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Mat_19:9. See note on Mat_5:32.
μὴ ἐπὶ πορν .] not on account of fornication, i.e. adultery. The deleting of those words (Hug, de conjug. vinculo indissolub. p. 4 f.; Maier’s note on 1Co_7:11; but also Keim, who sees in them the correction of a subsequent age) is justified neither by critical evidence, which Keim himself admits, nor by the following ὁ ἀπολελ . γαμ . μοιχᾶται , which is in no way inconsistent with the exception under consideration, seeing that, as a matter of course, the ἀπολελ . refers to a woman who has been divorced arbitrarily, μὴ ἐπὶ πορν . (see note on Mat_5:32); nor by Mat_19:10, where the question of the disciples can be sufficiently accounted for; nor by 1Co_7:11 (see note on this passage). We are therefore as little warranted in regarding the words as an interpolation on the part of the evangelist in accordance with a later tradition (Gratz, Weisse, Volkmar, Schenkel). The exception which they contain to the law against divorce is the unica et adaequata exceptio, because adultery destroys what, according to its original institution by God, constitutes the very essence of marriage, the unitas carnis; while, on this account also, it furnishes a reason not merely for separation a toro et mensa (Catholic expositors), but for separation quoad vinculum. To say, as Keim insists (according to Mark), that Jesus breaks with Moses, is unwarranted, not only by Matthew’s narrative, but also by Mark’s; and any indication of such a breach would betray the influence of a later age.
μοιχᾶται ] commits adultery, because, in fact, his marriage with the woman whom he has arbitrarily dismissed has not yet been disannulled. The second μοιχᾶται is justified: because this ἀπολελυμένη is still the lawful wife of him who has, in an arbitrary manner, put her away.