Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Series 2 - The Still Small ...

intelligence. Such women, when they cause death, though the result of their action may not
be what they intended, are nevertheless, on account of their proceedings being magical and
prohibited, to be reckoned among intentional homicides. Women also who administer
drugs to cause abortion, as well as those who take poisons to destroy unborn children, are
murderesses. So much on this subject.
IX. The sentence of the Lord that it is unlawful to withdraw from wedlock, save on account
of fornication, 2636 applies, according to the argument, to men and women alike.
Custom, however, does not so obtain. Yet, in relation with women, very strict expressions
are to be found; as, for instance, the words of the apostle “He which is joined to a harlot is
one body” 2637 and of Jeremiah, If a wife “become another man’s shall he return unto her
again? shall not that land be greatly polluted?” 2638 And again, “He that hath an adulteress
is a fool and impious.” 2639 Yet custom ordains that men who commit adultery and are in
fornication be retained by their wives. Consequently I do not know if the woman who lives
with the man who has been dismissed can properly be called an adulteress; the charge in
this case attaches to the woman who has put away her husband, and depends upon the cause
for which she withdrew from wedlock. 2640 In the case of her being beaten, and refusing to
submit, it would be better for her to endure than to be separated from her husband; in the
case of her objecting to pecuniary loss, even here she would not have sufficient ground. If
her reason is his living in fornication we do not find this in the custom of the church; but
from an unbelieving husband a wife is commanded not to depart, but to remain, on account
of the uncertainty of the issue. “For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save
thy husband?” 2641 Here then the wife, if she leaves her husband and goes to another, is an
adulteress. But the man who has been abandoned is pardonable, and the woman who lives
with such a man is not condemned. But if the man who has deserted his wife goes to another,
2636 Matt. v. 32.
2637 1 Cor. vi. 16.
2638 Jer. iii. 1.
2639 Prov. xviii. 22, LXX.
2640 The Ben. note is, Sequitur in hoc canone Basilius Romanas leges, quas tamen fatetur cum evangelio minus
consentire. Lex Constantini jubet in repudio mittendo a femina hæc sola crimina inquiri, si homicidam, vel
medicamentarium, vel sepulcrorum dissolutorem maritum suum esse probaverit. At eadem lege viris conceditur,
ut adulteras uxores dimittant. Aliud discrimen hoc in canone uxores inter et maritos ponitur, quod uxor injuste
dimissa, si ab alia ducatur, adulterii notam non effugiat; dimissus autem injuste maritus nec adulter sit, si aliam
ducat, nec quæ ab eo ducitur, adultera. Cæterum Basilius ante episcopatum eodem jure uxorem ac maritum esse
censebat. Nam in Moral. reg. 73statuit virum ab uxore, aut uxorem a viro non debere separari, nisi quis depre-
hendatur in adulterio. Utrique pariter interdicit novis nuptiis, sive repudient, sive repudientur.
2641 1 Cor. vii. 16.
To Amphilochius, concerning the Canons.
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