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As, therefore, the human race, subsequently to the first marriage of
the man who was made of dust, and his wife who was made out of his
side, required the union of males and females in order that it might
multiply, and as there were no human beings except those who had been
born of these two, men took their sisters for wives, an act which was
as certainly dictated by necessity in these ancient days as afterwards
it was condemned by the prohibitions of religion. For it is very
reasonable and just that men, among whom concord is honorable and
useful, should be bound together by various relationships; and one man
should not himself sustain many relationships, but that the various
relationships should be distributed among several, and should thus
serve to bind together the greatest number in the same social
interests. "Father" and "father-in-law" are the names of two
relationships. When, therefore, a man has one person for his
father, another for his father-in-law, friendship extends itself to
a larger number. But Adam in his single person was obliged to hold
both relations to his sons and daughters, for brothers and sisters were
united in marriage. So too Eve his wife was both mother and
mother-in-law to her children of both sexes; while, had there been
two women, one the mother, the other the mother-in-law, the family
affection would have had a wider field. Then the sister herself by
becoming a wife sustained in her single person two relationships,
which, had they been distributed among individuals, one being sister,
and another being wife, the family tie would have embraced a greater
number of persons. But there was then no material for effecting this,
since there were no human beings but the brothers and sisters born of
those two first parents. Therefore, when an abundant population made
it possible, men ought to choose for wives women who were not already
their sisters; for not only would there then be no necessity for
marrying sisters, but, were it done; it would be most abominable.
For if the grandchildren of the first pair, being now able to choose
their cousins for wives, married their sisters, then it would no
longer be only two but three relationships that were held by one man,
while each of these relationships ought to have been held by a separate
individual, so as to bind together by family affection a larger
number. For one man would in that case be both father, and
father-in-law, and uncle to his own children (brother and sister now
man and wife); and his wife would be mother, aunt, and
mother-in-law to them; and they themselves would be not only brother
and sister, and man and wife, but cousins also, being the children of
brother and sister. Now, all these relationships, which combined
three men into one, would have embraced nine persons had each
relationship been held by one individual, so that a man had one person
for his sister, another his wife, another his cousin, another his
father, another his uncle, another his father-in-law, another his
mother, another his aunt, another his mother-in-law; and thus the
social bond would not have been tightened to bind a few, but loosened
to embrace a larger number of relations.
And we see that, since the human race has increased and multiplied,
this is so strictly observed even among the profane worshippers of many
and false gods, that though their laws perversely allow a brother to
marry his sister, yet custom, with a finer morality, prefers to
forego this license; and though it was quite allowable in the earliest
ages of the human race to marry one's sister, it is now abhorred as a
thing which no circumstances could justify. For custom has very great
power either to attract or to shock human feeling. And in this
matter, while it restrains concupiscence within due bounds, the man
who neglects and disobeys it is justly branded as abominable. For if
it is iniquitous to plough beyond our own boundaries through the greed
of gain, is it not much more iniquitous to transgress the recognized
boundaries of morals through sexual lust? And with regard to marriage
in the next degree of consanguinity, marriage between cousins, we have
observed that in our own time the customary morality has prevented this
from being frequent, though the law allows it. It was not prohibited
by divine law, nor as yet had human law prohibited it; nevertheless,
though legitimate, people shrank from it, because it lay so close to
what was illegitimate, and in marrying a cousin seemed almost to marry
a sister, for cousins are so closely related that they are called
brothers and sisters,' and are almost really so. But the ancient
fathers, fearing that near relationship might gradually in the course
of generations diverge, and become distant relationship, or cease to
be relationship at all, religiously endeavored to limit it by the bond
of marriage before it became distant, and thus, as it were, to call
it back when it was escaping them. And on this account, even when the
world was full of people, though they did not choose wives from among
their sisters or half-sisters, yet they preferred them to be of the
same stock as themselves. But who doubts that the modern prohibition
of the marriage even of cousins is the more seemly regulation, not
merely on account of the reason we have been urging, the multiplying of
relationships, so that one person might not absorb two, which might be
distributed to two persons, and so increase the number of people bound
together as a family, but also because there is in human nature I know
not what natural and praiseworthy shamefacedness which restrains us from
desiring that connection which, though for propagation, is yet lustful
and which even conjugal modesty blushes over, with any one to whom
consanguinity bids us render respect?
The sexual intercourse of man and woman, then, is in the case of
mortals a kind of seed-bed of the city; but while the earthly city
needs for its population only generation, the heavenly needs also
regeneration to rid it of the taint of generation. Whether before the
deluge there was any bodily or visible sign of regeneration, such as
was afterwards enjoined upon Abraham when he was circumcised, or what
kind of sign it was, the sacred history does not inform us. But it
does inform us that even these earliest of mankind sacrificed to God,
as appeared also in the case of the two first brothers; Noah, too,
is said to have offered sacrifices to God when he had come forth from
the ark after the deluge. And concerning this subject we have already
said in the foregoing books that the devils arrogate to themselves
divinity, and require sacrifice that they may be esteemed gods, and
delight in these honors on no other account than this, because they
know that true sacrifice is due to the true God.
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