Wakanda; no one wished to eat with him, for they said, "If we eat with whom Wakanda hates, for his crime, Wakanda will hate us." 1 In the Chinese books there are numerous instances of persons haunted by the souls of their victims on their death-bed, and in most of these cases the ghosts state expressly that they are avenging themselves with the special authorisation of Heaven.2 The Greek belief in the Erinys of a murdered man no doubt originated in the earlier notion of a persecuting ghost, whose anger or curses in later times were personified as an independent spirit. And the transformation went further still: the Erinyes were represented as the ministers of Zeus, who by punishing the murderer carried out his divine will. Zeus was considered the originator of the rites of purification; when visited with madness by the Erinyes, Ixion appealed to Zeus Hikesios, and at the altar of Zeus Meilichios Theseus underwent purification for the shedding of kindred blood. Originally, as it seems, only the murder of a kinsman was an offence against Zeus and under the ban of the Erinyes, but later on their sphere of action was expanded, and all bloodshed, if the victim had any rights at all within the city, became a sin which needed purification. Uncleanness was thus transformed into spiritual impurity. When the pollution with which a manslayer is tainted is regarded as merely the work of a ghost or of some spirit-substitute who, like the Moorish jnun, has nothing to do with the administration of justice, it may be devoid of all moral significance in spite of the dread it inspires; but the case is different when it comes to be conceived of as a divine punishment, or as a sin-pollution in the eyes of the supreme god. Such a transformation of ideas could hardly take place

1 Dorsey, 'Omaha Sociology,' in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. iii. 369.

2 de Groot, Religious System of China, (vol. iv. book) ii. 441.

See Müller, Dissertations, p. 155 sqq.; Rohde, Psyche. p. 247; Idem, Paralipomena,' in Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, 1895, p. 6 sqq.

4 Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, i. 66 sqq. Rohde, Psyche, p. 249. Idem, in Rheinisches Museum, 1895, p. 18. Stengel, Die griechischen Kultusaltertümer, p. 140.

5 Farnell, op. cit. i. 68, 71. Rohde, Psyche, p. 247.

unless the act, considered polluting, were by itself apt to evoke moral disapproval. But it is obvious that the gravity of the offence is increased by the religious aspect

it assumes.

In yet another way the defiling effect attributed to the taking of human life has had an influence on religious and moral ideas. Such defilement is shunned not only by men, but, in a still higher degree, by gods. The shedding of human blood is commonly prohibited in sacred places. "In almost every Indian nation," says Adair, "there are several peaceable towns, which are called 'old-beloved,' 'ancient, holy, or white towns'; they seem to have been formerly towns of refuge,' for it is not in the memory of their oldest people, that ever human blood was shed in them; although they often force persons from thence, and put them to death elsewhere." The Aricaras of the Missouri, according to Bradbury, have in the centre of the largest village a sacred lodge called the "medicine lodge,” which "in one particular corresponds with the sanctuary of the Jews, as no blood is on any account whatsoever to be spilled within it, not even that of an enemy."2 At Athens the prosecution for homicide began with debarring the criminal from all sanctuaries and assemblies consecrated by religious observances. According to Greek ideas, purification was an essential preliminary to an acceptable sacrifice. Hector said, "I shrink from offering a libation. of gleaming wine to Zeus with hands unwashed; nor can it be in any way wise that one should pray to the son of Kronos, god of the storm-cloud, all defiled with blood

3

1

and filth." In some parts of Morocco, a man who has slain another person is never afterwards allowed to kill the sacrificial sheep at the "Great Feast."2 When David had in his heart to build a temple, God said to him, “Thou shalt not build an house for my name, because thou hast been a man of war, and hast shed blood." 3 A decree of the penitential discipline of the Christian Church, which was enforced even against emperors and generals, forbade anyone whose hands had been imbrued in blood to approach the altar without a preparatory period of penance.*

Whilst, from fear of contaminating anything holy, casual restrictions have thus been imposed on all kinds of manslayers, whether murderers or those who have killed. an enemy in righteous warfare, more stringent rules have been laid down for persons permanently connected with the religious cult. Adair states that the "holy men" of the North American Indians, like the Jewish priests, were by their function absolutely forbidden to shed human blood, "notwithstanding their propensity thereto, even for small injuries." Herodotus says of the Persian Magi that they "kill animals of all kinds with their own hands, excepting dogs and men."6 The Druids of Gaul never went to war, probably in order to keep themselves free from blood-pollution; it is true, they sacrificed human. victims to their gods, but those they burnt." To the same class of facts belong those decrees of the Christian Church which forbade clergymen taking part in a battle. Moreover, if a Christian priest passed a sentence of death

8

he was punished with degradation and imprisonment for life; nor was he allowed to write or dictate anything with a view to bringing about such a sentence. He must not perform a surgical operation by help of fire or iron.3 And if he killed a robber in order to save his life, he had to do penance till his death. The hands which had to distribute the blood of the Lamb of God were not to be polluted with the blood of those for whose salvation it was shed.5

It cannot be doubted that this horror of blood-pollution had a share in that regard for human life which from the beginning, and especially in early times, was a characteristic of Christianity. But in other respects also, Christian feelings and beliefs had an inherent tendency to evoke such a sentiment. The cosmopolitan spirit of the Christian religion could not allow, in theory at least, that the life of a man was less sacred because he was a foreigner. The extraordinary importance it attached to this earthly life as a preparation for the life to come naturally increased the guilt of any one who, by cutting it short, not only killed the body, but probably to all eternity injured the soul. In a still higher degree than most other crimes, homicide was regarded as an offence against God, because man had been made in His image. Gratian says that even the slayer of a Jew or a heathen has to undergo a severe penance, “quia imaginem Dei et spem futuræ conversionis

exterminat.'

1 Gratian, Decretum, ii. 23. 8. 30. 2 Concilium Lateranense IV., A.D. 1215, ch. 18 (Labbe-Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum collectio, xxii. 1007).

3 Concilium Lateranense IV., A.D. 1215, ch. 18 (Labbe-Mansi, op. cit. xxii. 1007).

Thomassin, Dictionnaire de discipline ecclésiastique, ii. 1074.

5 Ibid. ii. 1069.

6 Concilium Lugdunense I., A.D. 1245, Additio, de Homicidio (LabbeMansi, op. cit. xxiii. 670).

7 von Eicken, Geschichte und System der Mittelalterlichen Weltanschauung, p. 568.

Gratian, Decretum, i. 50. 40.

CHAPTER XVII

THE KILLING OF PARENTS, SICK PERSONS, CHILDREN

FETICIDE

We have found that among mankind at large there is a moral rule which forbids people to kill members of their own society. We shall now see that the stringency of this rule is subject to variations, depending on the special relationship in which persons stand to one another or on their social status, and that there are cases to which it does not apply at all.

Owing to the regard which children are expected to feel for their parents, parricide is considered the most aggravated form of murder. Nowhere have parents been more venerated by their children than among the nations of archaic culture, and nowhere has parricide been regarded with greater horror. In China it is punished with the most ignominious of all capital punishments, the so-called "cutting into small pieces "; and in some instances, when the crime has occurred in a district, in addition to all punishments inflicted on persons, the wall of the city where the deed was committed is pulled down in parts, or modified in shape, a round corner is substituted for a square one, or a gate removed to a new situation, or even closed up altogether.' In Corea the parricide is burned to death."

1 Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese,

i. 338 sq. Smith, Chinese Charac

teristics, p. 229.

2 Griffis, Corea, p. 236.