or illegal. In none of his teachings have we greater economy of expression, but in none is his meaning less in doubt.
But it would be an incomplete presentation of the position of Jesus to stop at this point. If we attempt to arrange his thought in any system, the union of two persons in marriage becomes one factor in the union of the race; a union which appears at once natural for mankind, and also a symbol of that divine social order which is to come, when all men are to be sons of God and society thus a brotherhood. It is not the creature of law. Law can simply recognize and protect it. With Jesus marriage on its physical side is an actual union of complementing personalities–a forming of one flesh. It is one of the primal facts of human life, and because it is a conditioning fact and not a merely formal conception of the law books, it is especially sacred and inviolable. It is in itself a fraternity—a microcosmic kingdom of God.
On its physical side Jesus regards marriage—like the other physical elements in the evolving social order—as an institution to be found only in the present seon. The much-married woman of the Sadducees' riddle,[1] in the life beyond the grave was no longer to be subject to the perplexing levirate law, for in the resurrection humanity neither marries nor is given in marriage, but is to be as the angels of heaven. And yet while Jesus thus recognizes the physical basis of marriage, he never regards it as in any way sinful or ignoble; so far is he removed from the perversions that an ascetic faith has so frequently forced upon humanity. As long as human nature and human relations are as they are, so long will marriage be the first human tie. For it ties otherwise the closest are to be broken. Filial dependence, the family itself are to yield before the marital union and the future family. But the physical is not the only, nor is it the permanent element in marriage. This must be found in the same fraternal spirit which guarantees a perpetuation of the kingdom. Just as this ideal society is independent of physical bounds and changing physical elements, so, we may infer, is the
- ↑ Matt. 22:23; Mark 12:18–25; Luke 20:27–36.
