ADULTERY. ADULTERY is also used, especially in Scripture, for idolatry, or departing from the true God to the worship of a false one.
ADULTERY is also used, in Ecclesiastical Writers, for a person's invading or intruding into a bishopric during the former bishop's life. The reason of the appellation is, that a bishop is supposed to contract a kind of spiritual marriage with his church. The translation of a bishop from one see to another was also reputed a species of adultery; on the supposition of its being a kind of second marriage, which, in those days, was esteemed a degree of adultery. This conclusion was founded on that text of St. Paul, Let a bishop be the husband of one wife, by a forced construction of church for wife, and of bishop for husband. (Du Cange).
ADULTERY is also used by ancient Naturalists, for the act of ingrafting one plant upon another. In which sense, Pliny speaks of the adulteries of trees, arborum adulteria, which he represents as contrary to nature; and a piece of luxury, or needless refinement.