Page:Cihm12428.djvu/29

 Question 445,—"What is their date?" Answer,—"I can only say that it is in Ante-Nicene collection." On this Dr. remarks:—"This is a vague reply. 'Ante-Nicene' takes in 325 years. How long then before the Council of Nice were these Canons collected, one year or 300 years? Some make the collection Post-Nicene. According to the judgment of Author:Johann Sebastian von Drey, one of the latest and most esteemed writers on this subject, the collection of the so-called Apostolical Canons is later than the Apostolical Constitutions, and the latter did not exist until the fourth century. If, therefore, we admit the collection to have been made and known as early as the Council of Nice (A.D. 325), there would still remain an interval of above three hundred years without any testimony on the subject, and also the question as to the measure of the authority which they possess, as a collection, and the still more difficult question of the date and origin and authority of the 19th Canon. Moreover the 19th Canon only says,

That he who married two sisters or niece [or, as some translate, a cousin] cannot become a clergyman.' It contains no prohibition, but testifies to the fact that such marriages were not unusual. In point of fact, therefore, the Apostolical Canons are valueless as an authority as to the lawfulness or unlawfulness of the disputed marriage, or even as to the date of the first notice of it in the Christian Church." [Ancient Interpretation of Leviticus xviii. 18, as received by the Church for more than 1,500 years, &c., &c., pp. 46, 47.]

THE TESTIMONY OF ST. BASIL, EXAMINED.

The Magazine writer's next testimony "as to the judgment of the church," is "St. Basil, in the 4th century," (pg. 16), as saying, "our custom in this matter has the force of law, because the statutes we observe have been handed down to us by holy men; and our judgment is this, that if a man has fallen into the sin of marrying two sisters, we do not regard such a union as marriage, nor do we receive the parties to communion with the Church until they are separated." It will be recollected that these words of occur in a controversial letter against an opponent. On this point also we avail ourselves of the remarks of, who observes: "'The custom established among us,' 'our custom,' and still more the Greek to par hemin ethos, speak only of that which was local. There is not the least mark of