# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1859_S188
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

188 Church and Contemporary History.

no Reformation would have come about. — Still another point! Kurtz pounds
mightily on 2 Peter 2:4–5 and Jude v. 6 (less so on 1 Cor. 11:10),
— yet, very naively, he admits on p. 25f. that whoever reads that passage without
[his] spectacles finds no angel-marriages etc. in it at all! Then he insists on a precise
distinction between the earlier (Old Testament) and later (New Testament)
usage of Filius Dei. Now, Moses speaks very
often of angels, but never calls them "sons of God." Likewise
he speaks not infrequently of "sons (children) of God," but each time
means human beings by it. The designation of angels as "sons of
God" is a usage entirely unknown before David's time and after Daniel's,
and to want to find this designation already in Genesis
is an anachronistic petitio principii. Further, he demands the
most careful attention to the context in Genesis 6ff. But where,
on his own unvarnished interpretation, is there a connection
between verses 2 and 3, between verses 4 and 5ff.? Because the angels
sinned, is the Spirit of God to abandon mankind? Because
the angels begot a race of giants, does God repent that he
made mankind? What a fine connection, that lets the punishment of
mankind follow upon the guilt of the angels! Finally,
Kurtz praises his interpretation especially because it is not, like the "orthodox" one,
dependent on dogmatic prejudices. But the matter stands
otherwise. The angel-marriage hypothesis owes its origin to a dogmatic
curiosity wanting to know something more about the fall of "Satan and his
demons"; — whether the hypothesis in question, in its newest
form as received from Kurtz and others, amounting to wholly idle mytho-theological
"speculationes," would have been accepted by even a single one of its older
defenders, is subject to grave doubt. However that may
be, the rejection of that hypothesis rests on no
dogmatic presupposition, but solely on the hermeneutical
principle "Scriptura scripturam interpretatur" [Scripture interprets Scripture], whose author
gave us the warning cry: Noli sapere ultra scripturam! [Do not be wise beyond what is written!]"

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Church and Contemporary History.

Abroad.

Legislation on Marriage Matters in Prussia. — On February 10 the Prince
Regent addressed a cabinet order concerning the question of remarriage [after
divorce] to the Supreme Consistory, in which it states in particular: "I decree that henceforth
the consistories, when notified in the prescribed manner by clergy from whom a divorced spouse
seeks the banns or a marriage ceremony for a further marriage, and who do not
believe themselves entitled to grant approval, shall refrain from
deciding and, once the inquiry is completed, shall submit merely an advisory report to the
Supreme Evangelical Consistory, which shall then decide on the matter according to the
materials before it... I do not wish any compulsion to be applied even now.
I do, however, authorize the Supreme Evangelical Consistory, in such
a case (namely where a clergyman will not comply with the Consistory's directive),
to substitute another clergyman for the banns and the marriage."
On February 17 the Ministers of Justice and of Public Worship laid before the Chamber of Deputies
a bill on civil marriage. The Minister of Public Worship, von Bethmann-Hollweg,