of the world must arise, has become and furthered the greatest wish of Aharman." 1 I am, however, of opinion that considerations of this kind have generally played only a subordinate, if any, part in the formation of the moral opinions concerning homosexual practices. And it can certainly not be admitted that the severe Jewish law against sodomy was simply due to the fact that the enlargement of the population was a strongly felt social need among the Jews. However much they condemned celibacy, they did not put it on a par with the abominations of Sodom. The excessive sinfulness which was attached to homosexual love by Zoroastrianism, Hebrewism, and Christianity, had quite a special foundation. It cannot be sufficiently accounted for either by utilitarian considerations or instinctive disgust. The abhorrence of incest is generally a much stronger feeling than the aversion to homosexuality. Yet in the very same chapter of Genesis which describes the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah we read of the incest committed by the daughters of Lot with their father; 3 and, according to the Roman Catholic doctrine, unnatural intercourse is an even more heinous sin than incest and adultery. The fact is that homosexual practices were intimately associated with the gravest of all sins unbelief, idolatry, or heresy. According to Zoroastrianism, unnatural sin had been created by Angra Mainyu." Aharman, the wicked, miscreated the demons and fiends, and also the remaining corrupted ones, by his own unnatural intercourse." Such intercourse is on a par with Afrâsiyâb, a Turanian king who conquered the Iranians for twelve years; with Dahâk, a king or dynasty who is said to have conquered Yim and reigned for a thousand years; with Tûr-i Brâdar-vakhsh, 1 Dâdistan- Dînîk, lxxvii. 11. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, ii. ii. 154. 12. Katz, Grundriss des kanonischen Strafrechts, pp. 104, 118, 120. Clarus, Practica criminalis, book v. § Sodomia, Additiones, I (Opera omnia, ii. 152): 8 2 4 a heterodox wizard by whom the best men were put to death. He who commits unnatural sin is "in his whole being a Daêva"; and a Daêva-worshipper is not a bad Zoroastrian, but a man who does not belong to the Zoroastrian system, a foreigner, a non-Aryan.3 In the Vendîdâd, after the statement that the voluntary commission of unnatural sin is a trespass for which there is no atonement for ever and ever, the question is put, When is it so? And the answer given is-If the sinner be a professor of the religion of Mazda, or one who has been taught in it. If not, his sin is taken from him, in case he makes confession of the religion of Mazda and resolves never to commit again such forbidden deeds. This is to say, the sin is inexpiable if it involves a downright defiance of the true religion, it is forgiven if it is committed in ignorance of it and is followed by submission. From all this it appears that Zoroastrianism stigmatised unnatural intercourse as a practice of infidels, as a sign of unbelief. And I think that certain facts referred to above help us to understand why it did so. Not only have homosexual practices been commonly associated with sorcery, but such an association has formed, and partly still forms, an incident of the shamanistic system prevalent among the Asiatic peoples of Turanian stock, and that it did so already in remote antiquity is made extremely probable by statements which I have just quoted from Zoroastrian texts. To this system Zoroastrianism was naturally furiously opposed, and the "change of sex" therefore appeared to the Mazda worshipper as a devilish abomination. So also the Hebrews' abhorrence of sodomy was largely due to their hatred of a foreign cult. According to Genesis, unnatural vice was the sin of a people who were not the Lord's people, and the Levitical legislation represents Canaanitish abominations as the chief reason (Sacred Books of the East, xxiv. 35, n. 3). 1 Sad Dar, ix. 5. West's note to Dádistán- Dînîk, xxii. 8 (Sacred Books of the East, xviii. 218). 2 Vendidad, viii. 32. 3 Darmesteter, in Sacred Books of the East, iv. p. li. + Vendidâd, viii. 27 sq why the Canaanites were exterminated. Now we know that sodomy entered as an element in their religion. Besides kede shoth, or female prostitutes, there were kedeshim, or male prostitutes, attached to their temples.2 The word kādēsh, translated "sodomite," properly denotes a man dedicated to a deity; and it appears that such men were consecrated to the mother of the gods, the famous Dea Syria, whose priests or devotees they were considered to be. The male devotees of this and other goddesses were probably in a position analogous to that occupied by the female devotees of certain gods, who also, as we have seen, have developed into libertines; and the sodomitic acts committed with these temple prostitutes may, like the connections with priestesses, have had in view to transfer blessings to the worshippers. In Morocco supernatural benefits are expected not only from heterosexual, but also from homosexual intercourse with a holy person. The kedeshim are frequently alluded to in the Old Testament, especially in the period of the monarchy, when rites of foreign origin made their way into both Israel and Judah." And it is natural that the Yahveh worshipper should regard their practices with the utmost horror as forming part of an idolatrous cult. The Hebrew conception of homosexual love to some extent affected Muhammedanism, and passed into Christianity. The notion that it is a form of sacrilege was here strengthened by the habits of the gentiles. St. Paul found the abominations of Sodom prevalent among nations who had "changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the course.5 1 Creator." During the Middle Ages heretics were accused of unnatural vice as a matter of course.2 Indeed, so closely was sodomy associated with heresy that the same name was applied to both. In 'La Coutume de Touraine-Anjou' the word herite, which is the ancient form of hérétique, seems to be used in the sense of "sodomite"; and the French bougre (from the Latin Bulgarus, Bulgarian), as also its English synonym, was originally a name given to a sect of heretics who came from Bulgaria in the eleventh century and was afterwards applied to other heretics, but at the same time it became the regular expression for a person guilty of unnatural interIn medieval laws sodomy was also repeatedly mentioned together with heresy, and the punishment was the same for both. It thus remained a religious offence of the first order. It was not only a "vitium nefandum et super omnia detestandum," but it was one of the four "clamantia peccata," or crying sins, a "crime de Majestie, vers le Roy celestre." Very naturally, therefore, it has come to be regarded with somewhat greater leniency by law and public opinion in proportion as they have emancipated themselves from theological doctrines. And the fresh light which the scientific study of the sexual impulse has lately thrown upon the subject of homosexuality must also necessarily influence the moral ideas relating to it, in so far as no scrutinising judge can fail to take into account the pressure which a powerful nonvolitional desire exercises upon an agent's will. 1 Romans, i. 25 sqq. 2 Littré, Dictionnaire ae la langue française, i. 386, Bougre.' Haynes, Religious Persecution, p. 54. 3 Littré, op. cit. i. 2010, 'Hérétique.' Les Établissements de Saint Louis, i. 90, vol. ii. 147. Viollet, in his Introduction to the same work, i. 254. 5 Littré. op. cit. i. 386, Bougre." Murray, New English Dictionary, i. 1160,Bugger.' Lea, History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, i. 115, note. Beaumanoir, Coutumes du Beau voisis, xxx. II, vol. i. 413:—“Qui erre contre le foi, comme en mescreance, de le quele il ne veut venir à voie de verité, ou qui fet sodomiterie, il doit estre ars, et forfet tout le sien en le maniere dessus." Britton, i. 10, vol. i. 42. Montesquieu, De l'esprit des lois, xii. 6 (Euvres, p.283). Du Boys, Histoire du droit criminel de l'Espagne, pp. 486, 721. Clarus, Practica criminalis, book v. § Sodomia, 1 (Opera omnia, ii. 151). Coke, Third Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England, p. 59. Mirror, quoted ibid. p. 58. 9 CHAPTER XLIV REGARD FOR THE LOWER ANIMALS MEN'S conduct towards the lower animals is frequently a subject of moral valuation. Totem animals must be treated with deference by those who bear their names, and animals generally regarded as divine must be respected by all; of this more will be said in a subsequent chapter. Among various peoples the members of certain animal species must not be killed, because they are considered to be receptacles for the souls of departed men, or because the species is believed to have originated through a transformation of men into animals.3 The Dyaks of Borneo have a superstitious dread of killing orang-utans, being of opinion that these apes are men who went to live in the forest and abstain from speaking merely in order to be exempt from paying taxes. The Moors consider it wrong to kill a monkey, because the monkey was once a man whom God changed into his present shape as a punishment for the sin he committed by performing his ablutions with milk; and they would never do harm to a stork, because, as they say, the stork was originally a judge, who passed unjust sentences upon his fellow creatures and therefore became what he is. also account it a sin to kill a swallow or a pigeon, a white spider or a bee, because they regard them as holy. Other creatures, again, are spared by the Moors because they 1 Infra, on Duties to Gods. 2 Infra, p. 516 sq. They 3 See Meiners, Allgemeine Geschichte der Religionen, i. 213 sqq. 4 Selenka, Sonnige Welten, p. 57. |