Marriage. 120
we betake ourselves to tradition, we shall find great ambiguity and variety hereof in the fathers." Thus says he. Ergo.
Marriage 1. In the purest times, the canonical account of the degrees of consanguinity as it is called, was never heard of. For Ambrose (l. 8, epi. 66) says that brothers' children are four degrees distant in legal supputation, not canonical. But this legal supputation also crept into the church by degrees and was free without bond of law until 1,070 years after Christ; and then Alexander II decreed that the degrees were to be reckoned after this canonical supputation, and that under pain of excommunication (ca. 35, q. 5, cap. 2, Ad sedem).
2. The forbidding of the fourth degree (and much more of the seventh) according to canonical supputation, remained unknown in the most pure and ancient churches unto at least 500 years after Christ. About the 300th year of Christ there was no degree at all prohibited, but only such as were expressly named in the written
Word of God. But afterwards, was marriage of cousins-germains forbidden, as Ambrose (l. 8, epi. 66) and Augustine also (De civit.
Dei, lib. 15, c. 86), with Petrus Diaconus do testify. But this prohibition was abrogated by the laws of Honorius and Arcadius, and by Justinian's also, though afterwards it was renewed in the church by the Council of Epanne, c. 30, about the year of our Lord 490. And afterwards, anno 500, began these prohibitions to extend unto the third degree inclusively, for the third Council of Aurelia, c. 10, and the second of Terwin, cap. 22, do forbid marriage of the brother's or sister's children and so does Altisiodor, cap. 34, circa anno 614.
Thus stood these prohibitions, in this third degree, for a long time, in the Latin Church, but about the 600th year, the popes Gregory,
Nicholas, etc., decreed that all the degrees of consanguinity should be kept unto the seventh generation. (Gratian, 35, q. 2) But afterwards, Innocent III in the Council of Laterane, anno Dom. 1215, limits this prohibition at the 4th degree inclusively, and allows all matches without this 4th degree. But by this allowance of his are many unlawful marriages made. For example:
Peter and Paul are brethren, and their stock descends thus:
John | Peter Paul Rachel Susanna Joanna Leah Here Peter may not be joined in marriage with Leah, though 6 degrees distant, because that being the brother of Paul, he is a father unto all that descend in Paul's line, and so in that respect unto Leah also.
3. The fathers do sometimes reprehend the second marriage of either person in case of divorce upon fornication, but yet they do hold such marriages to be true and firm. This did hold for 400 years after the incarnation. So that they held, that in case of adultery the marriage
(among the faithful) is dissolved, not only in respect of bed, but also of bond, wherefore they were not acquainted with the distinction of a double divorce. Origen, hom. 7, in Matth., says that these marriages
(after separation) are against Scriptures, but yet not without cause he allows them for avoiding of a greater evil, and holds them no otherwise permitted. And these Ambrose, in 1 Corinthian. 7, allows unto a man. And so does Epiphanius also, contra Caethar. haeres. 59.