The Great Gospel of John
Volume 3
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi
- Chapter 67 -
Exceptions in cases of sexuality.
1
(The Lord) "But if your neighbor"s wife, for example, cannot conceive any fruit from her lawful husband but she has a great longing for the awakening of a fruit within her and desires you, contact her husband! If he agrees, you can comply with such a desire without sin. If the woman becomes pregnant and after the pregnancy she again has a desire and her man agrees, you may once again show the woman your kindness, if you are single. But if you yourself are the husband of a fertile woman, you should not deprive your strength of your wife; for Moses allows you in this case to take one or more concubines as necessary besides a legal wife, particularly if the woman is infertile, but always with the permission of the legal wife. But if she becomes very sad about it, then it is time to get rid of the concubines, just as Abraham sent away Hagar, whom he had taken because of the long infertility of his wife, Sarah.
2
But if a woman has run away from her right husband into a foreign land to someone as a single woman concealing that she is already a man"s wife, then he who takes her to be his wife has no sin, even if he finds out afterwards that she is already a man"s wife, but secretly left him because of his harshness and infertility; for when he took the foreigner to be his wife he didn't know that she was already a man"s wife, and when he discovered this she was already his wife, from whom he now cannot be separated, without committing adultery, by anything but death.
3
But in such situations there have happened often very cruel cases. The new husband, if he was under the Law of Moses, then tried to rid himself from the foreign wife if she became annoying by secretly going to her first husband and betraying the unfaithful and adulterous wife. The consequence was that such a wife was then stoned and both men could legally court again. That should no longer happen!
4
And I say to you: In this case a single man should not marry a foreigner before he has investigated all her previous circumstances! If he hasn't found out anything and he feels very attracted to the foreign wife, he should then take her to be his wife; and if he discovers later only accidentally the previous circumstances, he should not be a traitor to his wife, but should keep her in the good faith that he took her. But the wife can atone for her previous sin through great faithfulness towards her new spouse; for God is no unjust judge and knows how to weigh up the weaknesses of the human flesh and to take account of them. But a man who beats his wife to death is worse than an adulterous wife!
5
But assume two neighbors, one of whom could not engender a fruit in his wife because in his youth he had weakened his fertility too much through poor care, while the other neighbor, judging by his many healthy children, possesses a very powerful fertility in that he has lived everywhere and always in the best order and in his youth was kept in good chastity. What would be if the infertile neighbor went to the fertile neighbor and asked him to conceive a fruit in his wife with his great fertility in his place, and if the fertile neighbor did this out of true love for his otherwise good and trusting neighbor without having even the slightest thought of committing lecherousness with his neighbor"s wife, which would be very sinful? You see, that would be neither a sin nor even less adultery, but such an act would be even a praise-worthy secret service of love under mutual silent agreement; secretly because apart from the mentioned people no-one should learn anything about the marriage of the infertile neighbor, so that no-one will be annoyed about it."