# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1878_S27
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 27 —

has done, not all of equal weight, and so constituted that they always give a hard opponent full satisfaction. Therefore, if the previously cited grounds of the general rule and of the prohibition extended to still further degrees did not sufficiently convince me in conscience, I would consider such a restriction credible. But I find those so strong that, even if I should be unable to find any sufficient reason for such a special addition (although various ones put forward by our people are also so constituted that they are not to be despised), it ought already to suffice me to recognize the truth from those powerful rationes [arguments], that the other doubt does not abolish the penalty. It is not so uncommon that some things are found in God's Word at times which have their difficulties; but where we are convinced of the truth of a matter from other, unambiguous passages, we do not hold to other, darker or doubtful words in such a way that we would let that truth go by the board, but this carries such weight with us that we then rather seek to reconcile the others with it by a commoda interpretatione [convenient interpretation]. Hence that rule of Basil the Great holds good: Ex eo, quod scriptum est, non temere colligendum, quod scriptum non est [From what is written, one must not rashly infer what is not written]. Likewise the axiom of the jurists: Argumentum a contrario sensu non procedere, cum inde sequitur absurdum [An argument from the contrary sense does not proceed when an absurdity follows from it]." (Opinion of the year 1681. II, 539 f.)

Thesis 3 was thereupon adopted.

Thesis 4.

That the entering upon a marriage with the sister of a deceased wife is forbidden by God is evident from this: 1. that it is forbidden by the general rule placed first in Leviticus 18:6; 2. that a marriage in quite the same degree of relationship, namely with the deceased brother's wife, is expressly forbidden in Leviticus 18:16; 20:21; 3. that marriage with the daughter of a deceased wife is forbidden in Leviticus 18:17 precisely because she is the wife's flesh.

This thesis leads us to the real main question, namely how it can be proved, precisely of marriage with a sister-in-law, that it is forbidden by God. Before one enters upon the answer to this question, however, it would be in place, first, to point out that God has had the truth in this matter too proclaimed clearly to our Church already through Luther, and that the latter did not judge doubtfully, now one way and now another, but was well aware that God had led him from lesser to greater clarity. He writes on 10 December 1543 to Dr. Hesse: "What? Are there not enough women and maidens in your land, that one must marry so near, in the other and almost still nearer degree, such as the sister's daughter or two sisters one after the other? Yes, Luther has perhaps let a note go out that such degrees are fitting; has