The Purpose of Marriage and the Women's Question

This is the same homily of Asterius from the Gospel according to Matthew, on the subject: 'Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?'

A good company of these two days is found for the Christians and the hard-working ones, I say, the Sabbath and the Lord's Day, which the cycle of time revolves around every week. For just as mothers or nurses of the church gather the people and establish the priests as teachers, they also lead the disciples and the teachers into the care of souls. For me, therefore, the word of the Friday still echoes, and the things suffered are settled in the memory.

I see the cross springing from the prophecy of Isaiah, and the garments of the Lord as if stained with blood like those of the lamb, and the Savior carrying the reward at hand on his right hand. And I see Solomon, the scales and the weights being precise for power. And I pity the debtor of the Gospel, not sharing with the fellow-slave of philanthropy, which he received from the master, but renewing his own misfortune from thoughtlessness and hardness of heart.

For these headings, as you all know, we burned with desire during the past session, you who did not place your listening in a secondary matter.

But today again there are many and all good things for us, as many as the Spirit has set upon the table being seen. And I applied my mind to the unhospitable and testing Pharisees, and I pitied them greatly for the exhaustion of their ways, through which they attempted to appear wise by their own questions, seeking the source of wisdom; and they failed to grasp the essence of the Only-begotten Divinity, as their questions were always turning away from it.

Concerning these, it seems to me, Isaiah also, prophesying, was saying: 'They turn the prudent backward and make foolish their counsel, and they weave the words of his child'; and again...

They were acting deceitfully with their tongues; let God judge them; let them fall away from their conspiracies. However, they are even useful, for they have set wisdom in motion toward an answer, so that for us, the servants, a record remains of what is profitable for learning.

For behold, marriage is being regulated, a central matter of human life, and the terms for its joining and its dissolving are being strictly legislated. Let the two ranks listen most earnestly, so that the women's sphere may be instructed in its own matters and the men's sphere may be benefited by the exceptional things.

If it is permitted for a man to divorce his wife for every cause (Matt 19:3)—this is the question posed by the Hebrews. I see the purpose of the question among the others. Because the female race is more easily persuaded and leans more toward the working of wonders and toward the agreement and faith in the divinity of Christ, even so, the multitude of women, who were the last of the man-slayers by drawing the Lord toward the cross by their will, were moved to passion and followed the Savior weeping compassionately, so that they might devise some obstacle and hostility toward Him through the mechanism of women's schemes—they themselves, as they thought, applied the traps and the yokes through words.

But the Lord, seeing the wickedness being constructed by the power of divinity, and also dogmatizing the friends of the cross in their lives, working for them a vain ambush, while assisting the women, puts forward the answer, having sent the Pharisees away empty like wolves, surrounding them with the hollow question. She Creation says, the purpose is demonstrated for union and not for dissolution; and regarding marriage, the Creator was first the wedding-procession leader, having joined the first-formed men in the bond of marriage, giving to them...