(8) Teaching of Christ. In Matt. v :32, Christ seems to assume that the practice of divorce for adultery already existed. In later times, it cer tainly did; and Jews who were averse to parting with their adulterous wives were compelled to put them away (Daimon. in Gerushin, c:2). In the passage just referred to, our Lord does not appear to render divorce compulsory, even in case of adultery; he only permits it in that case alone, by forbidding it in every other.
(7) Roman Law. It seems that the Roman law made the same important distinction with the Hebrew, between the infidelity of the husband and of the wife. 'Adultery' was defined by the civil ians to be the violation of another man's bed so that the infidelity of the husband could not con stitute the offense. The more ancient laws of Rome, which were very severe against the offense of the wife, were silent as to that of the husband. The offense was not capital until made so by Con stantine, in imitation of the Jewish law; but un der Leo and Marcian the penalty was abated to perpetual imprisonment, or cutting off the nose; and, under Justinian, the further mitigation was granted to the woman, that she was only to be scourged, to lose her dower, and to be shut up in a convent.
The punishment of cutting off the nose brings to mind the passage in which the prophet Ezekiel (xxiii :25), after, in the name of the Lord, reprov ing Israel and Judah for their adulteries (i. e., idolatries) with the Assyrians and Chaldeans, threatens the punishment—'they shall take away thy nose and thy cars,' which Jerome states was actually the punishment of adultery in those na tions. One or both of these mutilations, most
generally that of the nose, were also inflicted by other nations, as the Persians and Egyptians, and even the Romans; but we suspect that among the former, as with the latter, it was less a judicial punishment than a summary infliction by the ag grieved party.
It would also seem that these mutilations were more 'usually inflicted on the male than the female adulterer. In Egypt, however, cutting off the nose was the female punishment, and the man was beaten terribly with rods (Died. Sic. i 9o). The respect with which the conjugal union was treated in that country in the earliest times is manifested in the history of Abraham (Gen. xii:t9). (Sec MARRIAGE.) Symbolical. Adultery, in the symbolical lan guage of the Old Testament, means idolatry and apostasy from the worship of the true God (Jer. 9; Ezek. xvi:32; xxiii :37; also Rev. ii :22). Hence an Adulteress meant an apostate church or city, particularly 'the daughter of Jerusalem,' or the Jewish church and people (Is. I :2I _Ter. iii :6, 8, 9: Ezek. xvi :22: XXill :7). This figure resulted from the primary one, which describes the con nection between God and his separated people as a marriage between him and them. By an application of the same figure, 'An adulterous generation' (Matt. xii :39; xvi :4 ; Mark viii :38) means a faithless and impious generation.