A Marriage Fiction Dissected

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 7, 15 February 1906, Page 1

A Marriage Fiction Dissected

A New Zealand contemporary has on its staff a vujter who is, like one of Sheridan's noted charicters, gifted with a free tongue and a ' bold invention. ' Marriage,' said he in the latest issue, * w.as not solemnised in churches or as a religious rite until the time of Pope Innocent 111. (A.D. 1198), and was not considered a Sacrament till 1442.' * No evidence is, of course, tendered. No references are given. The public are seriously asked to swallow, without sniffing at it, the uncorroborated statement of

a writer without a name. The story is set down as a 1 fact ' about marriage. But the ' fact ' happens to be a sheen fiction — the sort) of slapdash romance that is all too frequently contributed to the columns of the secular press by slipshod amateurs who fancy they know something about Church history and theology, and can impart that knowledge to others. The subject is much too vast for anything but the most summary treatment in the limited space of an editorial paragraph. A few brief references, however, from Christian antiquity will suffice to enable our readers to mark how plalin a lale can put down the anonymous writer's story. The Anglican Dean of Lichfield, in his ' History of Marriage ' (p. 43), says, writing of the presence and miracle of Christ at the marriage feast of Cana in Galilee :—: — ' None can 'doubt that the benediction which He gave to the bride and the bridegroom at Cana of Galilee must have impressed the guests and spectators with a new and sacred sense of its (matrimony's) forgotten dignity. The early Church, a true exponent of its Founder's mind, had no hesitation in interpreting 1 1 is presence ax indicative of His desire to sanctify afresh the union af man and wife, and to bless it in the name of Hun "by Whose gracious gift mankind is increased." ' The great St. Ambrose, for instance, died in the year 30 7» — over a .thousand years in advance of the magic date 1112. Yet in his 'De Abraham ' (i., 7) he describes 1 Imat rimony as a 'grace-confer ring mystery or Sacrament. So does St. Augustine (' Tract. IX. in Joann.'), who flitted to Ihe Better Land in the year 130. So, too, does St. Cyril of Alexandria (' Joannis Evang.', cap. ii., 1-11), who passed to the higher life in 411. Much more, 1 might be said as to the mind of The Church, both in East and West, in regard to the .sacrament al character of Christian marriage before the year of grace IM2. The writer in question confounded two things that are quite distinct : the belief of the Church in regard to marriage, and the formulating of that belief in the shape of a dogmatic decree. The Catholic teaching regarding marriage is now held by a large and growing section of Anglican Protestants. In the fifth edition of ' A Manual of Instruction for Members of the Anglican Church, 1 by the Rev. Vernon Staley, we read, for instance, (p. 2 7*3 ) : ' Holy Matrimony, or Marriage, is the Sacrament which hallows the union of man and woman, and bestows upon them the grace to live together in godliness and love.' .* ' There is no doubt,' says Procter (Anglican), in his ' History of the Book of Common Prayer ' (17th cd., pp. 40 !)-(j), ' that marriage has been solemnised with religious rites from the earliest times of the (Christian Church. 1 And in his ' History of Marriage,' Dean Luckock (also an Anglican), says (p ii) : ' From the Aery beginning of Christianity, the sacred character of the marriage rite asserted itself, and the presence of the bishop or priest to conduct the service was made indispensable.' St. Ignatius of Antioch, for instance, reqaiired the mariiagc ceremony should be performed only by the counsel or direction of the bishop (Ep. ad Polycarp., n. 5). And be it noted that St. Ignatius died about the year 107, in the very dawn of the Christian faith. Here is an extract, from Tertullian, who died about the year 240 (' Ad Uxor. ii., 9) :—: — ' Unde suflTiciamus ad enarrandam felicitatem ejus matrimonii quod ecclesia conciliat, et confirmat oblatio, et obsignat benedictio, angeli renunciant, Pater rato habet ? ' Thus, nearly a thousand years before the days of Pope Innocent HI., Tertullian finds himself unable to express the happiness of a marriage that is brought about by the procurement of the Church, confirmed by the offering of the Sacrifice of the Mass, and sealed and sanctified by the blessing of the priest. What further need is there to add testimony to testimony — to

cite Fathers and Councils for a matter that is within the knowledge of every tyro in liturgical and ecclesiastical history ? But the scrap of dislocated historical romance -which we have been criticising serres to point a moral. And the moral is, the danger to faith that is incurred by those of our co-religionists who bar the Catholic paper out of their homes, and make the secular press their sole journalistic gospel.