Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/759

Rh sentiment. Of this nature was the sacredness which attached among the Hebrews to the temple and especially to the holy of holies, which none but a minister of religion might enter; and to the sin-offering, which only the priests were permitted to eat. Persons devoted in any way to the Deity were debarred from certain things which were supposed to render them impure; here there was no question of an infringement of a moral law, but only the feeling that contact with or use of certain objects impaired the religious efficiency of the devoted person, probably because such acts and objects were held for some reason to be displeasing to the Deity, or to vitiate the body, or to interfere with the functions of a ministrant. In some cases we can see the grounds for these provisions, in other cases they go back to customs of unknown origin. The Jewish Nazarite was forbidden to eat or drink of the products of the vine or to cut his hair; the first of these injunctions was probably a survival from the old nomadic life, in which the vine was not cultivated (so also in the case of the Rechabites), the second regarded the hair as a seat of life, and therefore as a symbol of the divine presence and authority. The Roman flamen dialis enjoyed many privileges as a high representative of a god, but on the other hand was enveloped in an extraordinary mass of restrictions: he could not be out of the city a single night, or sleep out of his own bed three consecutive nights; and no one else might sleep in his bed. He was forbidden to swear an oath; to wear any but a plain ring; to walk along a path covered by vines; to touch flour, leaven, or a dead body; to touch or to name a dog, a she-goat, ivy, beans, or raw flesh. When his hair and nails were cut, the clippings and parings were buried beneath a tree whose fruit could be offered to the superior deities. His wife was surrounded by similar restrictions. Evidently some of these were intended to keep the priest faithful to his duties, to secure his presence at the temple. The objects he was forbidden to touch were doubtless held, from some forgotten customs, to be distasteful to the deity (taboo). That there was no real ethical element in the prohibition appears from the fact that other men might do the forbidden things with impunity. We may compare the modern notions in some communities which require clergymen to wear certain sorts of dress, or insist on their refraining from certain things which are regarded as lawful for other men. A minister of religion offending in these points we regard not as immoral, but rather as improper; a Roman priest so offending would have been looked on as guilty of impiety toward the deity and toward the state.

In undeveloped communities the honors paid to the gods are naturally transferred to chiefs and royal persons supposed to be descended from the gods. We may thus explain the prohibition