Bible Studies Part 4

The term _taboo_ implies something sacred, reserved, prohibited by supernatural agents, the breaking of which prohibition will be visited by supernatural punishment. This notion is one of the most widely extended features of early religion. Holy places, holy persons, and holy things are all founded on this conception. Prof. W. Robertson Smith,*

says: "Rules of holiness in the sense just explained, i.e., a system of restrictions on man's arbitrary use of natural things enforced by the dread of supernatural penalties, are found among all primitive peoples."

* Religion of the Semites, p. 142.

The holy ark of the North American Indians was deemed "so sacred and dangerous to be touched" that no one except the war chief and his attendant will touch it "under the penalty of incurring great evil. Nor would the most inveterate enemy touch it in the woods for the very same reason."*

* Adair, History of the American Indians, p. 162.

In Numbers iv. 15 we read of the Jewish ark, "The sons of Kohath shall come to bear it; but they shall not touch any holy thing lest they die."

In 2 Sam. vi. 6, 7, we are told how the Lord smote Uzzah so that he died, simply for putting his hand on the ark to steady it. So the Lord punished the Philistines for keeping his ark, and smote fifty thousand and seventy men of Bethshemesh, "because they had looked into the ark of the Lord" (1 Sam. v. 6).

Disease and death were so constantly thought of as the penalties of breaking taboo that cases are on record of those who, having unwittingly done this, have died of terror upon recognising their error. Mr. Frazer, in his _Golden Bough_, instances a New Zealand chief, who left the remains of his dinner by the way side. A slave ate it up without asking questions. Hardly had he finished when he was told the food was the chief's, and taboo. "No sooner did he hear the fatal news than he was seized by the most extraordinary convulsions and cramp in the stomach, which never ceased till he died, about sundown the same day."

All the old temples had an adytum, sanctuary, or holy of holies--a place not open to the profane, but protected by rigid taboos. This was the case with the Jews. It was death to enter the holy places, or even to make the holy oil of the priests. Even the name of the Lord was taboo, and to this day cannot be p.r.o.nounced.

Take off your sandals, says G.o.d to Moses, for the place whereon you stand is taboo. The whole of Mount h.o.r.eb was taboo, and we continually read of the holy mountain. The ideas of taboo and of holiness are admitted by Prof. Robertson Smith to be at bottom identical.

Some taboos are simply artful, as the prohibition of boats to South Pacific women, lest they should escape to other islands. When Tamehameha, the King of the Sandwich Islands, heard that diamonds had been found in the mountains near Honolulu, he at once declared the mountains taboo, in order that he might be the sole possessor.

In Hawai the flesh of hogs, fowls, turtle, and several kinds of fish, cocoa-nuts, and nearly everything offered in sacrifice, were reserved for G.o.ds and men, and could not, except in special cases, be consumed by women* Some taboos of animals being used for food seem to have been dictated by dread or aversion, but others had a foundation of prudence and forethought. Thus there is little doubt that the prohibition of the sacred cow in India has been the means of preserving that animal from extermination in times of famine.

Various reasons have been a.s.signed for the taboos upon certain kinds of food found in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. As we have these laws they seem to represent a rough attempt at cla.s.sifying animals it was beneficial or hurtful to eat. Some ridiculous mistakes were made by the divine tabooist. The hare, a rodent, was declared to "chew the cud" (Lev. xi.

6, Deut. xiv. 7). The camel was excluded because it does not divide the hoof; yet in reality it has cloven feet. But doubtless it was seen it might be disastrous to kill the camel for food. Mr. Frazer is of opinion that the pig was originally a sacred animal among the Jews.

The cause of the custom of tabooing certain kinds of food, which was in existence long before the Levitical laws were written, perhaps arose partly from reverence, partly from aversion. It may, too, have been connected with the totemism of early tribes. No less than one hundred and eighty Bible names have a zoological signification. Caleb, the dog tribe; Doeg, the fish tribe; may be instanced as specimens.

Touching the carca.s.s of a dead animal was taboo, and the taboo was contagious. In Lev. xi. 21--25 we find rigorous laws on the subject.

Whoever carries the carca.s.s of an unclean animal must wash his garments.

The objects upon which a carca.s.s accidentally falls, must be washed, and left in water till the evening, and if of earthenware the defilement is supposed to enter into the pores, and the vessel, oven, or stove-range must be broken.

Touching a corpse was taboo among the Greeks,* Romans,** Hindoos,***

Pa.r.s.ees,**** and Phoenicians.(v) If a Jew touched a dead body--even a dead animal (Lev. xi. 89)--he became unclean, and if he purified not himself, "that soul shall be cut off from Israel" (Num. xix. 13). So "those who have defiled themselves by touching a dead body are regarded by the Maoris as in a very dangerous state, and are sedulously shunned and isolated."(v*) Doubtless it was felt that death was something which could communicate itself, as disease was seen to do.

* Eurip. Alcest, 100.

** Virgil aen., vi. 221; Tacit. Annal., 162.

*** Manu, y. 59, 62, 74-79.

**** Vendid iii. 25-27.

(v) Lucian Dea Syr., 523

(v*) J. Gk Frazer, Golden Bough, vol. i., p. 169.

When iron was first discovered it was invested with mystery and held as a charm. It was tabooed. The Jews would use no iron tools in building the temple or making an altar (Ex. xx. 25, 1 Kings vi. 7). Roman and Sabine priests might not be shaved with iron but only with bronze, as stone knives were used in circ.u.mcision (Ex. iv. 25, Josh. v. 2). To this day a Hottentot priest never uses an iron knife, but always a sharp splint of quartz in sacrificing an animal or circ.u.mcising a boy. In the boys' game of touch iron we may see a remnant of the old belief in its charm. When Scotch fishermen were at sea and one of them happened to take the name of G.o.d in vain, the first man who heard him called out "Cauld airn," at which every man of the crew grasped the nearest bit of iron and held it between his hand for a while.*

* E. B. Guthrie, Old Scottish Customs, p. 149. Charles Rogers, Social Life in Scotland, iii. 218.

Women were especially tabooed after childbirth and during menstruation (Lev. xii. and xv.) Among the Indians of North America, women at this time are forbidden to touch men's utensils, which would be so defiled by their touch that their subsequent use would be attended with misfortune.

They walk round the fields at night dragging their garments, this being considered a protection against vermin. Among the Eskimo, of Alaska, no one will eat or drink from the same cup or dishes used by a woman at her confinement until it has been purified by certain incantations.

In the Church of England Service, what is now called the "Thanksgiving of Women after Childbirth, commonly called the Churching of Women," was formerly known as _The Order of the Purification of Women_, and was read at the church door before the "unclean" creatures were permitted to enter the "holy" building. This should be known by all women who think it their duty to be "churched" after fulfilling the sacred office of motherhood.

In Hebrew the same word signifies at once a holy person, a harlot and a sodomite--sacred prost.i.tution having been common in ancient times. Mr.

Frazer, noticing that the rules of ceremonial purity observed by divine kings, priests, homicides, women in child-births, and so on, are in some respects alike, says: "To us these different cla.s.ses of persons appear to differ totally in character and condition; some of them we should call holy, others we might p.r.o.nounce unclean and polluted. But the savages make no such moral distinction between them; the conceptions of holiness and pollution are not yet differentiated in his mind. To him the common feature of all these persons is that they are dangerous and in danger, and the danger in which they stand and to which they expose others is what we should call spiritual or supernatural--that is, imaginary."*

Few would suspect it, but it is likely that the custom of wearing Sunday clothes comes from certain garments being tabooed in the holy places.

Among the Maoris "A slave or other person would not enter a _wahi tapu_, or sacred place, without having first stripped off his clothes; for the clothes, having become sacred the instant they entered the precincts of the _wahi tapu_, would ever after be useless to him in the ordinary business of life."** According to the Rabbins, the handling of the scriptures defiles the hands--that is, entails a was.h.i.+ng of purification. This because the notions of holiness and uncleanness are alike merged in the earlier conception of taboo. Blood, the great defilement, is also the most holy thing. Just as with the Hindus to this day, the excrements of the cow are the great means of purification.

* Golden Bough, vol. i., p. 171.

** Shortland's Southern Districts of New Zealand, p. 293.

Dr. Kalisch says, "Next to sacrifices purifications were the most important of Hebrew rituals."* The purpose was to remove the stain of contact either with the holy or unclean taboos. A holy, or taboo water--or, as it is called in the Authorised Version, "water of separation"--was prepared. First, an unblemished red heifer was slain by the son of the high priest outside the camp, then burnt, and as the ash mingled with spring water, which was supposed to have a magical effect in removing impurities when the tabooed person was sprinkled with it on the third and again on the seventh day. It was called a "purification for sin" (Num. xix. 9), and was doubtless good as the blood of the Lamb, if not equal to Pear's soap.

* Leviticus, pt. ii., p. 187.

In the ninth edition of the _Encylopedia Britannica_, Mr. J. G. Frazer says: "Amongst the Jews the vow of the Nazarite (Num. vi. 1--21) presents the closest resemblance to the Polynesian taboo. The meaning of the word Nazarite is 'one separated or consecrated,' and this is precisely the meaning of taboo. It is the head of the Nazarite that is especially consecrated, and so it was in the taboo. The Nazarite might not partake of certain meats and drinks, nor shave his head, nor touch a dead body--all rules of taboo." Mr. Frazer points out other particulars in the mode of terminating the vow. Secondly that some of the rules of Sabbath observance are identical with the rules of strict taboo; such are the prohibitions to do any work, to kindle a fire in the house, to cook food and to go out of doors.

We still have some remnant of the Sabbath taboo, and many a child's life is made miserable by being checked for doing what is tabooed on the Lord's Day. Other taboos abound. We must not, for instance, question the sacred books, the sacred character of Jesus, or the existence of the divine being. These subjects are tabooed. For reverence is a virtue much esteemed by solemn humbugs.

BLOOD RITES.

"Without shedding of blood is no remission,"

--Heb. ix. 22.

There is a fountain filled with blood Drawn from Immanuel's veins, And sinners plunged beneath that flood Lose all their guilty stains.

Judaism was a religion of blood and thunder. The Lord G.o.d of Israel delighted in blood. His wors.h.i.+ppers praised him as a G.o.d of battles and a man of war. All his favorites were men of blood. The Lord G.o.d was likewise very fond of roast meat, and the smell thereof was a sweet savor unto his nostrils. He had respect to Abel and his b.l.o.o.d.y offering, but not to Cain and his vegetables. He ordered that in his holy temple a bullock and a lamb should be killed and hacked to pieces every morning for dinner, and a lamb for supper in the evening. To flavor the repast he had twelve flour cakes, olive oil, salt and spice; and to wash it down he had the fourth part of a hin of wine (over a quart) with a lamb twice a day, the third part of a hin with a ram, and half a hin with a bullock (Exodus xxix. 40, Numbers xv. 5-11, xxviii. 7). But his great delight was blood, and from every victim that was slaughtered the blood was caught by the priest in a bason and offered to him upon his altar, which daily reeked with the sanguine stream from slaughtered animals.

The interior of his temple was like shambles, and a drain had to be made to the brook Oedron to carry off the refuse.* Incense had to be used to take away the smell of putrifying blood.

* Smith's Bible Dictionary, article "Blood."

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Altar of Jehovah.]

The most characteristic customs of the Jews, circ.u.mcision and the Pa.s.sover, alike show the sanguinary character of their deity. Because Moses did not mutilate his child, the Lord met him at an inn and sought to kill him (Exodus iv. 25). The Pa.s.sover, according to the Jews' own account, commemorated the Lord's slaying all the first-born of Egypt, and sparing those of the Jews upon recognising the blood sprinkled upon the lintels and sideposts of the doors; more probably it was a survival of human sacrifice. G.o.d's wors.h.i.+ppers were interdicted from tasting, though not from shedding, the sacred fluid; yet we read of Saul's army that "the people flew upon the spoil, and took sheep and oxen and calves, and slew them on the ground, and the people did eat them with the blood" (1 Sam, xiv. 32), much as the Abyssinians cut off living steaks to this day.

Christianity is a modified gospel of gore. The great theme of the Epistle to the Hebrews is that the blood and sacrifice of Christ is so much better than that of animals. The subst.i.tutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ is the great inspiration of emotional religion. Revivalists revel in "the blood, the precious blood":

Just as I am, without one plea, But that thy blood was shed for me, And that thou bidd'st me come to thee, Oh! Lamb of G.o.d, I come, I come!

Chorus--Jesus paid it all, All to him I owe; Sin had left a crimson stain; He washed it white as snow.

Jesus Christ says, "He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me, and I in him," and the most holy sacrament of the Christian Church consists in this cannabalistic communion.