Bible Studies: Essays on Phallic Worship and Other Curious Rites and Customs

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."[29 - Shortland's Southern Districts of New Zealand, p. 293.] According to the Rabbins, the handling of the scriptures defiles the hands—that is, entails a washing 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.

Dr. Kalisch says, "Next to sacrifices purifications were the most important of Hebrew rituals."[30 - Leviticus, pt. ii., p. 187.] 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.

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 God of Israel delighted in blood. His worshippers praised him as a god of battles and a man of war. All his favorites were men of blood. The Lord God 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 bloody 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.[31 - Smith's Bible Dictionary, article "Blood."] Incense had to be used to take away the smell of putrifying blood.

The most characteristic customs of the Jews, circumcision and the Passover, 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 Passover, 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. God's worshippers 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 substitutionary 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 God, 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.

To understand this fundamental rite of communion, or, indeed, the essence of any other part of the Christian religion, we must go back to those savage ideas out of which it has evolved. It is easy to account for savage superstitions in connection with blood. The life of the savage being largely spent in warfare, either with animals or his fellow men, the connection between blood and life is strongly impressed upon his mind. He sees, moreover, the child formed from the mother, the flow of whose blood is arrested. Hence the children of one mother are termed "of the same blood." In a state of continual warfare the only safe alliances were with those who recognised the family bond. Those who would be friends must be sharers in the same blood. Hence we find all oyer the savage world rites of blood-covenanting, of drinking together from the same blood, thereby symbolising community of nature. Like eating and drinking together, it was a sign of communion and the substitution of bread and wine for flesh and blood is a sun-worshipping refinement upon more primitive and cannibalistic communion.

Dr. Trumbull, in his work on The Blood Covenant, has given many instances of shedding blood in celebrating covenants and "blood brotherhood." The idea of substitution is widespread in all early religions. One of the most curious was the sacrament of the natives of Central America, thus noticed by Dr. Trumbull:

"Cakes of the maize sprinkled with their own blood, drawn from 'under the girdle,' during the religions worship, were 'distributed and eaten as blessed bread.' Moreover an image of their god, made with certain seeds from the first fruits of their temple gardens, with a certain gum, and with the blood of human sacrifices, were partaken of by them reverently, under the name, 'Food of our Soul.'"

Here we have, no doubt, a link between the rude cannibal theory of sacrifice and the Christian doctrine of communion.

Millington, in his Testimony of the Heathen, cites as illustration of Exodus xxii. 8, the most telling passages from Herodotus in regard to the Lydians and Arabians confirming alliances in this fashions. The well-known case of Cataline and his fellow conspirators who drank from goblets of wine mixed with blood is of course not forgotten, but Dr. Trumbull overlooks the passage in Plutarch's "Life of Publicola," in which he narrates that "the conspirators (against Brutus) agreed to take a great and horrible oath, by drinking together of the blood, and tasting the entrails of a man sacrificed for that purpose." Mr. Wake also in his Evolution of Morality, has drawn attention to the subject, and, what is more, to its important place in the history of the evolution of society. Herbert Spencer points out in his "Ceremonial Institutions," that blood offerings over the dead may be explained as arising in some cases "from the practice of establishing a sacred bond between living persons by partaking of each other's blood: the derived conception being that those who give some of their blood to the ghost of a man just dead and lingering near, effect with it a union which on the one side implies submission, and on the other side, friendliness."

The widespread custom of blood-covenanting illustrates most clearly, as Dr. Tylor points out, "the great principle of old-world morals, that man owes friendship, not to mankind at large, but only to his own kin; so that to entitle a stranger to kindness and good faith he must become a kinsman by blood."[32 - The origin of the mystery of the Rosy Gross may have been in the savage rite of initiation by baptism with arms outstretched in a cruciform pool of blood. See Nimrod, vol. ii.] That any sane man seated at a table ever said, "Take eat, this is my body," and "Drink, this is my blood," is ridiculous. The bread and wine are the fruits of the the Sun. Justin Martyr, one of the earliest of the Christian fathers, informs us that this eucharist was partaken in the mysteries of Mithra. The Christian doctrine of partaking of the blood of Christ is a mingling of the rites of sun-worshippers with the early savage ceremony of the blood covenant.

SCAPEGOATS

In the sixteenth chapter of Leviticus is found a description of the rites ordained for the most solemn Day of Atonement. Of these, the principal was the selection of two goats. "And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the Lord and the other for the scapegoat"—(Heb. Azazel). The goat on whom Jahveh's lot fell was sacrificed as a sin offering, but all the iniquities of the children of Israel were put on the head of Azazel's goat, and it was sent into the wilderness. The parallelism makes it clear that Azazel was a separate evil spirit or demon, opposed to Jahveh, and supposed to dwell in the wilderness. The purification necessary after touching the goat upon whose head the sins of Israel were put corroborates this.[33 - Azazel appears to mean the goat god. The goat, like some other animals, seems to have had a sacred character among the Jews. (See Ex. xxiii. 19, Lev. ix. 3-15, x. 16, xvii. 17, Jud. vi. 19, xiii. 15, 1 Sam. xix 18-16, 2 Chron. xi. 15.)] Yet how often has Azazel been instanced as a type of the blessed Savior! And indeed the chief purpose to which Jesus is put by orthodox Christians at the present day is that of being their scapegoat, the substitute for their sins.

The doctrine of the transference of sin was by no means peculiar to the Jews. Both Herodotus and Plutarch tells us how the Egyptians cursed the head of the sacrifice and then threw it into the river. It seems likely that the expression "Your blood be on your own head" refers to this belief. (See Lev. xx. 9-11, Psalms vii. 16, Acts xviii. 6.)

At the cleansing of a leper and of a house suspected of being tainted with leprosy, the Jews had a peculiar ceremony. Two birds were taken, one killed in an earthern vessel over running water, and the living bird after being dipped in the blood of the killed bird let loose into the open air (Lev. xiv. 7 and 53). The idea evidently was that the bird by sympathy took away the plague. The Battas of Sumatra have a rite they call "making the curse to fly away." When a woman is childless a sacrifice is offered and a swallow set free, with a prayer that the curse may fall on the bird and fly away with it. The doctrine of substitution found among all savages flows from the belief in sympathetic magic. It arises, as Mr. Frazer says, from an obvious confusion between the physical and the mental. Because a load of stones may be transferred from one back to another, the savage fancies it equally possible to transfer the burden of his pains and sorrows to another who will suffer then in his stead. Many instances could be given from peasant folk-lore. "A cure current in Sunderland for a cough is to shave the patient's head and hang the hair on a bush. When the birds carry the hair to the nests, they will carry the cough with it. A Northamptonshire and Devonshire cure is to put a hair of the patient's head between two slices of buttered bread and give it to a dog. The dog will get the cough and the patient will lose it."

Mr. Frazer, after showing that the custom of killing the god had been practised by peoples in the hunting, pastoral, and agricultural stages of society, says (vol. ii., p. 148): "One aspect of the custom still remains to be noticed. The accumulated misfortunes and sins of the whole people are sometimes laid upon the dying god, who is supposed to bear them away for ever, leaving the people innocent and happy." He gives many instances of scapegoats, of sending away diseases in boats, and of the annual expulsion of evils, of which, I conjecture, our ringing-out of the old year may, perhaps, be a survival. Of the divine scapegoat, he says:

"If we ask why a dying god should be selected to take upon himself and carry away the sins and sorrow of the people, it may be suggested that in the practice of using the divinity as a scapegoat, we have a combination of two customs which were at one time distinct and independent. On the one hand we have seen that it has been customary to kill the human or animal god in order to save his divine life from being weakened by the inroads of age. On the other hand we have seen that it has been customary to have a general expulsion of evils and sins once a year. Now, if it occurred to people to combine these two customs, the result would be the employment of the dying god as scapegoat. He was killed not originally to take away sin, but to save the divine life from the degeneracy of old age; but, since he had to be killed at any rate, people may have thought that they might as well seize the opportunity to lay upon him the burden of their sufferings and sins, in order that he might bear it away with him to the unknown world beyond the grave."[34 - Golden Bough, vol. ii., p. 206.]

The early Christians believed that diseases were the work of devils, and that cures could be effected by casting out the devils by the spell of a name (see Mark ix. 25-38, etc.) They believed in the transference of devils to swine. We need not wonder, then, that they explained the death of their hero as the satisfaction for their own sins. The doctrine of the substitutionary atonement, like that of the divinity of Christ, appears to have been an after-growth of Christianity, the foundations of both being laid in pre-Christian Paganism. Both doctrines are alike remnants of savagery.

A BIBLE BARBARITY

The fifth chapter of the Book of Numbers (11—31) exhibits as gross a specimen of superstition as can be culled from the customs of any known race of savages. The divine "law of jealousy," to which I allude, provides that a man who is jealous of his wife may, simply to satisfy his own suspicions, and without having the slightest evidence against her, bring her before the priest, who shall take "holy water," and charge her by an oath of cursing to declare if she has been unfaithful to her husband. The priest writes out the curse and blots it into the water, which he then administers to the woman. The description of the effects of the water is more suitable to the pages of the holy Bible than to those of a modern book. Sufficient to say, if faithful, the holy water has only a beneficial effect on the lady, but if unfaithful, its operation is such as to dispense with the necessity of her husband writing out a bill of divorcement.

The absurdity and atrocity of this divine law only finds its parallel in the customs of the worst barbarians, and in the ecclesiastical laws of the Dark Ages, that is of the days when Christianity was predominant and the Bible was considered as the guide in legislation.

A curious approach to the Jewish custom is that which found place among the savages at Cape Breton. At a marriage feast two dishes of meat were brought to the bride and bridegroom, and the priest addressed himself to the bride thus:

"Thou that art upon the point of entering the marriage state, know that the nourishment thou art going to take forebodes the greatest calamities to thee if thy heart is capable of harboring any ill design against thy husband or against thy nation; should thou ever be led astray by the caresses of a stranger; or shouldst thou betray thy husband or thy country, the victuals in this vessel will have the effect of a slow poison, with which thou wilt be tainted from this very instant. If, on the other hand, thou art faithful to thy husband and thy country, thou wilt find the nourishment agreeable and wholesome."[35 - Genuine Letters and Memoirs Relating to the Isle of Cape Breton. By T. Pichon. 1760.]

This custom manifestly was, like the Christian doctrine of hell, designed to restrain crime by operating upon superstitious fear. It was devoid of the worst feature of the Jewish law—the opportunity for crime disguised under the mask of justice. For this we must go to the tribes of Africa.

Dr. Kitto, in his Bible Encyclopedia (article Adultery), alludes thus to the trial by red water among African savages, which, he says, is so much dreaded that innocent persons often confess themselves guilty in order to avoid it.

"The person who drinks the red water invokes the Fetish to destroy him if he is really guilty of the offence of which he is charged. The drink is made by an infusion in water of pieces of a certain tree or of herbs. It is highly poisonous in itself; and if rightly prepared, the only chance of escape is the rejection of it by the stomach, in which case the party is deemed innocent, as he also is if, being retained, it has no sensible effect, which can only be the case when the priests, who have the management of the matters, are influenced by private considerations, or by reference to the probabilities of the case, to prepare the draught with a view to acquittal."[36 - In like manner Maimonides, the great Jewish commentator, said that innocent women would give all they had to escape it, and reckoned death preferable (Moreh Nevochim, pt. iii., ch. xlix.)]

Dr. Livingstone says the practice of ordeal is common among all the negro natives north of the Zambesi:

"When a man suspects that any of his wives have bewitched him, he sends for the witch-doctor, and all the wives go forth into the field, and remain fasting till the person has made an infusion of the plant called 'go ho.' They all drink it, each one holding up her hand to heaven in attestation of her innocence. Those who vomit it are considered innocent, while those whom it purges are pronounced guilty, and are put to death by burning."

In this case, be it noticed, there is no provision for the woman who thinks her husband has bewitched her, as in the holy Bible there is no law for the woman who conceives she has cause for jealousy; nor, although she is supernaturally punished, is there any indication of any punishment falling on the male culprit who has perhaps seduced her from her allegiance to her lord and master.

Throughout Europe, when under the sway of Christian priests, trials by ordeal were quite common. It was held as a general maxim that God would judge as to the righteousness or unrighteousness of a cause. The chief modes of the Judicium Dei, as it was called, was by walking on or handling hot iron; by chewing consecrated bread, with the wish that the morsel might be the last; by plunging the arm in boiling water, or by being thrown into cold water, to swim being considered a proof of guilt, and to sink the demonstration of innocence. Pope Eugenius had the honor of inventing this last ordeal, which became famous as a trial for witches.

Dr. E. B. Tylor, whose information on all such matters is only equalled by his philosophical insight, says of ordeals:

"As is well known, they have always been engines of political power in the hands of unscrupulous priests and chiefs. Often it was unnecessary even to cheat, when the arbiter had it at his pleasure to administer either a harmless ordeal, like drinking cursed water, or a deadly ordeal, by a dose of aconite or physostigma. When it comes to sheer cheating, nothing can be more atrocious than this poison ordeal. In West Africa, where the Oalabar bean is used, the administers can give the accused a dose which will make him sick, and so prove his innocence; or they can give him enough to prove him guilty, and murder him in the very act of proof. When we consider that over a great part of that great continent this and similar drugs usually determine the destiny of people inconvenient to the Fetish man and the chief—the constituted authorities of Church and State—we see before us one efficient cause of the unprogressive character of African society."

Trial by ordeal was in all countries, whether Pagan or Christian, under the management of the priesthood. That it originated in ignorance and superstition, and was maintained by fraud, is unquestionable. Christians, when reading of ordeals among savages, deplore the ignorance and barbarity of the unenlightened heathen among whom such customs prevail, quite unmindful that in their own sacred book, headed with the words "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying," occurs as gross an instance of superstitious ordeal as can be found among the records of any people.

BIBLE WITCHCRAFT

"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" (Ex. xxii. 18).