Pius XI, 1922-1939

and he that marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery" [Luke 16:18].

Moreover, St. Augustine places in this indissolubility what he calls "the blessing of the sacrament," in these clear words: "But in the sacrament it is intended that the marriage be not broken, and that the man or the woman dismissed be not joined with another, even for the sake of offspring." ¹

2235. And this inviolable stability, although not of the same perfect measure in every case, pertains to all true marriages; for that saying of the Lord, "What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder," although, said of the marriage of our first parents, the prototype of every future marriage, must apply to all true marriages. Therefore, although before Christ the sublimity and severity of the primeval law were so tempered that Moses allowed the citizens of the people of God because of the hardness of their hearts to grant a bill of divorce for certain causes; yet Christ in accord with His power as Supreme Legislator revoked this permission of greater license, and restored the primeval law in its entirety through those words which are never to be forgotten: "What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder." So, most wisely did Pius VI, Our predecessor of happy memory, writing to the Bishop of Agria,² say: "From this it is manifestly clear that matrimony, even in the state of nature, and surely long before it was raised to the dignity of a sacrament properly so called, was so established by God that it carries with it a perpetual and indissoluble bond, which, accordingly, cannot be dissolved by any civil law. And so, although the sacramental element can be separated from matrimony, as is true in a marriage between infidels, still in such a marriage, inasmuch as it is a true marriage, there must remain and surely does remain that perpetual bond which by divine right is so inherent in marriage from its very beginning that it is not subject to any civil power. And so whatever marriage is said to be contracted, either it is so contracted that it is in fact a true marriage, and then will have that perpetual bond inherent by divine law in every true marriage, or it is supposed to be contracted without that perpetual bond, and then is not a marriage, but an illicit union repugnant by its purpose to the divine law, and therefore cannot be entered upon or maintained.³

2236. If this stability seems subject to exception, however rare, as in the case of certain natural marriages entered into between unbelievers, or if between the faithful of Christ, those which are valid but not consummated, that exception does not depend on the will of man or of any merely