Dist. 33, Art. 3, Q. 1
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/4/d/33/q/bon-sent-IV-d33-a3-q1
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### Article III. *On repudiation.*

Next, as regards the third article, inquiry is made concerning repudiation. And concerning this three things are asked. First it is asked whether it was licit to repudiate a wife. Secondly, whether it ought to have been permitted. Thirdly, inquiry is made concerning the reconciliation of the repudiated woman herself.

### Question I. *Whether it was licit to repudiate a wife.*

As to the first, that it was licit is shown thus.

1. The Law of Moses punished illicit things; therefore what was not punished under the Law, in the time of the Law, was licit; but repudiation was not punished: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, that is licit which is prohibited by no law; but the Jews were not bound to any law other than the one given to them by God: therefore everything was licit that was not prohibited in that law. But repudiation was not prohibited in it: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, everything is licit that is commanded by divine inspiration; but Moses, breathed upon by divine inspiration, gave a second law, namely Deuteronomy, in which, in the twenty-fourth chapter, he commands that a bill of divorce be given: therefore it seems that it is licit.

4. Likewise, that is licit which is done for a reasonable cause; but it is a reasonable cause that a hateful partnership be separated, especially when it arises from an externally moving cause: therefore if a man, on account of her deformity, held his wife hateful, it seems [licit] etc.

5. Likewise, the law of matrimony is more perfect in the new [dispensation] than in the old; but in the new it is licit to be separated from a wife for some cause, such as the cause of fornication: therefore it seems that in the old law too it was licit, for some cause, that repudiation be made.

**On the contrary:**
1. Nothing is licit that is against the divine institution; but divorce is against the divine institution, since God joined together male and female: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, nothing is licit that is against the law of nature; but the law of nature dictates that one should not do to another what he does not wish to be done to himself: therefore, since a man would not wish to be repudiated by his wife, he ought not to repudiate her.

3. Likewise, nothing is licit in which there is sin; but in divorce there is sin, because Chrysostom says that «he who according to the Law dismisses [his wife] commits four iniquities, since before God he is a homicide» etc.: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, the union of husband and wife is greater than that of father and son, because it is said in the second [chapter] of Genesis: *A man shall leave his father and mother* etc.; but it is licit for no one to repudiate his father: therefore etc.

5. Likewise, on the authority of the Lord, in Matthew the nineteenth: *It is not licit to dismiss a wife, except for the cause of fornication*; but on account of that there was no divorce, rather the woman was stoned; and there was no other cause: therefore it was never licit.

### Conclusion.

> The repudiation of a wife was never licit so as to be done without fault, but only [so as to be done] without penalty.

**I respond:** It must be said that, according to what the Lord says, the repudiation of a wife was never licit so as to be done without fault; yet it was licit so as to be done without penalty. Hence that *something is licit for someone* is so for a twofold reason: either because *the rectitude of the law* does not stand in the way — and in this sense repudiation was not licit; or because *the punishment of the law* does not stand in the way — and in this manner it was licit to repudiate a wife, since then the punishment of the law did not stand in the way.

**To the arguments on the opposite side:**
*To 1, 2.* From this, then, is clear what he objects, namely that the Law of Moses did not punish nor prohibit [it]. For although the Law of Moses did not prohibit it, because it had not decreed to punish it; nevertheless the law of nature and the dictate of reason said the contrary.

*To 3.* As to what is objected, that Moses commands [it]; it must be said that Moses *prohibited* one thing in repudiation, *commanded* another, *permitted* another: he prohibited dismissing a wife without cause; he permitted dismissing a wife for the cause of foulness; and he *commanded* that a bill be given; and in the giving of the bill there was no sin, but [rather] in the dismissal.

*To 4.* As to what is objected concerning a reasonable cause, it must be said that husband and wife are joined by God individually [i.e. indivisibly]; therefore there can be no cause of separation as regards the *bond*; as regards the *debt* there can be a cause [in] a defect of faith [fidelity], since one does not keep faith with the other; and because *that* was not then a cause, therefore there was no reasonable cause.

*To 5.* And the last is clear: because there can be no cause, as will be shown below, why a wife may not render the debt to her husband except fornication, since *by what things a man sins, by these also he is tormented*; and that [cause] did not then exist, nor can any other: and therefore etc.