Rev. E. B. Pusey, November 26, 1847. [The Preface.]-There was brought to us recently a brief or epistle, bearing the signature of Diodorus, but in all other respects fit to be ascribed to any one rather than to Diodorus, for it seems to me that it must have been some ignorant fellow, who by personating thee, hoped to impose upon others with a shew of authority. Whoever it was, having been consulted, as he represented, by some man, whether he might lawfully marry his deceased wife's sister, he not only showed no horror at the question, but coolly entertained it, and even countenanced the man, and defended zealously enough, and argumentatively that his licentious idea. If it had been still in my possession, I would have sent thee the writing itself, and so thou wouldest have been able to defend thyself and the truth. But since he who showed it me, took it away again and carried it about as a sort of trophy against us, who have all along forbidden any such thing to be done, saying that he had authority in writing to do it, I have now sent [the accompanying Constitution] to thee, that we may join our forces against that spurious document, and leave it no force to deceive, as it otherwise might, perchance, any incautious persons to whom it may come. [Canon LXXXVII.] The first argument (and it is the strongest of all in such questions), which we have to put forward in this matter, is that of our custom; a custom, which has the force of a law, inasmuch as our rules have been transmitted down to us by holy men. And our custom is this, "that if any man being overcome by filthy passion fall into an unlawful union with two sisters, neither is such union to be accounted marriage, nor are either of the parties ever to be reconciled to the unity of the Church, unless they have first parted the one from the other. So that even though we had no other argument to bring, our custom of itself would suffice as a defence against any such mischief. But since the writer of that epistle has sought by his fraudulent composition to bring into our social life so great an evil, it is needful that neither should we on our side be slack to oppose a defence of sound words; although, in things that are so very clear, that prejudgment, which every one of us must feel, is far stronger than any argument. "It is written," he says, "in Leviticus, Thou shalt not take a wife to her sister to vex her [ἀντίζηλον], to uncover her nakedness, beside her [ἐπ' αυτῇ, ἔτι ζώσης αυτής] in her lifetime. [Lev. xviii. ver. 18]. It is manifest then (thus he reasons), from this text, that it is permitted to take her after the first sister is dead." In answer to this, I will say, first, that— [I] Whatsoever the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law, else, by parity of reasoning, circumcision too, and the Sabbath, and abstinence from meats, might be urged upon us; for it will hardly be pretended, I suppose, that if we find anything in the law favourable to our own pleasures, we are in this to put ourselves under the yoke of the bondage of the law, but if any of the things enacted by the law seem to be grievous, we are then to run off to the liberty which is in Christ. [II.] I was asked " Is it written [or is it not in the Scripture] that a man may take a woman to [or after] her sister?" I replied (and this is both a true and a safe answer), that it is not so written. And to infer and conclude from the clause added after [the prohibition] something else, about which nothing is actually said, is to legislate, not to take the law as it stands; for[III.] If such a principle of interpretation be admitted, he who wills may lawfully venture, even while the first sister lives, to take the other. The same sophism will serve equally for that. It is written, he will say, "Thou shalt not take....to vex her" [avrinλov], so then if there be no danger of her vexing her, there is no prohibition, [ὡς τήνγε ἔξω τοῦ ζήλου λαβεῖν Oux ExaλUGEY.] Whereupon, he who is pleading in favour of his own passion, will settle it that ουκ εκώλυσεν.] the two sisters are so disposed as to be in no danger of vexing or being vexed; and so the reason given for the prohibition not existing, what (he will ask) is there to prevent his taking and having the two sisters together? But this is not written, we shall answer-neither in the other case is the allowance that is contended for expressed. But the sense of the clause added [after the words of prohibition] opens the door equally to both. However— [IV.] If we had first gone back a little to some words of the previous legislation [at the beginning of the same chapter of Leviticus xviii. v. 3] we might have got rid of our difficulty. For the lawgiver in this place seems not to be enumerating every form of sin, but specially forbidding the sins of the Egyptians from whom Israel had come forth, and of the Canaanites to whom Israel was being removed. For it is thus written: “ After the customs of the land of Egypt wherein ye sojourned shall ye not do; and after the customs of the land of Canaan into which I will bring you shall ye not do: neither in their ordinances [vouiuois, ways, maxims] shall ye walk." So then probably this particular form of sin may not have been common then among the Gentiles; and on this account the lawgiver may not have needed to make any additional provision against it, but may have contented himself with the existing and untaught custom to condemn the abomination. But how then was it (it will be asked) that when he had forbidden the greater [offence against such existing and untaught custom or feeling] he said nothing about the less [which might seem to need it more]? Because (we answer) there was something likely to be hurtful to many of the more carnal sort, and to give occasion to their taking to wife one sister after another while both were living, in the example of the Patriarch [Jacob]. But as for us, which is rather our duty, to speak that which is written, or to be curious about that which is not written? [V.] Take another case: That it is not right for a father and his son to come near to the same woman; neither shall we find that written here in these laws; and yet the Prophet treats it as a sin of the very deepest dye. For " a son (he says) and his father will go in unto the same maid" [Amos ii. 7.] And how many other forms are there not of unclean lusts, devised by the school of devils, which the Divine scripture has passed over in silence as being unwilling to pollute its own sanctity by the names of things shameful; distinguishing uncleannesses only under general heads? As the Apostle Paul says, "But fornication and all uncleanness, let it not be so much as named among you, as becometh saints;" comprehending, under the one general name of "uncleanness," all the unmentionable sins both of males and of females; so Rev. E. B. Pusey, that it is not true at all that the silence of Scripture carries with it a licence for the lovers of pleasure. [VI.] Not that, as regards our present question, I can ever allow that such sins have in point of fact, been passed over in silence; far from it! I assert that the lawgiver has forbidden them very expressly. For this text, "None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness" [Levit. xviii. 6], takes in this kind of "nearness also. For what can there be "nearer" to a man than his own wife; or rather, than his own flesh? For "they are no longer two but one flesh." So then, through the wife, her sister necessarily comes to be "near" to the husband. For as he is not to take the mother of his wife [Levit. xviii. 17], nor his wife's daughter [ibid.], because neither can he take his own mother or his own daughter, so [by parity of reasoning] neither is he to take the sister of his wife any more than his own sister, and vice versâ; neither will it be lawful for a woman to be married to any that are near of kin" to her husband. For the rights of kindred are common on both sides. [VII.] But, for me, as regards marriage, if there be any one who is willing [to listen to me], I testify that the fashion of this world passeth away, and that the time is short, and that they who have wives be as though they had them not." But if any one object to me the text "increase and multiply," I smile at his ignorance in not distinguishing between the times of the [different] legislations. A second marriage is [allowed] as a remedy against fornication, not as a passage to licentiousness. If they cannot contain "let them marry," he says, but not so as in marrying also to transgress. 66 66 [VIII.] But neither do such, while they foul their souls by dishonest passion, respect even nature herself, which has fixed from of old distinctive appellations of kindred; nor do they consider by what names they shall call the double issue of such double marriages; of brothers and sisters to one another, or of cousins? for both names will suit them equally on account of the confusion. Make not, O man, thy young children's aunt into their stepmother; nor arm against them her who ought to stand to them in affection, instead of their mother, with those implacable jealousies. For it is the stepmother's hatred only which carries its enmity beyond the grave. Other kinds of enemies are all willing to make peace with the dead, but the stepmother begins her hatred after death. To conclude what has been said: If any man contemplates marriage according to law, the whole world is open to him; but if his desire be of lust, this is just the reason that he is to be all the more forbidden; that he "may learn to possess his vessel in sanctification, and not in the lust of concupiscence." I would fain say more; but am withheld by the limits of this letter. I heartily pray that either my admonitions may have more force than such lust, or, at any rate, that so abominable a pollution come not into my province, but keep itself in those parts where the sin was perpetrated." a. And as regards the penance for such marriages, after premising that b. C. For incest between "brother and sister" (adeλpoužia), Canon Ixvii. of St. Basil appoints the same penance as for murder (p. 372 of the volume above referred to); and again, for incest with an own sister, of the same father and mother," Canon lxxv appoints xii. years of penance. We may notice that " Canon Ixviii. (p. 375) appoints for marrying two sisters successively the same penance as by the preceding Canon Ixvii, had been appointed for bigamists; that is, a penance of seven years' excommunication after the separation of the parties. Elsewhere, speaking generally of marriages within the forbidden degrees (that is, of such as are of less enormity than this, or than intermarriage with a stepmother, which are both treated of in separate Canons), Canon Ixviii. (p. 372) appoints for them the same penance as for fornication (or rather more), that is, iv years' excommunication after the separation of the parties. The above discipline of the Canons of St. Basil was solemnly acknowledged and re-enacted by Canon ii. of the Council of Constantinople in Trullo, which the Eastern Church reckons as a continuation or supplement to the VIth Ecumenical Council (p. 75), and again more particularly by Canon liv. of the same Council (p. 105), in these words: "Inasmuch as the Divine Scripture teaches us clearly, saying, 'Thou shalt not approach to any that is near of kin to thee, to uncover their nakedness' (Levit. xviii. 7), St. Basil, in the Canons which he composed, has enumerated some of the forbidden marriages, but has passed over in silence the greater number of them: and both in what he said, and in what he left unsaid, he did it to edification. For while he avoided multiplying designations of shameful sins, that he might not foul his writing with bad words, he distinguished under general names the several kinds of uncleannesses, and so comprehensively taught what marriages are unlawful. But since, through such silence and the indiscriminateness of the prohibition of unlawful marriages, nature was running into confusion, we have now judged it necessary to set forth more nakedly what relates to this matter; and we define that from henceforth, if any man take to wife his own niece, or if any father and his son take a mother and a daughter, or two sisters; or if any mother and her daughter are married to two brothers; or if two brothers marry two sisters, they are to be put to the penance of excommunication for seven years, after having first openly separated and broken off their unlawful intercourse." Thus this discipline, which seems in St. Basil's time to have been of immemorial antiquity, though then based, in part, only on unwritten custom, became, from St. Basil's time, and more especially from the final re-enactments of the Council in Trullo (A.D. 692), the Canon law of the whole Eastern Church, as it still continues to be at the present day, without any change or modification. D.D. November 26, 1847. I Rev. E. B. Pusey, November 26, -1847. t Of the forbidden degrees among the Nestorians (who have been separated from both a. Greeks and Latins since A.D. 431), and among the Monophysites (who have been separated from both Greeks and Latins, and also from the Nestorians, since A.D. 451), I can say but little, not being able to refer to their books; but I believe their discipline is identical with that of the orthodox Eastern Church. At any rate, I have been credibly informed that it is so; and, more especially, as regards the Monophysites (for the Armenians, the Syrians, and the Copts and Abyssinians, though they have three distinct rites in four different languages, and were originally three separate communions, now all intercommunicate together), I have had this information from members of the Russian Church who had travelled in the East, and were curious in ecclesiastical matters, and who, in their own country, were in habits of constant intercourse with educated Armenians, both of the higher clergy and laity, and had friends married into Armenian families. Such persons have often assured me that except in some points of the ceremonial and in the peculiar doctrine which makes them heretics, there was absolutely no difference between the discipline of the Armenian, or indeed of any of the heretical Eastern communities, and that of their own Church. And, as regards the Nestorians (whose separation is of still more antient date than that of b. any of the Monophysites), I may notice an incidental allusion to the number of the degrees prohibited among them, which seems fully to bear out the general assertion given above as applying to all the heretical Eastern communities; and so to the Nestorian Church among the rest. This occurs in a volume entitled "Missionary Researches," published in London A.D. 1834, by two American gentlemen, Messrs. Smith and Dwight. The passage is as follows: "The book called the Synodus (he said) [the speaker is a Nestorian bishop, with whom c. "the American missionaries conversed between Koosy and Jamalava, and who showed them "the book itself at the time] contains all the laws and canons of the [Nestorian] Church; "and by it a bishop can decide any question that is liable to come before him. In the case "of a proposed marriage, for example, he can determine from it whether the parties are "within the forbidden degrees, which are (he affirmed) sixty-five in number, including, as I un"derstand, some grades of the affinity that exists between sponsor and godchildren."—p. 407. Now, if we reckon up all the degrees that are forbidden in the Nomocanons of the d. orthodox Eastern Church, under the first four of the five kinds of relationship, so as to agree with the Nestorian bishop (the American missionaries' informant) in "including those grades of affinity which exist between sponsors and godchildren," we shall find just sixty-four in all, which is so near the number given by the Nestorian bishop (and it is easy to account for the slight discrepancy which does exist), as to leave no doubt (even if other assurances were wanting) of the identity of the Nestorian tradition in this respect with the Greek. So that, upon the whole, it seems that there are four separate and independent witnesses, e. preserved from the fifth century in different parts of Asia and Africa (in the, 1, Nestorian or Chaldean; 2, Syrian, or Jacobite; 3, Armenian; and 4, Coptic and Abyssinian Churches),. and still existing to testify to the truth of the assertion made by St. Basil, and reiterated by the Council in Trullo, that the discipline of their canons represented the original and apostolical custom and tradition of the East. That neither the Eastern Orthodox Church, nor any of the heretical churches of the East, f. whether Nestorian or Monophysite, admit or exercise any power of giving dispensations for marriages within the prohibited degrees, or of giving any other similar dispensations beyond or contrary to the canons (for, in some cases of discipline, there is a power of dispensation -expressly given by the canons), is a matter of notoriety, allusion to which occur frequently enough, on occasion, both in conversation and in books; though it is not easy to turn to documentary evidence of a merely negative custom. All I can do is to instance two or three incidental confirmations of the assertion that such is the fact.-e. 9. I. In the "Rule for the Spiritual Consistories" (i. e. for the Diocesan Courts) throughout the Russian empire, published at the Synodal Press, A.D. 1841, at St. Petersburgh, § iii. § 220, there is the following text: C. V. "The diocesan authority, in judging of the unlawfulness of any marriage by reason of relationship of blood [the word includes affinity], or spiritual relationship, must ground its decisions on a careful consideration of the proofs of the relationship, and a comparison of its degrees with the canons explained in the definitions of the most Holy Synod, which are based on the correct interpretation of the Canons of the Holy Church," p. 86, without any allusion whatever to the possibility of the diocesan authority either granting itself, or obtaining from the Synod, or allowing to be pleaded, any dispensation for marriage within the prohibition degrees. g. And in the printed Report made by the high procurator of all the affairs of the church h. within the Russian Empire, for the year 1845, there occurs in the Appendix, under No. 9, at p. 49, a Table of all the cases relating to marriage which were carried by appeal or reference before the most Holy Synod, during the preceeding year, from each of the 52 Russian dioceses; and from this Table it appears, that in the year 1845, four marriages were annulled by the Synod (besides what may have been annulled, without reference or appeal, by the diocesan authorities), on the ground of being within the forbidden degrees. And what is remarkable is, that all these four cases were from dioceses in which there is both a mixture of Roman Catholic Latins and also of reunited" Uniats," who had been long used to the intermixture of Greek and Latin customs and feelings. One case was from the diocese of Warsaw; another from that of Mohileff; the third from that of Podolia; and the fourth from that of Poltava. And in the body of the Report, p. 54, it is mentioned, that of 1053 persons D.D. who were, in the year 1845, confined in monasteries or convents, to do penance in consequence Rev. E. B. Pusey, of ecclesiastical sentences, 643 were for adultery, and other like sins; 17 for incest; and 10 (clergy or clerks) for celebrating, or assisting in celebrating, unlawful marriages. But no where in the Report is there any mention of dispensations, which then could not but have been, if dispensations were given. II. Three or four years ago, some Laplanders or Samoiedes (who had only recently been converted to the Russian Church), sent in a petition to the most Holy Synod, praying for a dispensation to eat game taken in nooses or springes, and so strangled on the plea of necessity, as this was their chief or only food. But the Synod replied in writing that they must find some other way of supporting themselves, or some other way of taking their game, as there was no authority in the Church to dispense with the canons of the Apostles. 66 III. A Russian priest and a naval officer, with whom I was two years ago in conversation, hearing it said that in the west, and among us, two brothers may marry two sisters, and that first cousins may intermarry, expressed the greatest horror, and for some time would not even believe it. But on being shewn a Roman Catholic book of theology, in which it was distinctly stated that a father and son may marry an aunt and her niece, and even a mother and her daughter, and two brothers equally two sisters, or a mother and her daughter; and that first cousins also may marry by dispensation, they exclaimed, Ah! with the papal system of dispensations you may do anything!" and made the same remark that I have repeatedly heard from members of their Church, that the systematized licentiousness of the Protestants has all flowed from that source of papal dispensing power. For wherever the Pope dispenses, or claims the power to dispense, and so undermines the force and inviolability of the prohibition, the Protestants naturally enough generalize, and assume that, as there is no real nor intrinsic ground for the prohibition, they may dispense with it altogether. November 26, 1847. 30th NOVEMBER, 1847. The Right Hon. STEPHEN LUSHINGTON, D.C.L., in the chair. The Rev. John Hatchard. 501. You are a clergyman of the Church of England?—Yes, I am the vicar of the parish of St. Andrew. Plymouth, with a population of 25,000 persons. 502. For how many years have you been so?—I have been there 23 years. 503. Have any instances of marriages within the prohibited degrees of affinity come within your knowledge?-Perhaps I had better state that, when called upon, with reference to this question, I willingly signed a petition to Parliament, presented by the clergy, for the repeal of the law, chiefly because in a parish, where I had been curate before my present incumbency, the subject had come very distinctly and very pointedly under my notice, and much more so than it has done in the very large town in which I now live, which, from the multitude of people it contains, is like another London. We perhaps may have married a great niany, but we do not know the parties so well, and therefore, the grounds upon which I have arrived at the conclusion to which I have come, rather have originated in my mind from my experience during the time I was in a large agricultural parish, where I knew everybody. 504. What parish is that?-The parish of Chatteris, in the Isle of Ely, 24 miles north of Cambridge. 505. Whilst you were resident at Chatteris, did several instances of this description of marriage come to your knowledge?-Several. 506. Whilst you have been resident at Plymouth, have many instances of this sort of marriage come within your knowledge?-Not so many have been brought prominently under my notice, as during the time I was curate of the former parish, because, from the multitude of the people, I do not know them equally well; for instance we may have 20 or 30 pair of banns in the church (as I had last Sunday) and I did not know one of the persons. 507. Whilst you were at Chatteris you had the means of ascertaining the sort of marriages that took place, but since you have been at Plymouth you have not had the same means?—I have had opportunities, but not to the same extent, nor brought before me so prominently. 508. What is the population of the parish of St. Andrew, Plymouth? About 25,000. 509. In the instances of the marriages that took place at Chatteris, were the persons who contracted those marriages received in the same way as they were before, or was there any disgrace generally attaching to them?—As far as my knowledge went, no disgrace was attached to the marriage on the part of the persons by whom they were surrounded. Instances of the kind occurred where they applied to me stating, that they wished to be married, and to have their banns put in; and I have said, "I cannot do that, it is against the law; this is your wife's sister," (because I knew everybody in the parish,) "I cannot marry you, it is against the law." I, myself, felt repugnant to it at first sight, and I discovered that they used to go away and come to London, generally, and return married, having been married either by licence, consequently by a false oath, or by banns in some church, necessarily under a false representation. 510. Have you reason to believe, that in a great majority of the instances where persons applied to you so to be married, they afterwards contracted marriage in some way or another?-I have every reason to believe that in every instance they were married. I have no reason to doubt it at all. 511. Have you had an opportunity of observing whether the Act of Parliament, generally called Lord Lyndhurst's Act, making those marriages ipso facto void, has had an extensive effect in preventing those marriages ?-As far as has come within my knowledge, it has had no effect The Rev. John November 30, 1847. The Rev. John popu at all; but as I have before stated, in a very large population, which is almost like the 512. Are you aware of any instances of these marriages at Plymouth?-Not of my own 514. Have you given much consideration to this subject?-I have. Perhaps I may be allowed to state, that in consequence of several of those marriages having come to my knowledge, during the period when I was curate of Chatteris, I was led very seriously to consider the question in all its bearings, at least as it presented itself to my mind; and very seriously, and very minutely, I have done the same very recently. And I speak advisedly, when I say that I come here prepared to offer my opinion that, theologically, it is correct that such marriages should take place; that there is no passage of Scripture which, correctly understood, a. looked at in all its bearings, goes to do away with it; but that there are passages which inferentially, though not directly, go rather to encourage it. Secondly, I have looked at it morally, and the conclusion to which I have come is, that theologically being incorrect, morally it cannot be so. I have endeavoured to look at it socially, as a member of the community, as the father of a large family, and as a clergyman occupying a large and important position; and I think in that respect there is every reason for an alteration of the law. And, fourthly, I have looked at it physically, and I see no ground whatsoever on account of which such marriages may not be legalized. In making these remarks, I beg to state that I have no case of b. any friend, or any member of my family, connexion, relative, or friend, in the slightest degree affected by this consideration; with the exception that, on the other side, there is the probability, with respect to a marriage about to take place in my own circle of acquaintance, that if the law were to be altered, this friend, or rather her intended husband, will ultimately lose a considerable property. I mention this to show, that whether these opinions which I may offer be correct or not, I have no reason for offering them upon any personal ground whatever, or that of any friend; but that rather on the contrary, in reference to one particular marriage, there would be found a reason why my own personal feelings should be opposed to it. 515. You have stated that you are of opinion that, theologically speaking, there is no prohibition of these marriages in Holy Writ? Yes. I say that calmly and advisedly. 516. Do you apprehend that at an early period of Christianity a construction was put by the Church upon any passages of Scripture, to the effect that such marriages ought not to be allowed? Unquestionably. I believe that the general construction of the Church, and of commentators, has been in opposition to such marriages, founded upon what I humbly believe to be a mistaken view of the passage in the 18th of Leviticus, and the 18th verse. 517. You say that you have considered this question morally speaking, as well as theologically; now, morally speaking, do you not anticipate that there might be some danger in the relaxation of the law in the case of a sister, after the death of her married sister, going to live with the widower?—I conceive that there is nothing that can be done, in the present state of society, but what may be attended with some evil: of course such an evil may take place, but I do not see any reason why it should take place any more than in the present existing state of the law. On the contrary, believing, as I do, that the law of man is the law of God when c. not contrary to the law of God, I think that the temptation to cohabitation with the wife's sister is very great, and that would be a great moral evil to be practised, whereas, if the law openly admitted such marriages, the moral evil would be, or, at least, ought to be, done away with. There would be no more reason why any gentleman sitting at this Board should be placed in a position of greater temptation with a wife's sister than with any other lady whom he might have residing with him for the care and education of his children. On the contrary; I should think that there is a shield which is thrown over a wife's sister, which is not thrown over another person. A widower might have a lady to live as a companion, a governess, or an associate, in loco parentis, of the mother, and that widower would be placed in very much greater temptation with a stranger than he would be with a wife's sister. I am speaking of the question morally. 518. Then are the Commissioners to understand your opinion to be, that, entertaining no objection to these marriages, either theologically or morally, you think the marriage of the wife's sister perfectly innocent, and, consequently, that a relaxation of the law would be preferable to its present state, where the sister does continue to reside with the husband, and they might unfortunately fall into sin, without the possibility of contracting a lawful union ?-[ decidedly think so. 519. Do you also think it is possible that, though not falling into actual sin, a brother and sister-in-law living together might find themselves in a position of great distress and pain, from an attachment which could not be rendered happy by a legitimate union ?—I think so, decidedly. Perhaps I may be allowed to say, with reference to the question of morality, that if my view of the question, theologically, is wrong, of course the moral part of it falls to the ground. 520. Have you been able to perceive that, in consequence of Lord Lyndhurst's Act, the public feeling in any degree, as against these marriages, has increased. No; I cannot say that my attention was much directed to the consideration of Lord Lyndhurst's Act, except just as a mere passing event at the time, until I was called upon by a gentleman who was seeking information upon the question from clergymen, and others who might be supposed likely to possess it, when my attention was anew directed to this question, and it became a subject of conversation with friends, and persons who were likely to be interested in, and have a knowledge of such points. The subject of Lord Lyndhurst's Act has been very little brought under my |