JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1912
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PREFACE TO THE REISSUE OF 1910
IN reissuing this little book in a new form I wish, by way of preface, to say a few words upon the passages (pp. 72–78 and Appendix III., p. 227) in which I deal with the question of divorce in the Christian Church. I am not prepared to alter the conclusions there drawn, so far as they were drawn from the first Gospel, upon which alone I was commenting. But I should wish to express a different opinion on the relation of the statements about divorce in the first Gospel to those given us by St. Mark and St. Luke.
The course of recent criticism seems to make it fairly certain that we must regard the Gospels of St. Mark and St. Luke as giving us our Lord’s teaching on this subject in its original form. They are as follows:
St. Mark x. 11, 12: “And he saith untothem, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her: and if she herself shall put away her husband, and marry another, she committeth adultery.”
St. Luke xvi. 18: “Every one that putteth away his wife and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and he that marrieth one that is put away from a husband committeth adultery.”
Cp. 1 Cor. vii. 10, 11: “But unto the married I give charge, yea not I, but the Lord, That the wife depart not from her husband (but and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband); and that the husband leave not his wife.”