Правило 21 Василия Великого

If a husband, cohabiting with his wife, and then not being satisfied with the marriage, falls into fornication: we consider such a fornicator, and we leave him under penance for a long time. However, we have no rule to subject him to the guilt of adultery, if the sin was committed with a woman free from marriage. For it is said: an adulteress who defiles herself will be defiled, and will not return to her husband (Jer. 3:1), likewise: he who contains an adulteress is foolish and wicked (Prov. 18:23). But he who commits fornication is not separated from cohabitation with his wife, and the wife must accept her husband who turns from fornication: but the husband drives out the defiled wife from his home. The reason for this is not easy to give, but it has become a custom. (Basily Vel. 9, 19, 21, 26, 34, 37, 39, 58, 59, 77, 79, 80; Gregory of Nyssa. 4). The uncertainty that we saw in the 9th rule of Basil the Great also occurs here, and here it is even more noticeable. And here Saint Basil speaks of a custom that existed in his time, as in canon 9; only here he emphasizes the unfoundedness of such and notes that it is difficult to find justification for its existence (τούτων δε ό λόγος ού ράδιος). According to this custom, a husband who cheated on his wife was judged as a fornicator (πόρνος, fornicalor), but not as an adulterer (μοιχός, adulter), if only he sinned with a woman free from marriage (έλευθεραν γάμου), therefore, a woman without husband (μή άνδρα έχουσαν), and the legal wife did not have the right to leave her unfaithful husband. And vice versa, a wife who has a husband and cheats on him by giving herself to a married or unmarried man is judged as an adulteress, and her husband has the right to expel her from himself. That this custom passed into the Christian Church from pagan Roman legislation (according to which all marital rights belonged only to the husband, while the wife had almost no rights) - we talked about this in the interpretation of the 9th rule of Basil the Great; There we also mentioned that the fathers and teachers of the church have always condemned this custom. In his present (21) rule, Basil the Great emphasizes the groundlessness of such a custom, which nevertheless existed in the 4th century, about which Zonara, in the 12th century, in his interpretation of this rule, notes that it is devoid of a reasonable basis 54. A husband is guilty of adultery if he cheats on his wife by getting together with another woman, married or unmarried; in the same way, a wife is guilty of adultery if she cheats on her husband by getting together with another man. The consequences of adultery are the same for both husband and wife. This is the evangelical and patristic teaching, which found precise expression in the 4th rule of the younger brother of Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, who defines adultery as έπιβουλήν τε καί άδικίαν τού αλλότρύου (insidiae et injuria quae alteri affertur). And that by τού αλλοτρίου we must understand both husband and wife equally is proved by the words of the same rule: μία εστίν ή νόμιμος συζυγία, καί γυναικός πρός άνδρα, καί ανδρός πρός γυναίκα. Only in the 6th century did the church's teaching on the equality of conjugal rights in the marriage of husband and wife penetrate into Greco-Roman legislation, so that Justinian, by the way, gives the wife the right to demand a divorce from her husband if he proves that the husband is in an illicit relationship with another woman and does not want to break these ties 55. Based on this teaching of the church and in particular on the basis of the 4th rule of Gregory of Nyssa, we have defined adultery as an illegal relationship with someone else’s wife or someone else’s husband 56. Dr. Zhishman in his Eherecht (S. 581) defines adultery as sexual intercourse with someone else’s wife (carnal intercourse with someone else’s marriage wife), and in order to support this definition, he refers to the interpretations of Balsamon and the Pidalion of the 4th rule of Gregory of Nyssa and to Alf. Syntagma M. Vlastar. Not to mention that in the quote by Af. The syntagma that Zhishman cites as an argument of M. Vlastar (and this would be M, 14 Alpha. Syntagms of M. Vlastar), there is nothing that could serve as confirmation of his definition, nor can quotes from Balsamon and Pidalion serve as such confirmation, for the quotation from Pidalion is dark in itself, and the quotation from Balsamon is nothing more than arbitrary paraphrases of the definition of the adultery of Gregory of Nyssa, which, therefore, all three references are unsuccessful - we argue that the mentioned definition of Zhishman is erroneous, and especially when he claims that this is the Feststellung des kirchlichen Grundsatzes about adultery. This definition is erroneous mainly because it is based on a one-sided understanding of the 9th and 21st rules of Basil the Great (4th rule of Basil in the 2nd note on p. 582 was incorrectly quoted instead of 21 rules), and as a result of this one-sided understanding, all the quotes given by Zhishman were chosen one-sidedly. For example, in 1 approx. on page 583, in support of this, he cites Zonara’s interpretation of the 9th rule of Basil, according to which the one who copulates with another man’s wife is called an adulterer; Meanwhile, Zonara here says this: “For if a wife leaves her husband and copulates with another, then she should be considered an adulteress and is not accepted by the husband if he does not wish it... If a husband breaks the bonds of marriage with his wife and begins to live with another, then he is an adulterer (Af. Synth., IV, 121). The situation is exactly the same with the quotation from Aristinian interpretation (Aph. Synth., IV, 123). Link to Zonara's interpretation of 21 rights. Basil the Great says absolutely nothing in favor of Zhishman's definition, as we said above in the text. The quotation from Alf also proves nothing. Syntagms of M. Vlastar, where this quote is taken from (Af. Synt., VI, 379), in Vlastar there is only one law of ancient Roman law (Digest. XLVIII, 5), indicating how ancient Roman legislation looked at the issue of adultery. The canonical definition of adultery is given by the 4th rule of Gregory of Nyssa, which we mentioned in the text, and any other definition that is not based on the definition of Gregory of Nyssa cannot be considered canonical and is, therefore, correct. I had the opportunity to talk about this with the late Zhishman personally (in 1893), drawing his attention to the fact that he himself, in his book, denies his definition of adultery. On page 582, he says that “only the infidelity (betrayal) of a wife should be considered a marriage offense in the proper sense of the word, while the infidelity of a husband - only if he copulates with a married woman, or, if he is legally married, if he enters into a new marriage.” What Zhishman says in § about the conditions under which adultery should serve as an obstacle to marriage (p. 587 et seq.) is no longer consistent with this, and even less consistent with what he says about adultery as a reason for divorce (p. 734 et seq.), in particular with his own words below (p. 474): “But since the principle of legal equality of spouses, supported by the church, mainly required change here, then, over time, such a right was also recognized for the wife-wife in cases where the husband’s depravity had a detrimental effect on the moral and religious foundations of the family...” And this is exactly the same thing that we said in the interpretations of 25 Ap. and 9 and 21 rules of Basil the Great, and what we say in the interpretation of 4 rules of Gregory of Nyssa. Zhishman agreed with my remark, and stated that he had already corrected the relevant section of his work, which was being prepared for the 2nd edition, which, however, due to the death of a good and honored scientist in our science, never saw the light of day. You might be interested in: