# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1878_S19
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 19 —

a certain Palernus wanted to marry his son and his granddaughter by his daughter to each other, so that the brother would take the daughter of the sister, especially because that brother had been born of a different mother than the sister whose daughter he desired. He asked Ambrose for advice about this. But the latter answered: This inquiry was unworthy of both the grandfather and the father, and he must give up his intention. . . . Palernus pretended that it is not expressly forbidden in Leviticus for such persons to marry. Ambrose replies: it is not expressly forbidden either that the father marry his daughter, and yet no one doubts that this is forbidden. Thus Ambrose refers the prohibitions in Leviticus not only to the persons expressly named, but to the degrees." (Loci th. III, 212.)

A fine testimony for the truth on this point was given in more recent times by Benedict Bock, general superintendent of Oettingen. The prince of Oettingen wanted, namely, to contract a marriage with a relative by marriage, and in answer to his question most of the members of his ministerium declared such a marriage permitted. Bock, however, would not be moved to this; in his opinion the following passage is found: "The reason of the prohibition is taken a propinquitate sanguinis [from nearness of blood]; if now the persons who stand in one degree were not at the same time forbidden, then the reason of the prohibition a propinquitate sanguinis is invalid; for if it is not valid for forbidding some persons of one degree, whence has it the power to forbid the others?" (Unterſchiedliche Streitſchriften ꝛc. über die Frage: Ob Gott verboten ꝛc. [Various Controversial Writings, etc., on the Question: Whether God Has Forbidden, etc.] Oettingen. 1682. p. 44.)

The thesis was adopted in the form given above.

Thesis 3.

The passage Leviticus 18:18 (a) either does not deal at all with marriage to a brother- or sister-in-law, but solely with polygamy, or (b) says nothing definite either about the lawfulness or about the unlawfulness of this marriage.

The words from Leviticus 18:18 which can lead to the view that marriage with a sister-in-law is meant here are these: "Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister." Now the words of the Hebrew original text (וְאִשָּׁה אֶל־אֲחתָהּ לֹא תִקָּח) read in literal translation: "And a wife to her sister thou shalt not take"; and in all cases where the original text of the Old Testament says "a wife to her sister" or "a man to his brother" (אִשָּׁה אֶל־אֲחתָהּ or אִישׁ אֶל־אָחִיו), this phrase means as much as one to another, the one to the other. So Genesis 13:11, Exodus 16:5, Numbers 14:4, Jeremiah 23:35, Jeremiah 25:26, and Malachi 2:10, where everywhere human beings are meant; but also of lifeless objects, as Exodus 37:9,