The church was ambitious to take the matter of divorce procedure entirely into her own hands; to establish a real jurisdiction which would enable her effectually to forbid separation except on the grounds which she herself approved, and to compel the restitution of married life when separation occurred for any other cause.[130] It was long before this ambition was realized. The council of Agde as early as the year 505 did indeed declare, in effect, that, besides the penal sentence of the temporal court, a recognition of the grounds of divorce by the ecclesiastical authority shall be required for a separation; and whoever puts away his wife without first satisfying these conditions shall be excommunicated.[131] To this decree, so emphatic in its demands, the origin of spiritual jurisdiction in divorce questions is commonly traced;[132] but this seems far from being the truth. The decree must rather be accepted as an early but "isolated" expression of an ideal toward which the church for ages was striving; and as such it became of more and more importance as the great doctors of the canon law found themselves in a position to give it meaning.[133] [Footnote 130: The church sought through excommunication and her system of penance to enforce her rules regarding divorce. Her relation to the state in this regard is thus forcibly described by GEFFCKEN, _op. cit._, 51: "Da jedoch eine aufrichtige Busse in unserem Falle sinngemäss nur möglich ist, wenn die ungerechtfertigte Scheidung rückgängig gemacht wird, so operiert die Kirche hier mit einer _lex plus quam perfecta_, d. h. einem Gesetz, das die Zuwiderhandlung bestraft und gleichzeitig für nichtig erklärt, während dem weltlichen Richter nur eine _lex minus quam perfecta_ zu Gebote steht, er also nur die Übertretung bestrafen, nicht aber den durch sie herbeigeführten Zustand redressieren kann. In dieser Sachlage ist die Erklärung der ganzen Geschichte des christlichen Ehescheidungsrechtes bis zum endgültigen Siege der kirchlichen Doktrin enthalten."] [Footnote 131: C. 25, Council of Agde reads: "Saeculares, qui coniugale consortium nulla graviori culpa dimittunt vel etiam dimiserunt et nullas causas discidii probabiliter proponentes propterea sua matrimonia dimittunt, ut aut illicita aut aliena praesumant, si antequam apud episcopos comprovinciales discidii causas dixerint et priusquam iudicio damnentur, uxores suas abiecerint, a communione ecclesiae et sancto populi coetu pro eo, quod fidem et coniugia maculant, excludentur." _Cf._ GEFFCKEN, _op. cit._, 50; FREISEN, _op. cit._, 781.] [Footnote 132: It is preferably cited by Hincmar of Rheims in his decree concerning the divorce of Lothar and Teutberge; and since Regino of Prüm it belongs to the standing armor of the canonists, until it receives its immortalization in the decree of Gratian (c. 33, qu. 2, c. 1): GEFFCKEN, _op. cit._, 52, note.]