Page:The ancient interpretation of Leviticus XVIII. 18 - Marriage with a deceased wife's sister is lawful.djvu/23

 known, or, if known, rejected, is further confirmed by the reception of the Latin Churches. They also had a version of their own, made probably some time in the second century; but that version, in its rendering of Lev. xviii. 18, does not differ from Onkelos or the LXX, or the Syriac, but gives in Latin the old Jewish sense. It is, in fact, a translation of the LXX, "Uxorem super sororem ejus non accipies in zelum." This version was the text-book of the Latin Churches until it was superseded by that of St. Jerome. That Father, for divers good reasons, made a new translation from the Hebrew, and, in his new translation, he made many important and judicious alterations. In this text, though he has made one alteration, he does not materially alter the sense. On the contrary, he makes the application to a wife's sister more clear and intelligible: "Sororem uxoris tuæ in pellicatum illius non accipies, nec revelabis turpitudinem ejus adhuc illa vivente."

Jerome's version gradually became the Bible of the whole Latin Church and continued so until the age of the Reformation, so that in giving the interpretation of Jerome, we give the interpretation of the Western Church for many centuries. Translations from the LXX, as the Æthiopic, the Egyptian, the Armenian, the Georgian, the Slavonian, and the Arabic, all retaining the ancient interpretation, were the Scriptures of the other Churches; and thus, as there is no trace of a

1 "A wife in addition to her sister thou shalt not take to cause jealousy."

2 "Thy wife's sister thou shalt not take into concubinage with her, nor reveal her shame, whilst the former is still living." Tostatus gives the correct interpretation of pellicatum thus: "Dicitur quod non accipietur in pellicatum, i.e., ut sit pellex sororis. Dicitur enim esse aliqua pellex, quæ est concubina alicujus viri habentis uxorem." The sense, therefore, is much the same as of the LXX, ἀντίζηλον αὐτῆς. See also Grotius in loc.