by the sacred men, because it was believed to destroy their sacredness. The priestly taboos, of which Dr. Frazer has given such an exhaustive account in The Golden Bough,' have undoubtedly in a large measure a similar origin. Nay, it seems that pollution not only deprives the holy person of his holiness, but is also supposed to injure him in a more positive way. When the supreme pontiff in the kingdom of Congo left his residence to visit other places within his jurisdiction, all married people had to observe strict continence the whole time he was out, as it was believed that any act of incontinence would prove fatal to him." In self-defence, therefore, gods and holy persons try to prevent polluted individuals from approaching them, and their worshippers are naturally anxious to do the same. But apart from the resentment which the sacred being would feel against the defiler, it appears that holiness is supposed to react quite mechanically against pollution, to the destruction or discomfort of the polluted individual. All Moors are convinced that anyone who in a state of sexual uncleanness would dare to visit a saint's tomb would be struck by the saint; but the Arabs of Dukkâla, in Southern Morocco, also believe that if an unclean person rides a horse some accident will happen to him on account of the baraka with which the horse is endowed. It should further be noticed that, owing to the injurious effect of pollution upon holiness, an act generally regarded as sacred would, if performed by an unclean individual, lack that magic efficacy which would otherwise be ascribed to it. Muhammed represented ceremonial cleanliness as "onehalf of the faith and the key of prayer." The Moors say that a scribe is afraid of evil spirits only when he is sexually unclean, because then his reciting of passages of the Koran-the most powerful weapon against such spirits -would be of no avail. The Syrian philosopher Jam 1 Macdonald, Oceania, p. 181. 2 Labat, Relation historique de l'Ethiopie occidentale, i. 259 sq. 3 Pool, Studies in Mohammedanism, p. 27. blichus speaks of the belief that "the gods do not hear him who invokes them, if he is impure from venereal connections." 1 A similar notion prevailed among the early Christians; with reference to a passage in the First Epistle of the Corinthians, Tertullian remarks that the Apostle added the recommendation of a temporary abstinence for the sake of adding an efficacy to prayers. To the same class of beliefs belongs the notion that a sacrificial victim should be clean and without blemish. The Chibchas of Bogota considered that the most valuable sacrifice they could offer was that of a youth who had never had intercourse with a woman." 6 4 3 If ceremonial cleanliness is required even of the ordinary worshipper it is all the more indispensable in the case of a priest; and of all kinds of uncleanness none is to be more carefully avoided than sexual pollution. Sometimes admission into the priesthood is to be preceded by a period of continence. In the Marquesas Islands no one could become a priest without having lived chastely for several years previously. Among the Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast men and women, in order to become members of the priesthood, have to pass through a long novitiate, generally from two to three years, during which they live in retirement and are instructed by the priests in the secrets of the craft; and "the people believe that, during this period of retirement and study, the novices. must keep their bodies pure, and refrain from all commerce with the other sex."" The Huichols of Mexico, again, are of opinion that a man who wishes to become a shaman must be faithful to his wife for five years, and that, if he violates this rule, he is sure to be taken ill and will lose the power of healing. 10 In ancient Mexico the priests, all " the time that they were employed in the service of the temple, abstained from all other women but their wives, and even affected so much modesty and reserve, that when they met a woman they fixed their eyes on the ground that they might not see her. Any incontinence amongst the priests was severely punished. The priest who, at Teohuacan, was convicted of having violated his chastity, was delivered up by the priests to the people, who at night killed him by the bastinado." Among the Kotas of the Neilgherry Hills the priests—who, unlike the "dairymen" of their Toda neighbours are not celibatesare at the great festival in honour of Kamataraya forbidden to live or hold intercourse with their wives for fear of pollution, and are then even obliged to cook their meals. themselves. It seems that, according to the Anatolian religion, married hieroi had to separate from their wives during the period they were serving at the temple. The Hebrew priest should avoid all unchastity; he was not allowed to marry a harlot, or a profane, or a divorced wife, and the high-priest was also forbidden to marry a widow. Nay, even in a priest's daughter unchastity was punished with excessive severity, because she had profaned her father; she was to be burned." Carried further, the idea underlying all these rules and practices led to the notions that celibacy is more pleasing to God than marriage, and that it is a religious duty for those members of the community whose special office is to attend to the sacred cult. For a nation like the Jews, whose ambition was to live and to multiply, celibacy could never become an ideal; whereas the Christians, who professed the most perfect indifference to all earthly matters, found no difficulty in glorifying a state which, however opposed it was to the interests of the race and the nation, made men pre-eminently fit to approach their god. 1 Clavigero, op. cit. p. i. 274. 2 Thurston, in the Madras Government Museum's Bulletin, i. 193. 3 Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, i. 136, 137, 150 sq. 4 Leviticus, xxi. 7. 5 Ibid. xxi. 14. 7 Cf. supra, ii. 358. Indeed, far from being a benefit to the kingdom of God by propagating the species, sexual intercourse was on the contrary detrimental to it by being the great transmitter of the sin of our first parents. This argument, however, was of a comparatively late origin. Pelagius himself almost rivalled. St. Augustine in his praise of virginity, which he considered the great test of that strength of free-will which he asserted to be at most only weakened by the fall of Adam.1 Religious celibacy is, moreover, enjoined or commended as a means of self-mortification supposed to appease an angry god, or with a view to raising the spiritual nature of man by suppressing one of the strongest of all sensual appetites. Thus we find in various religions celibacy side by side with other ascetic observances practised for similar purposes. Among the early Christians those young women who took a vow of chastity "did not look upon virginity as any thing if it were not attended with great mortification, with silence, retirement, poverty, labour, fastings, watchings, and continual praying. They were not esteemed as virgins who would not deny themselves the common diversions of the world, even the most innocent." Tertullian enumerates virginity, widowhood, and the modest restraint in secret on the marriage-bed among those fragrant offerings acceptable to God which the flesh performs to its own especial suffering. Finally, it was argued that marriage prevents a person from serving God perfectly, because it induces him to occupy himself too much with worldly things. Though not contrary to the act of charity or the love of God, says Thomas Aquinas, it is nevertheless an obstacle to it." This was one, but certainly not the only, cause of the obligatory celibacy which the Christian Church imposed upon her clergy. 1 Milman, op. cit. i. 151, 153Fleury, op. cit. p. 128 sq. 3 Tertullian, De resurrectione carnis, 8 (Migne, op. cit. ii. 806). Vincentius Bellovacensis, Speculum 3 naturale, xxx. 43. See also von Eicken, op. cit. p. 445. 5 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, ii.-ii. 184. 3. CHAPTER XLII FREE LOVE-ADULTERY HARDLY less variable than the moral ideas relating to marriage are those concerning sexual relations of a nonmatrimonial character. Among many uncivilised peoples both sexes enjoy perfect freedom previous to marriage, and in some cases it is considered almost dishonourable for a girl to have no lover. The East African Barea and Kunáma do not regard it as in the least disreputable for a girl to become pregnant, nor do they punish or censure the seducer. Among the Wanyoro "it constantly happens that young girls spend the night with their lovers, only returning to their father's house in the morning, and this is not considered scandalous. The Wadigo regard it as disgraceful, or at least as ridiculous, for a girl to enter into marriage as a virgin.3 Among the Bakongo "womanly chastity is unknown, and a woman's honour is measured by the price she costs." 4 Over nearly the whole of British Central Africa, says Sir H. Johnston, "before a girl is become a woman (that is to say before she is able to conceive) it is a matter of absolute indifference what she does, and scarcely any girl remains a virgin after about five years of age. Among the Baronga "l'opinion publique se moque des gens continents plus qu'elle ne les admire." 6 According to Mr. Warner, "seduction of virgins, and cohabiting with unmarried women and "5 Johnston, British Central Africa, p. 405. 5 Ibid. p. 409, note. 6 Junod, Les Ba-Ronga, p. 29. |
