Breviloquium

Concerning the Sacrament of Marriage, this is to be held in summary: “marriage is the lawful union of a man and a woman, maintaining an indivisible common life.”¹ This union existed not only after sin but also before sin; but before the Sacrament of marriage was instituted as an office, whereas now it is instituted not only as an office but also as a remedy against the disease of lust. Before, it signified the union of God and the soul; now, in addition to this, it signifies the union of Christ and the Church and of the two natures in the unity of one person. — Moreover, this union is brought into being by the free consent of the minds of both persons, expressed outwardly in some sensible sign, but it reaches consummation in carnal intercourse. For by words referring to the future marriage is said to be initiated, by words referring to the present it is ratified, but by carnal intercourse it is consummated. — This Sacrament moreover has three goods, “namely, faith, offspring, and the Sacrament”:² and twelve impediments, which prevent contracting and dissolve what has already been contracted, are contained in these verses: Error, condition, vow, kinship, crime, Disparity of worship, force, order, bond, public honesty; If you are related by affinity, if perhaps you cannot have intercourse: These forbid marriages from being joined; once joined, they undo them. The reason for understanding the foregoing is this: our principle of restoration, namely, the incarnate Word, precisely insofar as it is the Word of God, is the fountain of wisdom in the heights;³ precisely insofar as it is incarnate, it is the fountain of mercy on earth; and therefore, precisely insofar as it is the uncreated Word, it is the former of the human race from supreme wisdom; insofar as it is incarnate, it is its reformer from supreme mercy. For it repairs the human race through mercy because it first made it capable of being repaired through wisdom, which, in view of its supreme order, required that the human race be made capable of standing, capable of falling, and capable even of being repaired, as was shown above⁴. Since, therefore, the Word of God in his wisdom made man, as was fitting, capable of standing, falling, and rising, it follows that he ordered the human race to be propagated in such a way that from the very manner of propagation it would have what could lead it to stand; it would also have what could lead it to a remedy, just as in that propagation there is something introduced through sin, namely, lust, which transmits the disease. And because man’s state arose from the union of his soul with God through unitive love in a most chaste, singular, and indivisible manner, the remedy arose from the union of the divine and human natures in the unity of hypostasis and person—a unity, I say, introduced by divine grace as singular and indivisible. Hence God established from the beginning that propagation should take place through the indivisible and singular union of man and woman, which before sin would signify the union of God and the soul, or of God and the subcelestial hierarchy,⁵ and after sin the union of God and human nature, or of Christ and the Church. And therefore in both cases it is a Sacrament, before and after, although in one way and another with respect to signification and use. For since it was a Sacrament before the disease supervened, lust, which came through sin, is rather excused by marriage than able to corrupt it; for it is not the disease that corrupts the medicine, but the medicine that cures the disease.⁶ — From this it is clearly evident what marriage is and how it was divinely brought into being. Again, since each of the aforementioned spiritual unions signified in the Sacrament of marriage is a union of one party as agent and influencer, and the other as patient and recipient, with the bond of love effecting this, a bond that proceeds from sheer will, it follows that marriage ought to be the union of two persons differing according to the relation of agent and patient, namely, of the male and female sexes, and this by the mere consent of the will. — And since the will does not appear outwardly except through signs expressing it, mutual consent must therefore be expressed outwardly.⁷ — But since consent concerning the future is not properly consent but its promise, and consent before intercourse does not make a full union because they are not yet one flesh, it follows that by words concerning the future marriage is said to be initiated, by those concerning the present confirmed, but by carnal intercourse consummated, because then they are one flesh and become one body; and thus it fully signifies that union which exists between us and Christ. For then the body of one is fully transferred into the body of the other according to the authority of one’s spouse⁸ for the procreation of offspring. And therefore the three goods of marriage itself are: the Sacrament, on account of the indissoluble bond; faith, on account of the fulfilment of the conjugal debt; and offspring, as the effect that follows from both. Finally, since the said marital union ought to proceed from free consent toward the intercourse of persons who are distinct, into the single law of marriage, and this can be impeded in twelve ways, it follows that there are twelve impediments to marriage. This is clear as follows. — For matrimonial consent requires freedom in the consent, freedom in the consenting person, and fitness for union. But freedom in consent is taken away in two ways, corresponding to the two parts of the involuntary, namely, ignorance and violence.⁹ Thus there are two impediments, error and violence. — Freedom in the consenting person, however, is taken away by the fact that someone is bound to another, either to God or to a human being. If to God, this occurs either through an expressed vow or through something to which a vow is attached. The first is found in the vow, the second in Order. But if to a human being, this occurs in two ways: either through an existing bond or through a prior one. The first is found in the bond by which someone is bound to a wife; the second in crime, when an adulterer or adulteress has plotted the death of a spouse, or, while the spouse is alive, has pledged faith to marry. And thus there are four impediments: vow, Order, bond, and crime. — Fitness for union is a suitable distance between persons, which is removed either by excessive proximity or by excessive remoteness. Excessive proximity comes¹⁰ through generation or through something akin to generation, such as legal and spiritual kinship; or it comes through sexual intercourse, or through the contracting of betrothal. And thus there are three impediments: kinship, affinity, and the public honesty of justice. — Excessive distance is considered either with respect to things belonging to nature, as when the persons cannot have sexual intercourse; or with respect to things belonging to fortune, which are not in our power, as is clear when one is a slave and the other is free; or with respect to things belonging to the Christian religion, as when one is baptized and the other is not. And thus there are three impediments: impotence to have intercourse, error of condition, and disparity of religion. — Thus altogether there are twelve impediments, which were introduced into the Church at the direction of the Holy Spirit. Although all the Sacraments have been entrusted to the Church, the Sacrament of marriage has been entrusted to it above all¹¹ to regulate, because of the variations that can arise concerning this Sacrament and because of the disease attached to it, which is highly infectious and least of all restrained by measure. Therefore it belongs to the Church itself to limit the degrees of kinship as it sees fit for the time, to judge persons legitimate or illegitimate, and to grant divorces. But it never ought, nor can it, annul a marriage that was lawfully brought into being, because a human being cannot separate those whom God has joined, however great his power may be,¹² since all remain to be judged by God’s judgment.