Mt. v. 31. It was said also: Whoever shall put away his wife makes her commit adultery, and whoever shall marry one put away, has for its special object to show that Our Lord's doctrine concerning divorce, although opposed to that of the Jewish teachers of the day, far from running counter to the classical text of Deuteronomy xxiv, 1-4, regarding divorce, fulfils it to its "yod" or "tittle." On the basis of this Deuteronomic passage: Deuter. xxiv. 1. When a man taketh a wife and marrieth her, and it cometh to pass, if she find no favor in his eyes, because he hath found in her some indecency that he writeth her a bill of divorce, and delivereth [it] into her hand, and putteth her out of his house, 2. and she departeth out of his house, and goeth and becometh another man's [wife], 3. and the latter man hateth her and writeth her a bill of divorce, and delivereth [it] into her hand, and putteth her out of his house; or if the latter man who took her as his wife, die; 4 her former husband who put her away, is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled: for this is an abomination before Yahweh, and thou shalt not cause to sin the land which Yahweh, thy God, giveth thee [as] an inheritance, the official expounders of the Law maintained that Moses had considered as lawful the action of a man who, for whatever cause, dismissed his wife by means of a bill of divorce; and in consequence, they confidently proclaimed in their synagogues the traditional rule quoted in Mt. v, 31: Whoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a bill of divorce. According to them, whoever acted upon this rule, secured fully the righteousness of the law: by the bill of divorce he had enabled his dismissed his wife to remarry lawfully, and therefore was not responsible for any adultery on her part after he had thus put her away. Whoever, on the contrary, went against this rule, was positively wrong: by withholding the bill of divorce which alone would have enabled his dismissed wife to unite herself lawfully to another man,1 the husband maliciously exposed her to an adulterous union after he had refused to live any more with her. Over against this Jewish interpretation of Deuter. xxiv, 1-4, our first Evangelist sets in Mt. v, 32: But I say to you that Everyone putting away his wife except because of fornication makes her commit adultery, and whoever shall marry one put away, a very different one which he represents as the positive teaching of Christ to His disciples concerning divorce. In the eyes of St. Matthew, the traditional rule of the Jews was decidedly incorrect: it not only set aside the cause required by Israel's lawgiver from the man who was determined to put away his wife, viz. "because he hath found in her some indecency" y; but it also treated as lawful the remarriage of a dismissed wife who was supplied with a bill of divorce, whereas Moses had spoken of this remarriage as an adulterous defilement: "after that she is defiled." The doctrine of Christ, on the contrary, fulfilled perfectly, according to our first Evangelist, the 'Cfr. Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book IV, chap. viii, 23. "This is exactly the manner in which the malice of the withholding of a bill of divorce by Papos ben Juda, is described in the Talmudic treatise Sota, chap. i, 7. (Talmud transl. by M. Schwab, vol. vii, p. 236). requirements of the Deuteronomic text, in this twofold respect: a dismissed wife cannot remarry without committing adultery together with the man who marries her, and the dismissing husband is responsible for that adultery, if he puts her away without the specified cause: "except because of fornication" (the Greek: Moyos πopνeas, being treated as the equivalent of the Hebrew: y).' Such is the natural meaning of the antithesis in Mt. v, 31-32, when considered in relation to the fulfilment of Deuter. xxiv, 1-4, that is, in a relation manifestly intended by our first Evangelist. Such is the meaning which we established in our foregoing article, and in virtue of which we concluded that Mt. v, 31-32, like the passages of the other early documents of Christianity examined before, ascribes to Our Lord the absolute rejection of divorce which the Roman Catholic Church has always enforced as Christ's own doctrine concerning that great ethical question. Such is also the meaning which, as can be readily seen, it behooves us distinctly to bear in mind while endeavoring to determine the exact sense of Mt. xix, 3-12, the last passage which remains to be examined to complete our exegetical Study on Divorce in the New Testament: this last passage, like the one studied in the foregoing paper, is found in St. Matthew's Gospel, and sets forth Our Lord's teaching concerning divorce with a restrictive clause as to fornication: "nisi ob fornicationem." The following is the literal English rendering of this last important passage: Mt. xix. 3. And Pharisees approached Him tempting Him and saying: Is it lawful to put away one's wife for every cause? 4. But He answering said: Have you not read that the Creator3 from the beginning made them male and female, 5. and said: On account of this a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleve to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh? 6. so that they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder. 7. They say to Him: Why then did Moses command to give a bill of divorce and to put away? "The reading O KTσ as is origir al rather than the alternate: o monoas (Cfr. Mk. X, 6). |