It is of much importance to mark clearly how absolute, upon Dr. M’Caul’s
reading of Leviticus xviii. 18, is the contradiction involved. I add,
therefore:—Let it be well observed that a time beyond that expressed by
the words “_in her life-time_” must be understood to be of the essence of
all the prohibitions. That is to say (and the awful importance of the
matter requires it to be stated plainly), that it is incest and not
adultery which is the subject of the prohibitions throughout. A man is
prohibited from marrying his Mother not merely during his Father’s life
time, but always—his Sister, not merely, if she be married, and, if so,
during her husband’s life-time, but always. So of the Brother’s Wife,
and the rest. Therefore according to the interpretation insisted upon,
the collision is, as stated in the text, a complete contradiction; a
universal negative on the one side met by a particular affirmative on the
other, just as if one should say, negatively, “No horses are black,” and
then immediately add, affirmatively, “Some horses are black.” For, the
statements drawn out in full, including the case by parity of reasoning
from verse 16, would stand thus:—
Thou shalt not take thy Brother’s Wife, whether in thy Brother’s
life-time or not.
Thou shalt not take thy Wife’s Sister, whether in her Sister’s life-time
or not.
Thou mayest take thy Wife’s Sister, if it be not in her Sister’s
life-time.
Such is the over-riding demanded by Dr. M’Caul’s position, and necessary
to the argument if this 18th verse is to be made in any way available for
the purpose of the promoters of the change in our marriage law. The
improbability of such a contradiction within two verses, including an
assumed change in the subject matter, from incest to adultery, in a
continuous catalogue of the enormities denounced, can, as it appears to
me, hardly be exaggerated.
There is one consideration further to which it may be well to call
attention, viz., that the _translation_ of Lev. xviii. 18, is not to be
confused with its _interpretation_. Dr. M’Caul naturally insists much
upon the translation, and in addition to his own critical judgment,
allowed to be of great weight from his known eminence as an Hebrew
Scholar, he gives many authorities in favour of the rendering as it
stands in the text of our authorized version. Still it is to be remarked
that the authorities whom he cites for the translation are by no means at
one with him as to the interpretation. This point will be found very
fully treated of in the second letter of the present Lord Chancellor to
the Dean of Westminster, printed in 1861, {40} and, if I remember
rightly, it was also examined and the result put very forcibly by the
Bishop of Exeter in the postscript to his letter to the late Bishop of
Lichfield, published, I believe, in 1860, where it is observantly noted
that of all our Reformers cited by Dr. M’Caul as having accepted the
authorized version as to the rendering of Lev. xviii. 18, there is not
one who has gone with him in the application of it which he advocates,
inasmuch as they have all either explicitly or implicitly received our
table of prohibited degrees: a proof that even from Dr. M’Caul’s premise,
as to the translation, they have not come to his conclusion as to the
interpretation. And it is plainly in the interpretation, not in the mere
translation, that the above-mentioned contradiction is involved.
Footnotes.
{5} Speech of Vice-Chancellor Sir W. P. Wood. p. 5.
{7} Against profane dealing with Holy Matrimony, by the Rev. John Keble,
pp. 12, 13. J. H. Parker. 1849.
{8} Ibid. pp. 13, 14.
{9} Letter to Rev. W. H. Lyall, by Rev. A. M’Caul, D.D., pp. 1–4.
Wertheim, Mackintosh, and Hunt. 1859.
{10} Speech of Sir W. P. Wood, pp. 5, 6.
{11} Dr. M’Caul’s Letter to Sir W. P. Wood, 1860, p. 55.
{12} See Note at the end of Appendix.
{13a} Appendix A.
{13b} Canon 99.—“None to marry within the degrees prohibited.” “And all
such marriages so made shall be judged incestuous and unlawful.”
A Table of kindred and affinity, wherein whosoever are related are
forbidden in Scripture and our laws to marry together.—_Book of Common
Prayer_.
{14} Letter, p. 55.
{15} St. Matt. xxii. 24.
{16} It may be useful just to state that the law termed the law of the
Levirate is that law laid down in Deut. xxv. 5–10, that in case a Jew
dying childless, his brother should take his wife and raise up seed unto
his brother.
{18} Letter to Rev. W. H. Lyall, p. 14.
{20} Letter to Vice-Chancellor Sir W. Page Wood, p. 29–31.
{21} Appendix B.
{23} Lev. xviii., 20–30.
{24} See Dr. Pusey’s Evidence before the Royal Commission, First Report,
p. 37, questions 431–3.
{30} It is, moreover, evident that something of the kind of the law of
the Levirate was a usage of the Patriarchal times, from the history
recorded as to the sons of Judah in the book of Genesis.
{32} St. Luke xxiv. 27.
{36} Appendix C.
{40} Second Letter of Vice-Chancellor Sir W. Page Wood, pp. 47–63.