Page:The ancient interpretation of Leviticus XVIII. 18 - Marriage with a deceased wife's sister is lawful.djvu/34

24 of these two men, to the united judgment of all those who have preceded them? If, indeed, all that succeeded them had adopted their version, and in the course of the last 280 years all the great Hebrew and Rabbinical scholars had followed them in rejecting the ancient and primitive version, we might have thought that the progress made in philology had thrown some new light on these old words, and that advancing criticism, more profound study of the Hebrew Bible, and etymological research, had helped modern students to understand the Divine law better than all who had preceded. But this is not the case. Few interpreters of the Old Testament of reputation have adopted the modern version, or followed Junius and Tremellius. The most distinguished Hebrew scholars since the Council of Trent have adhered to the judgment of antiquity. Thus the Bishops who revised Cranmer's Bible in 1568 still retained the ancient version, "Thou shalt not take a wife and her sister also to vex her, that thou wouldest uncover her nakedness upon her in her lifetime." In the Spanish translation of Cassiodore de Reyna (Basil, 1569), the same sense is given:—"Item, muger con su hermana por concubina no tomaras para descubrir sus verguenças delanta ella en sua vida." And to the same purpose the Jews, in their Spanish translation, made perhaps earlier, and since corrected by Manasseh ben Israel and other competent scholars:—"Y muger con su hermana no tomes: por combleçar, por descubrir su descobertura sobre ella en su vida."

The combined Universities of Salamanca and Complutum so approved of what is called Vatablus' Bible, that they republished it at Salamanca, 1574, altering what they considered Protestant errors. But this verse—xviii. 18 they leave as it stood:—"Uxorem ad sororem suam ne ducas, ad lacessendum ut scilicet retegas turpitudinem ejus, vivente adhuc illa," and add