Dist. 40
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/4/d/40/q/bon-sent-IV-d40-littera
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### Chap. I. *On carnal kinship.*

It now remains to say something about kinship. Now one kinship is *carnal*, and another *spiritual*. Let us first look at carnal kinship and affinity. Kinsfolk, then, or persons related by affinity within the seventh degree or nearer ought not to be joined in marriage. Whence Gregory: « We decree that each one is to observe his own lineage as far as the seventh generation; and as long as they acknowledge themselves to be near of kin by affinity, we deny them access to the marriage bond; and if they shall have done it, let them be separated ». Likewise, Pope Nicholas: « Let no one take a wife from among his own blood-relations until after the seventh generation, or as long as the kindred can be known ». Likewise: « Let no one take a wife from the nearness of his own blood within the seventh degree ». — By these authorities and by many others the unions of blood-relations are forbidden as far as the seventh degree.

### Chap. II. *On the reckoning of the degrees of consanguinity.*

But in what way the degrees of consanguinity are to be reckoned, Isidore shows thus: « The series of consanguinity is divided out into six degrees, in this manner: let the son and the daughter, that is to say the brother and the sister, be themselves the trunk. When these are set apart by themselves, from the root of that trunk there go forth these little branches: grandson and granddaughter, the first; great-grandson and great-granddaughter, the second; great-great-grandson and great-great-granddaughter, the third; the son and daughter of these, the fourth; the third-grandson and third-granddaughter, the fifth; the grandson of the third-grandson and the granddaughter of the third-granddaughter, the sixth ». Note that Isidore posits only six degrees, because he does not reckon the *trunk* among the degrees. — Others, however, who posit seven degrees, do reckon the *trunk* among the degrees. « For the degrees of kinship are variously reckoned. For some place the father in the first degree, the sons in the second. Others call the sons the first degree, denying that there is a degree of kinship between father and son, since father and son are one flesh.

Therefore the authorities which forbid the observance of consanguinity as far as the seventh degree place the father in the first degree; but those which forbid it as far as the sixth degree call the sons the first degree. And so it comes about that, according to this diversity, the same persons are found in the sixth and in the seventh degree ». But he places the father in the first degree who says that brothers are the second degree. In this way Pope Zacharias reckons, saying: « We reckon the degrees of kindred thus: I and my brother are one generation and make up the first degree. *Again*, my son and my brother's son are the second generation and make the second degree, and in this manner the remaining successions ». « But between those who reckon six degrees and those who reckon seven degrees there exists no diversity in sense, although a variety appears in the number of the degrees. For the last generation, if it takes the beginning of the numbering from the brothers, is found to be the seventh ».

### Chap. III. *Why seven degrees are reckoned.*

But why Isidore reckons six, he himself discloses, saying: « When consanguinity, dividing itself out little by little through the ranks of the offshoots, shall have drawn itself out to the last degree and shall have ceased to be nearness of kin; then for the first time the law will receive it into the bond of matrimony and will in a certain way begin to call back the one who is fleeing away. And consanguinity has been established as far as the sixth degree of the stock for this reason: that, just as generation and the state of man is brought to an end in the six ages of the world, so the nearness of the stock may be terminated in as many degrees ». In these six degrees all the names of the relationships are contained, beyond which neither affinity can be found, nor can the succession be prolonged any further. According to others, seven degrees are reckoned for this reason: that so, after seven degrees, the bridegroom may be joined to the bride, just as after this life, which is passed in seven days, the Church will be joined to Christ.

### Chap. IV. *On the dispensation granted by Gregory to the English.*

But against these things there arises that which Gregory writes back to Augustine, Bishop of the English, by whom he had been asked in what generation they might be joined in marriage; and he writes thus: « A certain Roman law permits that the son and the daughter either of a brother or of a sister, or of two full brothers or of two sisters, be joined together. But we have learned by experience that from such a marriage offspring cannot grow up. Whence it is necessary that the fourth or the fifth generation of the faithful be lawfully joined to one another ». But after a long time the same Gregory, being asked by Felix, bishop of Messina in Sicily, whether he had written to Augustine that marriages contracted by the English in the fourth generation should not be dissolved, gave among other things this account: « Know that what I wrote to Augustine, Bishop of the English, I wrote specially and not generally — for the English people themselves, who had lately come to the faith, lest, in dread of things too austere, they should fall back from the good which they had begun. Nor did I write these things to them for this purpose, that after they shall have been made solid in the faith, if they be found within their own consanguinity, they should not be separated, or that they should be joined within the line of affinity, that is, up to the seventh generation ».

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