Alexander McCaul

“ Even in the New Testament the lawfulness of a man's marrying a second time is left to be proved by inference from the permission given to a widow (Rom. vii.) to take a second husband. Thus, most important consequences affecting the happiness and life of the individual, as the marriage of a widow or a penitent harlot, the deliverance of an innocent man from capital punishment, the permission to the labourer, the artisan, and the tradesman to earn their bread on the intermediate days between the first and seventh of the great feasts, depend altogether on inferences from a limitation. ”

“ In the same way none of the wife's relations could be a גאל‎, avenger of blood — nor were they required to redeem one of the husband's relations who had become poor — nor could a wife's sister's husband marry the widow of a man who had died without children, even though he had left no male relations to perform that office. Thus, according to the law of Moses, the wife's relations are not regarded as the husband's relations, but the wife herself is considered as having renounced her own family to be incorporated into that of her husband ”

“ In what has been just said, the legitimacy of the inference from brother's wife to wife's sister has been conceded for the sake of argument, but, according to the principles of the Mosaic law, and of the New Testament also, this inference is invalid. The ground of the inference is supposed to be the union of man and wife into one flesh, whence it is argued that the relations of the one become the relations of the other, and in the same degree. ”

“ If we are to reason from this analogy—if by marriage the earthly wife's kindred stand in the same position to the earthly husband as the heavenly wife's relations to the heavenly husband—then the earthly wife's kindred remain, notwithstanding her union with a husband, as remote from kindred with the husband as they were before the marriage, and, hence, no inference can be drawn from the brother's wife to the wife's sister or her relations ”

“ Erom this it is inferred that the union between man and wife is mysterious and real as that between Christ and the Church. Now, granting this, it does not follow hence that the wife's kin become the kin of the husband. The Church united to Christ becomes one body with the Lord, and is incorporated into His family—but her kin does not become His kin. As taken from the human race, she has the whole human race, Jews, Mahommedans, and heathen, as her kin, but by virtue of her union with the Heavenly Bridegroom, these her kin do not become His kin, members of His body, His flesh, and His bones. ”

“ Basil's times down to the Council of Trent, is nothing to the purpose. It is only going farther from the apostles and the Apostolic Church, and plunging deeper into that superstition with regard to marriage and celibacy, which prohibited to the clergy what God pronounces "honourable in all men," and imposed upon the laity a host of impediments to marriage unknown to Scripture and the early Church. From the first 300 years the advocates of the modern interpretation have nothing to show against the ancient and primitive opinion. ”

“ Thus Ruth, the Moabitess, became by her marriage a member of the tribe of Judah, and, when a widow, entitled to all the privileges of the law of the Levirate, just as much as if she had been descended from Judah himself, but her husband did not become a Moabite. The daughters of Zelophehad, or any other heiresses, had they married out of their own tribe and family, would have been incorporated into that family and tribe, and their property would have passed into the possession of that tribe. ”

“ I have found, on farther consideration, that the sense of the Hebrew words, which I believed to be true, is that received by the Jewish nation, by the Church Universal, Eastern and Western, for more than 1,500 years; that, notwithstanding the jealousy excited by the Reformation between Romanists and Reformed, all the great Biblical scholars on both sides were, for fifty years after Luther's first efforts, unanimous in their approval of the ancient interpretation ”

“ Basil. He says: "I was asked, 'Is it written (or is it not written in Scripture) that a man may take a woman to (or after) her sister?' I—replied and this is both a true and safe answer—that it is not so written. And to infer and conclude from the clause added after (the prohibition) , something else about which nothing is said, is to legislate, not to take the law as it stands." In accordance with this principle, perhaps, St. Basil says nothing about the inference from brother's wife in verse 16, to wife's sister. ”

“ Moreover, the 19th Canon only says, "That he who has married two sisters or a niece [or, as some translate, a cousin] cannot become a clergyman." It contains no prohibition, but testifies to the fact that such marriages were not unusual. In point of fact, therefore, the Apostolical Canons are valueless as an authority as to the lawfulness or unlawfulness of the disputed marriage, or even as to the date of the first notice of the subject in the Christian Church. ”

“ In the 15th century, Alphonso Tostatus, called in his own times Stupor Mundi, says, in his commentary on the words "Adhuc illa vivente," "Quasi dicat, quod quando vivit soror, quæ primo accepta est in uxorem, non licet accipere alteram, sed cum ipsa mortua fuerit, potest accipi alia soror." "Whilst she is still living"—" that is to say, that as long as the sister who was first married is alive, it is not lawful to marry the other; but when she is dead, another sister may be married." ”

“ In his 86th question on Genesis he asks, "Why the wives of Jacob were jealous of each other," and answers, "They were imperfect, and daughters of an ungodly man, who called images gods. For this reason God, when he gave the law, forbad that sort of marriage, for he says, 'Thou shall not take a woman to her sister a rival of her.' τούτου ἕνεκεν νομοθετῶν ὁ Θεὸς τὸν τοιοῦτον ἀπαγορεύει γάμον· οὐ λήψῃ γάρ φησι γυναῖκα ἐπ’ ἀδελφῃ αὐτη̄ς ἀντίζηλον αὐτη̄ς." It was the sense known to the African Church, as appears from Augustine, who says: — "Uxorem [12] super sororem ejus non accipies in zelum. ”

“ The testimony of the whole body of the Christian Church from the days of the apostles ought always to have great weight, and where it cannot be had, the testimony of a number of grave writers in various ages and branches of the Church must be received with respect. ”

“ But these, comprising Romanists and Protestants, Lutherans and Calvinists, Orthodox and Rationalist, as well as learned Jews, men of different countries and habits of thought, are sufficient to show that many, competent to form a just judgment, have rejected the new version, and adhered to the ancient, as the obvious and correct translation of the sacred original. ”

“ They who read the Bible with moderate attention know that some commands, as those respecting the three great feasts, the paschal abstinence from leaven, the Sabbath, adultery, and murder, are repeated in various parts of the law ”

“ All the days that he separateth himself unto the Lord he shall come at no dead body. He shall not make himself unclean for his father or his mother, for his brother or for his sister, when they die." And hence it is inferred, that when the days of his separation were fulfilled, he might eat of the fruit of the vine, he might shave his head, he might mourn for his nearest relations, and others too. From the prohibition, Lev. ”

“ Thus, also, the prohibition (Lev. xvii. 3) to kill animals anywhere but at the door of the tabernacle, suitable whilst in the wilderness, was modified by Deut. xii. 15, so as to be adapted to their possession of the land. And thus the command (Numb. viii. 24) that the Levites should begin service at the age of twenty-five was modified (1 Chron. xxiii. 24 28) , and the age fixed at twenty. Indeed, this absurd principle, that a law once given is incapable of change or modification, is the Rabbinic argument for the perpetuity of the whole Mosaic law. ”

“ Is it to be believed that the Jews before Christ, and at the time of Christ, and ever since, have been ignorant of their own language?—that all the gigantic scholars of the age of the Reformation were unable to learn Hebrew, so as to translate Lev. ”

“ It is satisfactory to see that these writers reject that notion of St. Basil's, that these marriage-laws are no more binding on the Christian Church than circumcision or other ceremonial rites. When pressed with the argument from Levit. xviii. 18, that Father says:—"In answer to this, I will say, first, that whatsoever the law saith it saith to them that are under the law, else, by parity of reasoning, circumcision, too, and the Sabbath, and abstinence from meats, might be urged upon us ”

“ I cannot find that Calvin, or Junius, or Piscator, or Ainsworth, or Willett, or Dr. Pusey, or Mr. Badeley, or any of the recent writers on this subject, have adduced even one example, from Father, or Council, or ancient writer, to show that for the first 1,500 years these verses were so interpreted. The only evidence, having even the appearance of antiquity, is that of the Karaite Jews. ”

“ See also Jerome ab Oluastro and Leonardus Marius, in loc. ↑ "In Hebrew it is: Man, man, to all the remainder of his own flesh ye shall not approach to reveal her nakedness. Hebraism reckons one kindred one flesh: and every individual of that kindred, the remainder of that flesh, or the relics of flesh. By one father are left all descending from him, who are remainders and relics of the parents. Arid the sense appears to be: To the remainder of his own flesh ye shall not approach, that is, to a part of his own flesh ye shall not approach." ”

“ Nec prohibetur hujus modi connubium propter affinitatem (quia sorore mortuâ licebat ducere alteram sororem in uxorem) sed propter pacem inter sorores." [20]
Sanctes Pagninus, whose Bible appeared in 1528, the first after Jerome who endeavoured to give a correct Latin translation, and devoted twenty-five years to the work, made many alterations, more agreeable to the original text, but here gives the same sense, in a more literal translation: "Uxorem cum sorore sua non accipies ad lacessendum, ad revelandum turpitudinem ejus super earn ipsâ vivente." ”