# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1878_S31
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 31 —

granddaughter, and in the collateral line the brother's wife and the wife's sister, then in the second degree, namely of unequal line, the cousin's wife; so that it is evident precisely from this that the divine prohibitions are quite in agreement in both blood kinship and affinity, and that in neither are more or fewer degrees forbidden; so that we see that the holy God wants both kinds held equal. This certain proposition being presupposed, it is not unclear what is to be held of the present case. Since, as is well known, my wife's sister is flesh of my flesh and the nearest blood relation of her with whom I have been one flesh. So that we have to point to an undoubted divine law against this kind of marriage, since, even though these names are not expressed, it is of equal force, because the case follows from the general rule or is comprehended in it." (Opinion of the year 1681. II, 538 f.)

Dannhauer treats the same case quite similarly, writing: "The general prohibition is that one is not to approach the flesh of his flesh. Now the sister of your wife is the flesh of your flesh; for the wife is one flesh with you, who is one flesh with her sister; which law remains also after the wife's death." (Th. casual. p. 276.)

Yes, in another place the same writer declares that this rule alone is more than sufficient to resolve all the difficulties that may arise in these matters. We let him speak himself:

"I ask of you to learn an easy and short way and manner of untying all the knots tangled in the forbidden degrees. — Answer: What rule can be shorter and easier than that which Jehovah Himself (who puts this His name more than once at the head of the Law) has made publicly known? comprised in the few words of Leviticus 18:6: אִישׁ אִישׁ אֶל־כָּל־שְׁאֵר בְּשָׂרוֹ לֹא תִקְרְבוּ לְגַלּוֹת עֲרְוָ֑ה אֲנִי יְהֹוָה which Luther translated thus: 'None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him,' etc.; most clearly Gerhard l. 3. de conjug. p. 390: 'Nemo ad carnem carnis accedat' (Let no one approach to the flesh of his flesh). This rule is, as I have said, an easy one (expedita), which alone, if it is rightly understood and, for the sake of better understanding, compared with everything that stands in relation to it (cum sua cujusque familia ac necessitudine) [with its own family and kin], will not only illumine with its light all the special commandments, both those clearly expressed in Leviticus and those which by reciprocal relation are of equal validity in sense, but will also be more than sufficient to resolve all the difficult questions that have arisen in this matter. For here 'flesh of my flesh' means both that flesh which I carry about directly on me and that which is nearest to my flesh's flesh, either by birth from nature, such as my blood relation is from a common stock or