# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1856_S125
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

125

Excerpts as Contributions to Pastoral Casuistry.

On Forbidden Marriages.
(Continued.)

Crusius continues as follows:

In the law, Lev. 18, there is given at the outset, in verse 6, a general
rule, and afterward, in verses 7-18, a number of cases are specified,
which in part simply fall under the rule, but in part also concern a more
remote degree than the rule of the prohibition stated, and in part are
furnished with limitations and additions. The rule is exactly the one to
which, as I have shown before, ordinary reflection also leads, namely:
that in the descending line marriage shall never be permitted, and in
the collateral line marriage shall not be permitted between siblings, and
beyond this not even one degree further. No one, it says in verse 6,
shall "approach the flesh of his flesh," etc. *) Marriage is therefore
forbidden with every such

*) What Luther, in the passage cited, has rendered with the words: "No
one shall have to do with his nearest blood relation" (Lev. 18:6), means
literally, according to the Hebrew: "No one shall approach the flesh of
his flesh" (she'er besaro). Crusius therefore makes a note here, in which
he shows: 1. that according to the language of Scripture relatives in
general are called each other's flesh (compare Isa. 58:7, Gen. 37:27);
2. that accordingly, according to Scripture, the nearest bond, which
exists between parents and children, between siblings, and between
spouses, naturally makes those so bound preeminently one flesh (Lev.
18:12-13, 17; 21:2-3; Gen. 2:24); 3. that the more distant relatives are
also included, when, besides the nearer ones, the whole family is called
someone's flesh (Lev. 25:49). On this Crusius writes: "the true meaning
of the rule in verse 6 is thus: no one shall marry a person, and so
through marriage wish to become one flesh with her, who is already, for
whatever reason, one flesh with a person who is likewise one flesh with
him — with the added stipulation that God, the Jehovah, willed it to be
exactly so, without their being entitled, against his ordinance, to
indulge in their own reasoning and judgment about the grounds of the
prohibition. By which, of course, it is not excluded that one may with
pleasure consider the grounds that can be discerned, whereby obedience
also becomes more willing and more agreeable. — When one approaches the
Mosaic texts with this consideration, the order and the coherence within
them will become evident. At the same time, however, the reason will
also appear why, at all times, people have been inclined to grant that
the obligation of the laws of Lev. 18 holds also in the New Testament,
whereas they have not done so with the Levitical statutes — but also in
what respect and why this obligation of theirs is general and holds good
also in the New Testament. Finally, I would further note that it is a
confusion when one concludes: if the marriages forbidden by Moses were
forbidden on account of a reason grounded in nature, then they could not
have been susceptible, in particular cases, to any exception or
countervailing ordinance — whereas such indeed exists in the case of
marriage with a brother's widow, when the brother died without heirs.
For there are various kinds of natural duties — absolutely necessary
ones, and hypothetical and contingent ones — and they are