Proof please for such a wild assertion. (and its a lie... you will find out).
First, let's both look at what Jesus himself said in Matthew 9:6:
"...what God has joined together, let man not separate." (Matthew 19:6).
The context of this pronouncement is equally important, for most Jews of Jesus' day thought divorce was allowable in certain cases.
In the Book of Malachi, God says that he
hated divorce.
Athenagoras, a Christian father who lived about 150 years after Jesus, contrasts Christian marriage and behavior with the "incestuous licentiousness of the pagans and their gods." For him,
the only Christian options are the single life or a single marriage. Remarriage is out of the question. In other words, Athenagoras followed most other Christians back then that God designed for a man to have no more than one wife in his lifetime.
Christian polemicist Justin Martyr quoted Jesus and declared that any divorced woman should never be allowed to re-marry.
The great Jewish teacher Shammi said only infidelity (only on the part of the wife, of course) was grounds for divorce, while the liberal rabbi Hillel said divorce was permissible for just about any reason--"even if," he declared "she burn his soup."
R.M. Grant in
Early Christianity and Society devotes an entire chapter to the conflict between early Christians and pagans in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th centuries over the topic of divorce. The people who thought it was important to follow Jesus believed that divorce was forbidden. The early church father Tertullian in his
Apology also advocated this same position for his Christian adherents.
P. Gorday in
Principles of Patristic Excess and
Romans 8-11 in Origen, John Chrysostom and Augustine clearly show the bulk of Christians not only believed in staying married but also advocated celebicy for some--even in marriage itself.
And Paul--who remained single as his life--said his bottom line was that no one should be married (
"...I wish that all men were even as I myself."
Even as late as the Council of Trent in 1563 Pope Pius IV spoke about those who chose remain in virginity or celibacy than to be united in matrimony
let him be anathema."
To claim the writings and behavior of early Christians to be "wild" and "a lie" when it comes to divorce clearly contradicts the efforts and research of scholars and historians who have studied the matter all their lives.
I hope you do your own research on this and don't just take my--or anyone else's--word for it.
