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that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he
liveth? For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband,
so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of
her husband. So then, if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another
man, she shall be called an adulteress." And in another place: "the wife is
bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she
is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord." The apostle has
thus cut away every plea and has clearly declared that, if a woman marries
again while her husband is living, she is an adulteress. You must not speak to
me of the violence of a ravisher, a mother's pleading, a father's bidding, the
influence of relatives, the insolence and the intrigues of servants, household
losses. A husband may be an adulterer or a sodomite, he may be stained with
every crime and may have been left by his wife because of his sins; yet he is
still her husband and, so long as he lives, she may not marry another. The
apostle does not promulgate this decree on his own authority but on that of
Christ who speaks in him. For he has followed the words of Christ in the gospel:
"whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth
her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced,
committeth adultery." Mark what he says: "whosoever shall marry her that is
divorced committeth adultery." Whether she has put away her husband or her
husband her, the man who marries her is still an adulterer. I have not been able
quite to determine what it is that she means by the words "has found herself
compelled" to marry again. What is this compulsion of which she speaks? Was she
overborne by a crowd and ravished against her will? If so, why has she not,
thus victimized, subsequently put away her ravisher? Let her read the books of
Moses and she will find that if violence is offered to a betrothed virgin in a
city and she does not cry out, she is punished as an adulteress: but if she is
forced in the field, she is innocent of sin and her ravisher alone is amenable
to the laws. Therefore if your sister, who, as she says, has been forced into a
second union, wishes to receive the body of Christ and not to be accounted an
adulteress, let her do penance; so far at least as from the time she begins to
repent to have no farther intercourse with that second husband who ought to be
called not a husband but an adulterer. If this seems hard to her and if she
cannot leave one whom she has once loved and will not prefer the Lord to sensual
pleasure, let her hear the declaration of the apostle: "ye cannot drink the cup
of the Lord and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table
and of the table of devils," and in another place: "what communion hath light