Note 15 — Chapter IV · MARRIAGE CEREMONIES.
Reading edition
Diog. Laert. Proœm. § 6. To this practice Euripides probably alludes in the Andromache, v. 173, sqq., where Hermione describes, with scorn, the profligate manners of the barbarians. Catullus, inveighing against the impious depravity of a contemporary, observes—
“Nam Magus ex matre et gnato gignatur oportet,
Si vera est Persarum impia religio.”
Epig. lxxxiii. 3, seq. Pope Alexander VI. and the Emperor Shah Jehan have, in modern times, been accused of similar crimes. Bayle, Dict. Hist. et Crit. Art. Alexandre VI. and Bernier, Voyages, t. i. On the prohibited degrees of consanguinity, see Sepulveda, de Ritu Nupt. et Dispens. i. § 20, where he says, that the Pope could authorize all unions, save those between parents and children. “Et ideo hodiè non ligant, nisi quatenus ab ecclesia sunt assumptæ; ac propterea Papa dispensare potest cum omnibus personis, nisi cum matre et patre, ut matrimonium contrahant.” Card. Cajetan. ap. Sepulved. ub. sup.