1. I HAVE read your greeting, my like-minded friend Paternus, but the
question on which you ask my advice, wishing to marry your son to your
grand-daughter by your daughter, is by no means paternal, but unworthy
of you both as grand-father and as father. Consider therefore what
it is you ask about, for in all that we wish to do, we ought first
to investigate the nature of the deed, and then we shall be able to
estimate whether it is worthy of praise or blame. For instance, carnal
intercourse with women is a pleasure to some, physicians even say it
is healthful to the body; but we must consider whether it be with a
wife or a stranger, with a married or an unmarried woman. If a man have
commerce with one who is espoused and given to him he calls it marriage;
he who assails the chastity of one who belongs to another commits
adultery, by the very name of which the temerity of the attempt is
generally repressed. To slay an enemy is accounted a victory, to slay
a criminal is justice, to slay an innocent man murder, and if a man is
conscious of this he withholds his hand. Wherefore I beg that you also
will consider what it is you propose.
2. You wish to arrange a marriage between our children. But I would ask
whether you would have equals or those who are unequal joined together?
if I mistake not, they are wont to be called ‘pairs[245].’ He who
yokes oxen to the plough, or horses to the chariot, chooses pairs, that
both their age and their form may harmonize, that there be no natural
difference, nor blemish of diversity. You are proposing to unite your
son and your grand-daughter by your daughter, that is, that he should
marry his sister’s daughter, true though it is that he was born of
a different mother from his professed mother in law. Consider what
restraint is implied in the very names; he is called her uncle, she is
called his niece. Does not the very sound of the names[246] recal you,
when the one has in it the sound of grand-father, and the other refers
alike to uncle and to grand-father? How great again is the confusion of
the other terms? You will be called both grand-father and father in law,
she too will receive the different names of niece and daughter in law.
The brother and sister also will exchange different names, she will be
the mother in law of her brother, he the son in law of his sister. The
niece will marry her uncle, and the affection of these your unstained
offspring be exchanged for an irregular love.
3. On this point you tell me that the holy man your Bishop is looking
for my sentiments. I cannot think or believe this. For if this were
so, he would himself have chosen to write, but by not doing so he has
intimated that he considers there is no ground for doubt upon the point.
For how can there be any such doubt, when the prohibition of marriage
between first cousins extends, according to the Divine law, to those
who are related in the fourth degree. But this is the third degree,
which even by the civil law seems to be excepted from the fellowship
of marriage.
4. But let us first inquire what are the decrees of the Divine law,
for you allege in your letters that an union between such persons must
be considered as allowed by that Law, in that it is not forbidden. I
however assert that it is actually forbidden; for seeing that first
cousins are forbidden slighter familiarities, much more must I deem
this forbidden which contains within it the bond of a much closer union.
For he who affixes censure to lighter offences does not acquit but
rather condemn heavier ones.
5. But if you consider it to be permitted because it is not specially
forbidden, neither will you find it forbidden by the words of the
Law that the father should take his daughter to wife. But is this
lawful, merely because it is not forbidden? By no means; it has been
interdicted by the law of nature, by that law which is in the hearts of
each of us, by the inviolable rule of piety, on the ground of nearness
of kin. How many things of this kind will you find which are not
forbidden in the law promulgated by Moses, but which are yet forbidden
by the voice of nature.
Sidenote: 1 Cor. x. 23.
Sidenote: 2 Cor. v. 17.
6. There are many things which are lawful, but which are not expedient,
for _all things are lawful, but all things are not expedient, all
things are lawful, but all things edify not_. If then the Apostle
recalls us even from those things which edify not, how can we imagine
that may be done which is not permitted by the oracle of the Law, and
which edifies not, because it differs from the rule of piety? Yet those
very things in the old Law which were more severe were mitigated by
the Gospel of the Lord Jesus. _Old things are passed away, behold, all
things are become new._
7. What is so usual as a kiss between an uncle and a niece, which he
owes to her as a daughter, she to him as a parent? Will you therefore
cast suspicion on this kiss of unoffending piety by proposing such
a union, will you deprive your beloved offspring of a sacrament so
venerable?
8. But if the Divine law pass by you unheeded, at least the laws of
Emperors, from whom you have received such ample honours, ought not
to have been so disregarded. Now the Emperor Theodosius forbad even
cousins by either the fathers’ or mothers’ side to be united under the
name of marriage, and affixed a severe penalty upon any rash union of
brothers’ children. And yet these are equal as regards each other, but,
as they are bound together by the ties of mankind and brotherly union,
he would have them owe their birth to piety.
9. But you will say this rule has been relaxed in favour of some. The
law however is not prejudiced thereby, for that which is [not][247]
enacted for general use is only profitable to him in whose favour the
relaxation takes place, and so the odium is much less. Now although
we read in the Old Testament of one calling his wife his sister, it is
unheard of that any man should marry his niece and call her his wife.
10. It is indeed a curious plea which leads you to assert that your
grand-daughter is not connected with your son, her uncle, by any
close bond, merely because they have no relationship by the father’s
side[248]. As if an uterine brother and sister, born that is, of the
same mother but by a different father, would be united together when
of a different sex, for as much as they have no relationship by the
father’s side[249], but are only united to each other by the mother’s
side[250].
11. You ought therefore to relinquish your intention, which, even
were it lawful, would not tend to propagate your family, for your
son owes to us grand-children, your dear grand-daughter owes to us
great-grand-children.
Farewell to you and all yours.
LETTER LXI.
A.D. 394.
THIS letter was addressed to Theodosius after his victory over
Eugenius. S. Ambrose in it explains his absence from Milan, and
after expressing his gratitude to God for His blessing on the
arms of Theodosius, urges the Emperor to a merciful use of his
victory.