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252 Documents: 3. 3
Even so, the symbolic reasons, or rationalizations, discussed by Innocent
IV are quite interesting. He alludes to an explanation o·ered by
Huguccio (perhaps the most famous of commentators on the Decretum of
Gratian, though his great work has never been printed). According to this
reading of the symbolism, the husband is the Church, and the Church
often commits adultery by straying from the faith. This view sounds controversial,
if Huguccio did indeed say that. It seems to suggest that the
Church as a whole regularly errs. The line of thought deserves investigation
from the manuscripts, though it is tangential here. Also interesting
is the reversal of the gender roles, so that the wife represents Christ, who
never sent the Church away. Again, this is a motif worthy of investigation.
Innocent IV in any case gives a di·erent symbolic account. For him, the
husband is Christ. He married first the Synagogue and then the Church.
Thus it does no harm if the husband’s flesh is divided. But the Church, in
the wife’s role, remains always a virgin, at least in mind. Here he quotes
1 Corinthians 11: 2: ‘For I have espoused you to one husband, that I
may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ’. Thus the sacramentum, the
representation, is defective in the wife if she should divide her flesh.
Transcription is from the early printed edition used for Document 3. 2,
q.v. Note that here I use square brackets where elsewhere I would use round
parentheses. This is because this early printed edition, unlike medieval
manuscripts, uses round brackets, which I have retained.
Fo. xlvRB–VA:
Debitum....≈ (Iuxta quod) id est ad ostendendum quod carnalis copula est
sacramentum incarnationis Christi, et quod tantum inter duos coniuges
est sacramentum illud quod in matrimonio signatur, id est, una ecclesia
uni viro Christo subdita; non est autem sacramentum hic ubi alter coniugumcarnemsuaminpluresdivisit....[fo.
xlvva] ...≈ Sed queres
quomodo ex hac auctoritate sumitur hoc sacramentum. Respondeo: exeo
quod in singulari numero posuit [Gen: 2: 23; Eph. 5: 30] ‘os’ ‘caro’ ‘carne’
‘uxori’, et ex verbo ultimo [Gen. 2: 24; Eph. 5: 31]: ‘erunt duo in carne
una’, quasi non divident carnes suas in plures. (Sacramenti): illius scilicet
quia matrimonium inter duos tantum signat unam ecclesiam uni viro
Christo subditam: in secundo autem coniugio non est hoc sacramentum,
nec esse potest: immo potius posset significare plures ecclesias uni viro
subditas. Ministerium autem incarnationis bene potest signare in secundo
matrimonio. . . . (≈ Carnem): sed quare magis exigitur in uxore quam in
viro? Nam maritus corrupte promoveri non potest, xxxiiii. di. Curandum,
Precipimus, sicut si vir. Ille autem qui post uxorem habuit concubinam
Rn’] can also be extended as Responsio
signare] read signari?
Gratian, Pars I, D. 34, c. 9.
Gratian, Pars I, D. 34, c. 10.