# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1878_S45
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 45 —

order or dispense, so that other Christians also may pray God for blessing and welfare for them in such their married state." (B. Carpzov, Jurispr. ecclesiast., L. II, fol. 152 s.)

The theological faculty at Leipzig, on the other hand, always gave the strict vote for the tearing apart of such marriages.

In the year 1700 it wrote: "Although the marriage with the deceased wife's own sister is not contrary to the law of nature in the strict sense (contra jus naturae stricte sic dictum), since otherwise the Lord God could not have granted a dispensation to the pious patriarch Jacob, who had two sisters, Rachel and Leah, as wives at the same time, Genesis 29, inasmuch as what belongs to the law of nature depends on the essential justice and holiness of God and is therefore wholly unchangeable and not subject to dispensation (prorsus immutabile et indispensabile), 2 Timothy 3:13, nevertheless it can by no means stand with the positive and revealed divine law of universal force (cum jure divino positivo et revelato universali), which binds all men without distinction, because the divine majesty expressly says in Leviticus 18:16: 'You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother's wife,' etc." (Loc. cit., p. 629 f.)

And in the year 1711: "Although various marriages in forbidden degrees (in gradibus prohibitis) are of such a nature that, once they have been consummated, the married man may be left in the use of his wife and vice versa (et vice versa), of which kind are the marriages in the second degree of the unequal line, of blood relationship as well as of affinity.*) Not, indeed, as if human beings could grant a dispensation against the divine prohibition of them (inasmuch as it is not conceded to the secular authorities that they may order such marriages to be contracted); but because such marriages, once contracted, may be tolerated, in view of the fact that in the divine law, Leviticus 18 and 20, no capital punishment is set for such, but those joined are left together in their union, under the threat of childlessness, and left to the arbitrary punishment of the authorities; and also there are examples of such marriages tolerated by God Himself. (Cf. Carpzov, Jurispr. consist., l. 2, tit. 6, def. 99; Musaeus, Thes. de conjug., p. 174 s.; Baier, Disp. de differeutia dispens. et tolerantiae.)" (Selected Opinions, etc., p. 417.)

Spener judged more mildly: "As I regard such an impediment (impedimentum), which comes from a positive moral law, as an impediment to entering a marriage (pro impedimento matrimonii ineundi), but not as a cause for rescinding one already entered (non autem causa rescindendi initum): there may be several others of the kind." (Opinion of the year 1681, II, 552.)

Likewise Dannhauer: "There is a great difference between the degrees of the ascending and descending lines and of the collateral line. The former are not dispensable (indispensabel); the latter are indeed dispensable, since they concern the moral law or positive law, yet not through human law but through divine." (Th. casual., p. 271.)

There was then read the relevant section from the Reverend

*) That is, the aunt, Leviticus 18:12, 13; 20:19, and the cousin (female), Leviticus 18:14; 10, 20 [sic].