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."1 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.3 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 1 Adair, History of the American Indians, p. 159. 2 Bradbury, Travels in the Interior of America, p. 165 sq. Our informer adds, "Nor is any one, having taken refuge there, to be forced from it"; but with facts of this kind we are not concerned at present. They belong to the right of sanctuary, in the strict sense of the term, and, as will be seen, this right is based on a different principle, which prevents even the polluted manslayer, tainted with newly shed blood, from being dragged out of the sanctuary to which he has fled in the capacity of a suppliant. Aristotle, De republica Atheniensium, 57. Müller, Dissertations, p. 103. Donaldson, Expiatory and Substitutionary Sacrifices of the Greeks,' in Transactions Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, xxvii. 433. Farnell, op. cit. i. 72. and filth." 1 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.1 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." 5 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 1 Iliad, vi. 266 sqq. Cf. Vergil, Eneis, ii. 717 sqq. 2 I found this custom prevalent among the Shluh (Berbers) of Southern Morocco and among the Beni Ahsen, an Arabic-speaking tribe in the neighbourhood of Rabat. I was told in Dukkâla that it is a Berber custom. It occurs neither there, nor among the Andjra, of the Jbâla group. 3 I Chronicles, xxviii. 2 sq. Lecky, History of European Morals, ii. 39. 5 Adair, op. cit. p. 152. 6 Herodotus, i. 40. The Shluh of Southern Morocco consider that not only homicide, but the killing of a dog for ever after prevents a person from performing sacrifice at the "Great Feast." 7 Cæsar, De bello gallico, vi. 14. 8 d'Arbois de Jubainville, Civilisation des Celtes, p. 254. 9 Cæsar, De bello gallico, vi. 16, 1 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." 8 6 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). 4 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. 8 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 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.1 In Corea the parricide is burned to death.2 1 Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese, i. 338 sq. teristics, p. 229. 2 Griffis, Corea, p. 236. Among the ancient Egyptians, we are told, he was sentenced to be lacerated with sharpened reeds, and after being thrown on thorns he was burned.1 In Exodus we read of the "smiting" of parents, but parricide is not expressly mentioned, perhaps because the Hebrew legislator, like Solon at Athens, did not think it possible that any one could be guilty of so unnatural a barbarity.3 Herodotus states that the same notion was held by the ancient Persians, who said that no one ever yet killed his own father or mother, and that all cases of so-called parricide, if carefully examined, would be found to have been committed by supposititious children or those born in adultery, it being beyond the bounds of probability that a true father should be murdered by his own son.* Plato says in his Laws':-" If a man could be slain more than once, most justly would he who in a fit of passion has slain father or mother undergo many deaths. How can he whom, alone of all men, even in defence of his life, and when about to suffer death at the hands of his parents, no law will allow to kill his father or his mother who are the authors of his being, and whom the legislator will command to endure any extremity rather than do this-how can he, I say, lawfully receive any other punishment?" 5 At Athens parricides were the only persons accused of murder who were not allowed the chance of escaping before sentence was passed, but were instantly arrested. According to Roman law, a committer of parricidium was not subjected to any of the regular modes of capital punishment, but for "the most execrable of crimes. was provided "the most strange of punishments." The criminal was sewn up in a leathern sack with a cur, a cock, a viper, and an ape, and, when cooped up in this fearful prison, was hurled into the sea, or into 1 Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica, i. 77. 8. 2 Diogenes Laërtius, Solon, 10. Cicero, Pro S. Roscio Amerino, 25. Orosius, Historia, v. 16. 3 Exodus, xxi. 15. Cf. Keil, Manual of Biblical Archeology, ii. 376. 4 Herodotus, i. 137. 5 Plato, Leges, ix. 869. Cf. ibid. ix. 873. Müller, Dissertations on the Eumenides of Eschylus, p. 91. Cf. Euripides, Orestes, 442 sqq. |