And so I asked myself if the meaning here was not simply that whoever puts away his wife, besides being himself guilty of libertinism (since no one puts away his wife except to take another), exposes his wife to the commission of adultery? If, in the original text, the word translated "adultery" or "fornication" had the meaning of libertinism, the meaning of the passage would be clear. And then I met with the same experience that had happened to me before in similar instances. The text confirmed my suppositions and entirely effaced my doubts. The first thing that occurred to me in reading the text was that the word [Greek: porneia], translated in common with [Greek: moichasthai], "adultery" or "fornication," is an entirely different word from the latter. But perhaps these two words are used as synonyms in the Gospels? I consulted the dictionary, and found that the word [Greek: porneia], corresponding in Hebrew to _zanah_, in Latin to _fornicatio_, in German to _hurerei_, in French to _libertinage_, has a very precise meaning, and that it never has signified, and never can signify, the act of adultery, _ehebruch_, as Luther and the Germans after him have rendered the word. It signifies a state of depravity,--a quality, and not an act,--and never can be properly translated by "adultery" or "fornication." I found, moreover, that "adultery" is expressed throughout the Gospel, as well as in the passage under consideration, by the word [Greek: moicheuô]. I had only to correct the false translation, which had evidently been made intentionally, to render absolutely inadmissible the meaning attributed by commentators to the text, and to show the proper grammatical relation of [Greek: porneia] to the subject of the sentence. A person acquainted with Greek would construe as follows: [Greek: parektos], "except, outside," [Greek: logou], "the matter, the cause," [Greek: porneias], "of libertinism," [Greek: poiei], "obliges," [Greek: autên], "her," [Greek: moichasthai], "to be an adulteress"--which rendering gives, word for word, Whoever puts away his wife, besides the fault of libertinism, obliges her to be an adulteress.