Commentaria in Leviticum
18. THOU SHALT NOT TAKE THY WIFE’S SISTER FOR A HARLOT TO HER.—The Hebrew adds, to vex her, if she should see her sister brought in over her like a concubine, and so rivalry and jealousy arise between them. See Genesis 30:1.
NEITHER SHALT THOU UNCOVER HER NAKEDNESS WHILE SHE IS YET LIVING—because after her death thou mayest take thy wife’s sister to wife: for this was lawful under the old law, but under the new it is no longer lawful. For now affinity up to the fourth degree dissolves marriage, as does consanguinity.
You will ask whether all these degrees, which are reckoned in this chapter, are so absolutely forbidden by the law of nature as to make marriage void, and the Pontiff cannot dispense? They affirmed it: Henry VIII, who pretended this law for his divorce from Catherine; at the same time some Doctors in various Universities affirmed it, but they were corrupted by Henry’s gold angels. Their reason was that the Chanaanites, sinning against these laws, were punished by God, as is plain from verse 24; but the Chanaanites had no other law than that of nature: therefore these laws are laws of nature. But the contrary is of faith: it is proved first from the definition of the Council of Trent, Session 24, canon 3: “If anyone shall say that only those degrees of consanguinity and affinity which are expressed in Leviticus can impede matrimony to be contracted, and dissolve it when contracted, and that the Church cannot dispense in some of them, or establish that more impede; let him be anathema.”
Secondly, Jacob had two sisters, Rachel and Lia, as wives, which is nevertheless forbidden here in verse 18.
Thirdly, if what is said here, that no one take his brother’s wife, were an absolute precept of nature, then it would likewise not have been lawful by the law of nature to wed her in the case in which the brother had died without children; which was nevertheless lawful, as is plain from Deuteronomy 25:5; for what is absolutely forbidden by the law of nature and evil is lawful in no case. Again, if this law were one of nature, marriage of an uncle with a niece ought to have been forbidden here as well as that of an aunt with a nephew. For that cause of difference and disparity which I gave at verse 12 is slight, and does not suffice to overthrow the law of nature, nor does it remove the equal bond of consanguinity in an equal degree.
Fourthly, the same is plain from the common practice of the Church, which has often dispensed and does dispense in the degrees here forbidden, as the Pontiff dispensed with Catherine, wife of Arthur, that after his death she might marry Henry VIII, the brother of Arthur, king of the English.
Finally, it is the common opinion of the Doctors that only the degrees of consanguinity in the direct line between ascendants and descendants, and at most the first degree in the collateral line, which is that of brother with sister (though Cajetan denies even this), make marriage void by the law of nature.
These degrees, then, were forbidden to the Jews by positive divine law, which is now abolished and does not bind Christians: yet the Church has renewed this law, and forbade the same degrees in Christian marriages (and added others besides); and that, first, because nature and natural modesty shrink from them, and to act against these without just cause is sin: hence also the nations of the Chanaanites doing contrary are said here to have been punished by God and expelled, verse 24. Where, however, note that those nations were expelled rather on account of idolatry, sodomy and other crimes, as I shall say at verse 28.
Secondly, because the law of nature inclines to this, that such marriages be made void by positive law, in which therefore dispensation can take place, when elsewhere a greater common good demands it, and easily repays and covers the unseemliness and whatever else in this union would otherwise seem contrary to natural modesty. And hence it is plain what is to be answered to the reason alleged to the contrary. And this only the Council of Toledo intended, Session 2, chapter 5, when, alluding to these laws of Leviticus, it says: “We ordain that no one of the faithful desire to be joined in marriage to a kinswoman of his blood, as far as the lineaments of affinity are recognised by the succession of the family; since it is written: ‘No man shall approach to her that is near of kin to him’; nor is the sentence made without denunciation; for it adds: ‘The soul that shall do any of these abominations shall perish from the midst of his people.’”
19. NEITHER SHALT THOU UNCOVER HER FILTH (that is, nakedness)—for the Hebrew is ervat, that is, nakedness, which our translator everywhere here renders “turpitudinem.”
21. THOU SHALT NOT GIVE ANY OF THY SEED TO BE CONSECRATED (1) TO THE IDOL MOLOCH: NEITHER SHALT THOU DEFILE THE NAME OF THY GOD.—You will ask, what idol was Moloch? Note, first, that Moloch is the same as Molech (as the Hebrews now point it and pronounce it), and as Melech, that is, king; Melchom, and Melchom, that is, their king. Hence St. Jerome on Isaias 57 calls Moloch king, and the Septuagint here render Moloch “prince.” He was called Moloch, then, that is, king and prince, namely of men and gods, on account of the remarkable observance and worship of that idol, as though he were the supreme God of all. So also the Ethiopians even now call God emlach, that is, king, from the Hebrew Melech, that is, king. I say first: Moloch was Baal, that is, the god of the Ammonites, to whom the Jews offered not only their seed, by softness and idolatry, but also their sons, by parricide and idolatry, burning them with fire. This is plain from 4 Kings 23:10, where Josias decreed “that no man should consecrate his son or daughter by fire to Moloch.” And Jeremias 32:35: “To initiate their sons and daughters,” and Ezechiel 16:20, they washed their sons and daughters for demons, namely Moloch.
I say secondly: the Hebrews, and among them Lyranus, Abulensis, Adrichomius, A Castro, and recent writers generally, relate that the idol Moloch was a statue with hollow, wide hands, in which the child to be sacrificed was placed, and was burnt by a fire set inside the statue, or was passed through the fire, that is, was driven through the fire into the arms of Moloch, to be burnt as it were in his embrace, and so the sacrifice might be pleasing to the god Moloch, and then they said that the child had been caught up by the gods to the heavens. For such is the statue of Saturn (who was either like Moloch or the same) described by Diodorus, book 20; though others, but few, think the child was thrown through the mouth of Moloch into his belly, and burnt there. But this mouth would have been too vast and horrible. But if they offered their daughters and sons not to be burnt but to be initiated in the rites of Moloch, then they drove them to the idol through the midst of two fires. See Plutarch, book On Superstition.
Now lest the cries of the children so driven, or burning and dying, should be heard by their parents, the priests and other ministers of the idol beat the toph, that is, the drum: whence the place was called Tophet, as from its owners, namely the sons of Hennom, it was called Gehennom, that is, the valley of Hennom. Hence from like cruelty and burning hell is called by Christ Gehenna, Matthew 5:22.
Add that the Jews in the desert worshipped Moloch, as is plain from Acts 7:43. And indeed it is conjectured that they were much addicted to him, from the fact that his worship is forbidden to them earnestly, both here and in chapter 20, beyond the other idols. Perhaps the Jews were incited to this by the example of Abraham their parent, who offered his son Isaac to God; but wrongly. For Abraham did this by a special and express command of God, and offered his Isaac not to an idol but to the true God. For this reason many think that the Moloch of the Jews had the head of a calf, because the Jews in the desert worshipped Serapim, that is, the calf.