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 CHAPTER II

we seek to ascertain the actual teaching of our Lord on the subject of marriage we find ourselves confronted with some grave difficulties. It is very important that these should be seriously considered, for they disallow many natural and attractive misconceptions. There are, then, three broad conditions which determine our knowledge of the mind of Christ on this and other matters.

In the first place we can never wisely or rightly forget that we possess the tradition of the Master's teaching in documents which, though generally trustworthy, are not actually contemporary or first-hand authorities. Christ Himself wrote nothing: two of our four Gospels are admittedly not the work of Apostles; and neither of the others is certainly 22