It is related in the Gospel that the Sadducees challenged our Lord on that question of what is called Levirate marriage, that is, the marriage of a childless brother’s widow by his next brother. This marriage, illustrated by a repulsive narrative in the book of Genesis, and formally ordered in the book of Deuteronomy, appears to have been theoretically part of the current Jewish law in the time of Christ. The Sadducees professed, perhaps with truth, to adduce an actual case. "There were with us seven brethren." Yet the Levirate law ran so counter to civilised sentiment that even the Rabbis appear to have disputed as to the obligation of the Mosaic rule. It was long the practice of Christian divines to attempt to explain away what they supposed to be a peculiarity of Hebrew law by some special hypothesis. Even writers who, like the present Dean of Lichfield, are aware of the widely-extended character of the practice, yet deem it necessary to argue that "God, Who made the law, might suspend the incestuous
