Charles Hodge · 47 of 90

11. The Seventh Commandment. · Part 4

The action of the state in this matter is not merely negative. It does not simply overlook or refuse to punish the violation of the Scriptural law of divorce, but it intervenes by its positive action, and declares that certain parties are not man and wife, between whom, according to the law of God, the bond of marriage still subsists. It condemns bigamy, but it sanctions what the Bible pronounces bigamy. The law of the state and the law of God, in this regard, are so opposed to each other, that he who obeys the one violates the other.

5. As the Church and its officers are under the highest obligations to obey the law of Christ, it follows that where the action of the state conflicts with that law, such action must be disregarded. If a person be divorced on other than Scriptural grounds and marries again, such person cannot consistently be received to the fellowship of the Church. If a minister be called upon to solemnize the marriage of a person improperly divorced, he cannot, in consistency with his allegiance to Christ, perform the service. This conflict between the civil and divine law is a great evil, and has often, especially in Prussia, given rise to great difficulty.

As all denominations of Christians, Romanists and Protestants, are of one mind on this subject, it is matter of astonishment that these objectionable divorce laws are allowed to stand on the statute-books of so many of our states. This fact proves either that public attention has not to a sufficient degree been called to the subject, or that the public conscience is lamentably blinded or seared. The remedy is with the Church, which is the witness of God on earth, bound to testify to his truth and to uphold his law. If Christians, in their individual capacity and in their Church courts, would unite in their efforts to arouse and guide public sentiment on this subject, there is little doubt that these objectionable laws would be repealed.

The Social Evil.

This is not a subject to be discussed in these pages; a few remarks, however, in reference to it may not be out of place.

1. It is obviously Utopian to expect that all violations of the seventh commandment can be prevented, any more than that the laws against theft or falsehood should never be disregarded.

2. The history of the world shows that the instinct which leads to the evil in question can never be kept within proper limits, except by moral principle, or by marriage.

3. To these two means of correction, therefore, the efforts of the friends of virtue should be principally directed. There can be no efficient moral culture without religious training. If we would reform our fellow-men, we must bring and keep them from the beginning to the end of their lives under the influence of the truth and ordinances of God; to accomplish this work is the duty assigned to the Church. Besides this general moral culture, there is needed special effort to produce a proper public sentiment with regard to this special evil. So long as the seventh commandment can be violated without any serious loss of self-respect or of public confidence, one of the strongest barriers against vice is broken down. If loss of character as certainly followed a breach of the seventh commandment, as it follows theft or perjury, the evil would be to a good degree abated. This is already the fact with regard to certain classes. It is so with regard to women; and it is so in the case of the clergy. If a minister of the gospel be guilty of this offence, he is as certainly and effectually ruined as he would be by the commission of any other crime short of murder. The same moral law, however, binds all men. Theft in the case of one man is, in its essential character, just what it is in the case of any other man.

4. The divinely appointed preventive of the social evil is laid down in 1 Corinthians vii. 2: “Let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.” That there are serious difficulties, in the present state of society, in the way of frequent and early marriages, cannot be denied. The principal of these is no doubt the expensive style of living generally adopted. Young people find it impossible to commence life with the conveniences and luxuries to which they have been accustomed in their fathers houses, and therefore marriage is neglected or postponed. With regard to the poorer classes, provision might be made to endow young women of good character, so as to enable them to begin their married life in comfort. Arrangements may also be made in various ways to lessen the expense of family living. The end to be accomplished is to facilitate marriage. Those who are so happy as to find in a dictum of Scripture the ultimate reason and the highest motive, may see the end to be attained, although, as in the present case, they are obliged to leave the means of its accomplishment to experts in social science.

Prohibited Marriages.

That certain marriages are prohibited is almost the universal judgment of mankind. Among the ancient Persians and Egyptians, indeed, the nearest relations were allowed to intermarry and in the corrupt period of the Roman Empire, equal laxness more or less prevailed. These isolated facts do not invalidate the argument from the general judgment of mankind. What all men think to be wrong, must be wrong. This unanimity cannot be accounted for, except by assuming that the judgment in which men thus agree is founded on the constitution of their nature, and that constitution is the work of God. There are cases, therefore, in which the “vox populi” is the “vox Dei.”

The Ground or Reason of such Prohibitions.

The reason why mankind so generally condemn the intermarriage of near relations cannot be physical. Physiology is not taught by instinct. It is, therefore, not only an unworthy, but is an altogether unsatisfactory assumption, that such marriages are forbidden because they tend to the deterioration of the race. The fact assumed may, or may not be true; but if admitted, it is utterly insufficient to account for the condemnatory judgment in question.

The two most natural and obvious reasons why the intermarriage of near relations is forbidden are, first, that the natural affection which relatives have for each other is incompatible with conjugal love. They cannot coexist. The latter is a violation and destruction of the former. This reason need only be stated. It requires no illustration. These natural affections are not only healthful, but in the higher grades of relationship, even sacred. The second ground for such prohibitions is a regard to domestic purity. When persons are so nearly related to each other as to justify their living together as one family, they should be sacred one to the other. If this were not the case, evil could hardly fail to occur, when young people grow up in the familiarity of domestic life. The slightest inspection of the details of the law as laid down in the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus, shows that his principle underlies many of its specifications.

J. D. Michaelis, in his work on the law of Moses, makes this the only reason for the Levitical prohibitions. He goes to the extreme of denying that “nearness of kin” is in itself any bar to marriage. His views had great influence, not only on public opinion, but even on legislation in Germany. That influence, however, passed away when a deeper moral and religious feeling gained ascendancy.

Augustine’s Theory.

Augustine advanced a theory on this subject, which still has its earnest advocates. He held that the design of all these prohibitory laws was to widen the circle of the social affections. Brothers and sisters are bound together by mutual love. Should they intermarry the circle is not extended. If they choose husbands and wives from among strangers, a larger number of persons are included in the bonds of mutual love. “Habita est ratio rectissima charitatis, ut homines quibus esset utilis atque honesta concordia, diversarum necessitudinum vinculis necterentur; nec unus in uno multas haberet, sed singulæ spargerentur in singulos; ac sic ad socialem vitam diligentius colligandam plurimæ plurimos obtinerent.” Thus it would come to pass, “Ut unus homo haberet alteram sororem, alteram uxorem, alteram consobrinam, alterum patrem, alterum avunculum, alterum socerum, alteram matrem, alteram amitam, alteram socrum: atque ita se non in paucitate coarctatum, sed latius atque numerosius propinquitatibus crebris vinculum sociale diffunderet.”

A writer in Hengstenberg’s “Evangelische Kirchen-Zeitung,” adopts and elaborately vindicates this theory. He endeavours to show that it answers all the criteria by which any theory on the subject should be tested. These marriages are called “abominations;” and he asks, Is it not shameful that the benevolent ordinance of God for extending the circle of the social affections should be counteracted? They are called “confusion,” because they unite those whom God commands to remain separate. It also accounts for the propriety of the intermarriage of brothers and sisters in the family of Adam; for in the beginning the circle of affection did not admit of being enlarged. It even meets the case if the Levirate law which bound a man to marry the childless widow of his brother. The law which forbids the marriage of relations, holds only where the relationship is close. There must, therefore, be cases just on the line beyond which relationship is no bar to marriage. And with regard to those just within the line, there must be considerations which sometimes outweigh the objections to a given marriage. That God dispensed with the law forbidding the marriage of a man with his brother’s widow, when the brother died without children, this German writer regards as impossible. “Evil,” he says, “may be tolerated, but not commanded.” He adds that it provokes a smile (man muss es naiv nennen) that Gerhard finds an analogy between the case in question and the permission given to the Israelites to despoil the Egyptians. It is probable that the venerable Gerhard would smile at the writer’s criticisms. In the first place, God can no more allow evil than He can command it. An act otherwise evil, ceases to be so when He either allows (i.e., sanctions) it, or commands it. If He commands a man to be put to deaths it ceases to be murder to put him to death. There are two principles of morality generally accepted and clearly Scriptural; one of which is, that any of those moral laws which are founded, not on the immutable nature of God, but upon the relations of men in the present state of existence, may be set aside by the divine law-giver whenever it seems good in his sight; just as God under the old dispensation set aside the original monogamic law of marriage. Polygamy was not sinful as long as God permitted it. The same principle is involved in the words of Christ, God loves mercy and not sacrifice. When two laws conflict, the weaker yields to the stronger. It is wrong to labour on the Sabbath, but any amount of labour on that day becomes a duty, if necessary to save life. In the case of the Levirate law, the prohibition to marry a brother’s widow, yielded to what under the Mosaic economy was regarded as a higher obligation, that is, to perpetuate the family. To die childless was considered one of the greatest calamities.

The question, however, concerning the rationale of these laws is one of minor importance. We may not be able to see exactly in all cases why certain things are forbidden. The fact that they are forbidden should satisfy the reason and the conscience. The two important questions in connection with this subject, to be considered, are, first, is the Levitical law respecting prohibited marriages still in force? and, second, how is that law to be interpreted, and what marriages does it forbid?

Is the Levitical Law of Marriage still in force?

1. It is a strong à priori argument in favour of an affirmative answer to that question, that it always has been regarded as obligatory by the whole Christian Church.

2. The reason assigned for the prohibition contained in that law, has no special reference to the Jews. It is not found is their peculiar circumstances, nor in the design of God in selecting them to be depositaries of his truth to prepare the world for the coming of the Messiah. The reason assigned “is nearness of kin.” This reason has as much force at one time as at another, for all nations as for any one nation. There was nothing peculiar in the relation in which Hebrew parents and children, Hebrew brothers and sisters, and Hebrew uncles and nieces, stood, which was the ground of these prohibitions. That ground was the nearness of the relationship itself as it exists in every and in all ages. There is, therefore, in the sight of God, a permanent reason why near relations ought not to intermarry.

3. If the Levitical law be not still in force, we have no divine law on the subject. Then there is no such sin as incest. It is an offence only against the civil law, and a sin against God only in so far as it is sinful to violate the law of the state. But this is contrary to the universal judgment of men, at least of Christian men. For parents and children, brothers and sisters, to intermarry is universally considered as sin against God, irrespective of any human prohibition. But if a sin against God, it must be forbidden in his Word, or we must give up the fundamental principle of Protestantism, that the Scriptures are the only infallible rule of our faith and practice. As such marriages are nowhere in the Bible forbidden except in the Levitical law, if that law does not forbid them, the Bible does not forbid them.

4. The judgments of God are denounced against the heathen nations for permitting the marriages which the Levitical law forbids. In Leviticus xviii. 8, it is said, “After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do; neither shall ye walk in their ordinances.” This is the introduction to the law of prohibited marriages, containing the specification of the “ordinances” of the Egyptians and Canaanites, which the people of God were forbidden to follow. And in the twenty-seventh verse of the same chapter, at the close of these specifications, it is said, “All these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is deified.” Again, in ch. xx. 23, still in reference to these marriages, it is said, “Ye shall not walk in the manners of the nations which I cast out before you: for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred them.” This is a clear proof that these laws were binding, not on the Jews alone, but upon all people and at all times.

5. The continued obligation of the Levitical law on this subject is also recognized in the New Testament. This recognition as involved in the constant reference to the law of Moses as the law of God. If in any of its parts or specifications it is no longer obligatory, that is to be proved. It contains much which we learn from the New Testament was designed simply to keep the Hebrews a distinct people; much which was typical; much which was a shadow of things to come, and which passed away when the substance was revealed. It contained, however, much which was moral and of permanent obligation. If God gives a law to men, those who deny its perpetual obligation are bound to prove it. The presumption is that it continues in force until the contrary is proved. It must be hard to prove that laws founded on the permanent social relations of men were intended to be temporary.

Besides this general consideration, we find specific recognitions of the continued obligation of the Levitical law in the New Testament. John the Baptist, as recorded in Mark vi. 18 and Matthew xiv. 4, said to Herod that it was not lawful for him to have his brother Philip’s wife. It matters not, as to the argument, whether Philip was living or not. The offence charged was not that he had taken another man’s wife, but that he had taken his brother’s wife. It may be objected to this argument that during the ministry of John the Baptist the law of Moses was still in force. This Gerhard denies, who argues from Matthew xi. 13, “All the prophets and the law prophesied until John, that the Baptist’s ministry belongs to the new dispensation. This may be doubted. Nevertheless John expressed the moral sentiment of his age; and the record of the fact referred to by the Evangelists whose Gospels were written after the Christian Church was fully organized, is given in a form which involves a sanction of the judgment which the Baptist had expressed against the marriage of Herod with his brother’s wife. It is also to be remembered that the Herodian family was Idumean, and therefore, that a merely Jewish law would have no natural authority over them.

The Apostle Paul, moreover, in 1 Corinthians v. 1, speaks of a man’s marrying his step-mother as an unheard of offence. That this was a case of marriage and not of adultery is plain because the phrase γυναῖκα ἔχειν is never used in the New Testament except of marriage. This, therefore, is a clear recognition of the continued obligation of the law forbidding marriage between near relations, whether the relationship was by consanguinity or affinity.

6. The Bible everywhere enforces those laws which have their foundation in the natural constitution of men. That this Levitical law is a divine authentication of a law of nature, may be inferred from the fact that with rare exceptions the intermarriage of near relations is forbidden among all nations. Paul says that the marriage of a man with his step-mother was unheard of among the heathen; i.e., it was forbidden and abhorred. Cicero exclaims, “Nuoit genero socrus. . . . . O mulieris incredibile et præter hanc unam in omni vita inauditum!” Beza says, It must not be overlooked that the civil laws of the Romans agree completely in reference to this subject with the divine law. They seemed to have copied from it.

No Christian Church doubts the continued obligation of any of the laws of the Pentateuch, of which it can be said that the reason assigned for their enactment is the permanent relations of men; that the heathen are condemned for their violation; and that the New Testament refers to them as still in force: and which heathen nations under the guidance of natural conscience have enacted.

How is the Levitical Law to be interpreted?

Admitting the Levitical law of marriage to be still in force, the next question is, How is it to be interpreted? Is it to be understood as specifying the degrees of relation, whether of consanguinity or of affinity, within which intermarriage is forbidden? or, is it to be viewed as an enumeration of particular cases, so that no case not specifically mentioned is to be included in the prohibition?

The former of these rules of interpretation is the one generally adopted; for the following reasons: —

1. The language of the law itself. It begins with a general prohibition of marriage between those who are near of kin. Nearness of kindred is made the ground of the prohibition. The specifications which follow are intended to show what degree of nearness of kindred works a prohibition. This reason applies to many cases not particularly mentioned in Leviticus xvii. or elsewhere. The law would seem to be applicable to all cases in which the divinely assigned reason for its enactment is found to exist.

2. The design of the law, as we have seen, is twofold: first, to keep sacred those relationships which naturally give rise to feelings and affections which are inconsistent with the marriage relation; and secondly, the preservation of domestic purity. As the natural affections are due partly to the very constitution of our nature, and partly to the familiarity and constancy of intercourse, and the interchange of kindly offices, it is natural that in the enumeration of the prohibited cases regard should be had, in the selection, to those in which this familiarity of intercourse, at the time the law was enacted, actually prevailed. In the East the family is organized on different principles from those on which it is organized in the West. Among the early Oriental nations especially, the males of a family with their wives remained together; while the daughters, being given in marriage, went away and were amalgamated with the families of their husbands. Hence it would happen that relatives by the father’s side would be intimate associates, while those of the same degree on the mother’s side might be perfect strangers. A law, therefore, constructed on the principle of prohibiting marriage between parties so related as to be already in the bonds of natural affection and who were domesticated in the same family circle, would deal principally in specifications of relationships on the father’s side. It would not follow, however, from this fact, that relations of the same grade of kindred might freely intermarry, simply because they were not specified in the enumeration. The law in its principle applies to all cases, whether enumerated or not, in which the nearness of kin is the source of natural affection, and in which it leads to and justifies intimate association.

3. Another consideration in favour of the principle of interpretation usually adopted, is, that the opposite rule would introduce the greatest inconsistencies into the law. The law forbids marriage between those near of kin; and, according to this rule, it goes on alternately permitting and forbidding marriages where the relationship is precisely the same. Thus, a man cannot marry the daughter of his son; but a woman may marry the son of her daughter; a man cannot marry the widow of his father’s brother, but he may marry the widow of his mother’s brother; a woman cannot marry two brothers, but a man may marry two sisters. These inconsistencies might be intelligible if the law were a temporary and local enactment, designed for a transient state of society; but they are utterly unaccountable if the law be one of permanent and universal obligation. A rule of interpretation which brings uniformity and consistency into these enactments of Scripture, is certainly to be preferred to one which renders them confused and inconsistent.

Prohibited Degrees.

The cases specifically mentioned are: 1. Mother. 2. Stepmother. 3. Grand-daughter. 4. Sister and half-sister, “born at home or born abroad,” i.e., legitimate or illegitimate. 5. Aunt on the father’s side. 6. Maternal aunt. 7. The wife of a father’s brother. 8. Daughter-in-law. 9. Brother’s wife. 10. A woman and her daughter. 11. A wife’s grand-daughter. 12. Two sisters at the same time.

The meaning of Leviticus xviii. 18, has been much disputed. The question is, Whether the words אִשָׁה אֶל־אֲתֹתָהּ, “a woman to her sister,” are to be understood in their idiomatic sense, “one to another,” so that the law forbids bigamy, the taking of one wife to another during her lifetime; or, Whether they are to be taken literally, so that this law forbids a man’s marrying the sister of his wife while the latter is living. It is certain that the words in question have in several places the idiomatic sense ascribed to them. In Exodus xxvi. 3, “Five curtains shall be coupled together one to another,” literally, “a woman to her sister;” so in verse 5, the loops take hold, “a woman and her sister;” ver. 6, the taches of gold unite the curtains, “a woman and her sister.” Also in ver. 17. Thus also in Ezekiel i. 9, it is said, “their wings were joined one to another,” “a woman to her sister;” and again in ch. iii. 13. The words therefore admit of the rendering given in the margin of the English version. But it is objected to this interpretation in this case: (1.) That the words in question never mean “one to another,” except when preceded by a plural noun; which is not the case in Leviticus xviii. 18. (2.) If this explanation be adopted, the passage contains an explicit prohibition of polygamy, which the law of Moses permitted. (3.) It is unnatural to take the words “wife” and “sister” in a sense different from that in which they are used throughout the chapter. (4) The ancient versions agree with the rendering given in the text of the English Bible. The Septuagint has γυναῖκα ἐπ ἀδελφῇ αὐτῆς; the Vulgate, “sororem uxoris tuæ.”

In this interpretation the modern commentators almost without exception agree. Thus Maurer renders the passage: “‘Uxorem ad (i.e., præter) sororem ejus ne ducito,’ i.e., Nolli præter tuam conjugem aliam insuper uxorem ducere, quæ illius soror est.” Baumgarten’s comment is: “From the fact that the prohibition of the marriage of a wife’s sister is expressly conditioned on the life of the former, we must infer with the Rabbins, that after the death of the wife this marriage is permitted. True, the degree of affinity is here the same as in ver. 16, but there the relationship is on the male, here on the female side; this makes a difference, because under the Old Testament the woman had not attained to the same degree of personality and independence as the man.” Rosenmüller says: “Uxorem ad sororem ejus ne ducas, duas sorores ne ducas in matrimonium, scil. בְהַיֶּיהָ in vita ejus, i.e., uxore tua vivente. Non igitur prohibet Moses matrimonium cum sorores uxoris mortuæ.” Knobel says: “Finally, a man shall not marry . . . . the sister of his wife, so long as the latter lives. . . . . To marry one after the other, after the death of the other, is not forbidden.” Keil understands v. 18 in the same way. It forbids, according to his view, a man’s having two sisters, at the same time, as his wives. “After the death of the first wife,” he adds, “marriage with her sister was allowed.”

The inference which these writers draw from the fact that in this passage the marriage of a wife’s sister is forbidden during the life of the wife, that the marriage of the sister, after the death of the wife, is allowed, is very precarious. All that the passage teaches is, that if a man chooses to have two wives, at the same time, which the law allowed, they must not be sisters; and the reason assigned is, that it would bring the sisters into a false relation to each other. This leaves the question of the propriety of marrying the sister of a deceased wife just where it was. This verse has no direct bearing on that subject.

The cases not expressly mentioned in Leviticus xviii., although involving the same degree of kindred as those included in the enumeration, are: 1. A man’s own daughter. This is a clear proof that the enumeration was not intended to be exhaustive. 2. A brother’s daughter. 3. A sister’s daughter. 4. A maternal uncle’s widow. 5. A brother’s son’s widow. 6. A sister’s son s widow. 7. The sister of a deceased wife.

As nearness of kindred is made the ground of prohibition, and as these cases are included within “the degrees” specified, the Church has considered them as belonging to the class of prohibited marriages. It is, however, to be considered that the word “prohibited,” as here used, is very comprehensive. Some of the marriages specified in the Levitical law are prohibited in very different senses. Some are pronounced abominable, and those who contract them are made punishable with death. Others are pronounced unseemly, or evil, and punished by exclusion from the privileges of the theocracy. Others again incur the penalty of dying childless; probably meaning that the children of such marriages should not be enrolled in the family registers which the Jews were so careful to preserve.

As this distinction is recognized in the law itself, so it is founded in the nature of the case. As nearness of kin varies from the most intimate relationship to the most distant, so these marriages vary in their impropriety from the highest to the lowest degree. Some of them may, in certain cases, be wrong, not in themselves, but simply from the obligation to uphold a salutary law. That is, there may be cases to which the law, but not the reason of the law applies. For example; a man may go thousands of miles from home and marry: his wife would stand in a very different relation to her husband’s brothers, than had she lived in the same house with them. The law forbidding a woman to marry the brother of her deceased husband, would apply to her; but the reason of that law would affect her in a very slight degree; nevertheless, even in her case, the law should be observed.

There is another obvious remark that ought to be made. Strong repugnance is often felt and expressed against the Levitical law, not only because it is regarded as placing all the marriages specified on the same level, representing all as equally offensive in the sight of God, but also from the assumption that all the marriages forbidden are, if contracted, invalid. This is a wrong view of the subject. It is inconsistent with the law itself, and contrary to the analogy of Scripture. The law recognizes a great disparity in the impropriety of these marriages. Some, as just remarked, are utterly abominable and insufferable. Others are specified because inexpedient or dangerous, as conflicting with some ethical or prudential principle.