Page:The ancient interpretation of Leviticus XVIII. 18 - Marriage with a deceased wife's sister is lawful.djvu/56

 not with the interpretation of Scripture, but with the accumulation of testimony as to the practice of the Church for many ages. But even on this point the testimony is singularly and fatally defective. This learned author appeals to the judgment of the Church for the first 1,500 years, and yet does not produce one witness from the first 300 years, the three centuries that are just the most important, yea, indispensable to his argument. According to the Evidence, Question 444 asked, "When was the earliest period in the Christian Church at which notice was taken of these marriages?" The reply was, "In the Apostolic Canons, canon 19, one who had so married, or had married a niece, was for ever excluded from the clergy." Quest. 445, "What is their date? "Answer, "I can only say that it is an Ante-Nicene collection." 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 Von Drey, one of the latest and most esteemed writers on this subject, the collection of the so-called Apostolical Canons is later than that of the Apostolical Constitutions, and the latter did not exist in its present form until the fourth century. If, therefore, we admit the collection to have been made and known as early as the Council of Nice, there would still remain an interval of above 300 years without any testimony on the subject, and also the questions 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,