Page:The ancient interpretation of Leviticus XVIII. 18 - Marriage with a deceased wife's sister is lawful.djvu/62

 degrees which he proceeds to enumerate, and is merely a brief preface, declaring that there are certain degrees of relationship which render marriages incestuous." Not all near kin, then, are forbidden by verse 6, but only those expressly or inferentially prohibited in the following verses. To know, then, who they are who are the "near kin" in verse 6, the following verses must first be consulted, and therefore verse 6 by itself proves nothing, and therefore the inference drawn by St. Basil and Dr. Pusey from the words of verse 6, independently of the following verses, has not even the merit of plausibility. Verses 7—18 are necessary in order to show what verse 6 means, and therefore, in order to prove that verse 6 prohibits marriage with a deceased wife's sister, it must first be proved that this marriage is somewhere forbidden in verses 7—18. That it is not necessarily forbidden in verse 16 I have already shown. It remains, therefore, for those who think differently to do what they have not yet attempted, to prove that the ancient interpretation of Lev. xviii. 18 is erroneous.

But, secondly, St. Basil's and Dr. Pusey's assumption that "flesh of his flesh" includes the wife's relations is unfounded. The word sheer (flesh, or near of kin), and the word basar (flesh), whether taken separately or together, are in the Bible used exclusively of blood-relations, and never of the wife's relations, unless she be descended from the same stock. To prove this, we begin with sheer (near-of-kin), observing that the etymology makes no difference in the argument. Instead of