Page:Unlawfulmarriage00jane.djvu/120

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116
LEVITICAL STATUTES

great oriental scholar, will appear from the following quotation, in which he expresses his own apprehension of what was signified by "children born of incest." It is found on the same page with the faulty quotation of the Puritan, and a little before it. "De Liberis ex incestu genitis (quod et de concubinis et de uxoribus ingenuis and Israeliticis, sed quibuscum sive ob affinitatem sive ob consanguinitatem matrimonium contrahi non poterat, intelligo) ita Moses Maimonides," &c. Maimonides speaks of a Mamzer, and asserts that he could succeed to the inheritance, just as another son or brother.

On this quotation we offer two remarks. First, Selden here plainly asserts, that children begotten of freeborn Israelitish concubines, or wives, with whom, on account of affinity or consanguinity, a Hebrew man could not lawfully contract marriage, were children of incest. Secondly, this implies that he believed that God had given to his people Israel a law which prohibited marriages, on the ground both of affinity and consanguinity. And where is that law to be found except in the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus? the sixth verse of which he quotes,