III. To the Initial Arguments that are for the Second Opinion

99. He who wants to hold the first opinion can easily reply to the arguments to the contrary:

To the authorities of Deuteronomy and Malachi [nn.65-66], that they are permissions of a lesser evil, but yet of mortal sin, lest a graver mortal sin come about.

100. As to the second [n.67], that rule is true precisely of dissoluble obligations, of which sort this obligation is not. It could also be said to the minor that this obligation is born from the wills of the contracting parties as from the instrumental cause but principally from divine approval; and the rule ought not to be understood of instrumental causes. Hence does God prove inseparability from the principal cause, Matthew 19.6, “What     therefore God has joined etc     .”Scotus apparently gave no separate response to the third argument [n.68]. Perhaps the reply could be that the matrimony in this case is not so much dissolved as its effect permanently suspended, because the wife’s offense compromises the proper exercise of clerical office in the husband. She must live in secluded penance, and he in celibate ministry. In other words, the ‘repudiation’ and ‘dismiss’ talked of in the Decretum are not the sort talked of in the Mosaic Law, but mean repudiating and dismissing, not the matrimony, but, by way of due penalty, the exercising of it. Christ seems indeed to have such cases in mind in Matthew 5.32 when he speaks of putting away a wife “except for the cause of fornication.” ⁹²