tion with the legislation above described, produced the law
formulated by Justinian.

_The Christian View of Divorce._--The Christian law of divorce as
enunciated by its Founder was expressed in a few words, but these,
unfortunately, by no means of agreed interpretation. To appreciate them
it is necessary to consider the enactment of the Mosaic law, which also
was expressed in few words, but of a meaning involved in much doubt. The
phrase in Deut. xxiv. 1-4, which is translated in the Authorized Version
"some uncleanness," but in the Revised Version, "some unseemly thing,"
and which is the only cause stated to justify the giving of a "bill of
divorcement," was limited by the school of Shanmai to moral delinquency,
but was extended by the rival school of Hillel to causes of trifling
importance or even to motives of caprice. The wider interpretation would
seem to be supported by the words of Christ (Matt. v. 31), who, in
indicating His own doctrine in contradistinction to the law of Moses,
said, "Whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of
fornication ([Greek: porneias]), causeth her to commit adultery; and
whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery." The
meaning of these words of Christ Himself has been involved in
controversy, which perhaps was nowhere carried on with greater acuteness
or under more critical conditions than within the walls of the British
parliament during the passage of the Divorce Act of 1857. That they
justify divorce of a complete kind for moral delinquency of some nature
is supported by the opinion probably of every competent scholar. But
scholars of eminence have sought to restrict the meaning of the [Greek:
logos porneias] to antenuptial incontinence concealed from the husband,
and to exclude adultery. The effect of this view commends itself to the
adherents of the Church of Rome, because it places the right to
separation between husband and wife, not on a cause supervening after a
marriage, which that Church seeks to regard as absolutely indissoluble,
but on invalidity in the contract of marriage itself, and which may
therefore render the marriage liable to be declared void without
impugning its indissoluble character when rightly contracted. The
narrower view of the meaning of [Greek: porneias] has been maintained
by, among others, Dr Dollinger (_First Ages of the Church_, ii. 226);
but those who will consider the arguments of Professor Conington in
reply to D