broken, and if of other materials, was to be carefully cleansed.* In the latter case, the water used in cleansing the defiled vessel became unfit for any other use.† The strictness of the law was even carried to that extent, that whatever might, in cooking, come in contact with a vessel used to contain food, was itself defiled by the touch of such a carcass; water was rendered unclean by it, except in a running stream, where any possible taint would presently be conveyed away; and, for the greater inducement to use all precautions against the multiplication of the nuisance, the seed which had been brought by the husbandman into his dwelling, to be there immersed in water for use, must be thrown away if the same casualty had befallen it.‡ In respect to all this class of regulations, I will say no more, than that the rigid observance of them, which the Law was careful to enforce, was manifestly inconsistent with irregular and slovenly habits of mind, as well as of domestic administration. Let us imagine a filthy tribe of our North American Indian hunters brought under the actual government of such a code of rules, and how obvious is it, that their savage license would be by that very act abandoned, and a new character impressed on the whole current of their lives, and fabric of their hitherto dislocated society. In the state of things brought about by such rules, if sufficiently observed, and by the rest of the code of which they make a part, "the life of man" could hardly be, what a con Compare Lev. vi. 28. The best account, which occurs to me, of this distinction, is, that earthen vessels would be chiefly in use among the poorer sort, upon whose habits of neatness less dependence could be placed. The loss of an earthen vessel, mean though it was, would be considerable to them, and so, for fear of having to break it, they would take care to keep it covered; while the more careful and luxurious habits of such, as could afford more costly vessels, made a less severe penalty necessary in their case. † xi. 34. xi. 34-38. dition of social derangement has been described as making it, "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."* From distinctions between what was pure and impure in food, we come to similar rules relating to impurities of other things, and of persons, which I proposed to treat together. I premise the same remark concerning them, as concerning the laws discriminating between clean and unclean food; that it would be obviously unreasonable to expect to obtain satisfaction respecting the purpose of all their provisions. An unclean person was one who must not touch, nor be touched by another person. To be ritually unclean was no crime and no disgrace. A physician, who touched his patient, for instance, to count his pulse, became unclean by that act. So did whoever was employed to bury a dead body; and the consequence was even incurred by serving in some sacred offices.‡ But to omit the duty of purification according to the prescribed ceremonial, was a crime of serious magnitude.§ Some acts made a person unclean, and condemned him to separation from others, for a day only; others, for a week; others, for a longer time. And the ceremonies. of purification were, in different cases, more or less complicated and prolonged, and of course more or less inconvenient and costly; some requiring only certain ablutions, when the time of sequestration had expired; others demanding appropriate sacrifices at the Tabernacle, and fees to the priest. He who touched the body of an unclean animal, for example, or of a clean animal which had died a natural death, became unclean till the evening, when he was purified by merely washing his clothes; while a woman, after parturition, was to be *Hobbes's "Leviathan," part 1, chap. 13. + Lev. xv. 7. § Numb. xix. 20. unclean for forty days, if she had borne a son, and eighty days, if a daughter, and at the end of her time of retirement was to present a Burnt Offering and a Sin Offering at the Tabernacle.* Without undertaking to expound the spirit and intent of all these laws, where, for want of authenticated facts sufficiently numerous and precise, there is so much temptation to conjecture, it is plain, that rules of this class were suited to accomplish, in general, two objects. In the first place, where substantial injury was threatened by the contact or presence of an insalubrious object, the mischief was guarded against by positive statute regulation, enforced by the urgent power of religious sanctions. In the second, where mere transgressions of decorum, a thing which opinion regulates, were had in view, it is probable that the inconvenience of the condition incurred, though not oppressive, would, in most cases, afford a sufficient safeguard against violations of good breeding. And, in both cases, there would be a reflex action of the law, in which perhaps its most salutary virtue would consist; as, in the apprehension of its * Lev. xii. 1-8. A peculiar retirement was prescribed of a week in case of the birth of a son (at the end of which, agreeably to ancient practice, he was to be circumcised, xii. 3; Gen. xvii. 12; Luke i. 59; John vii. 22); and of a fortnight after the birth of a daughter. The reason of the difference made, according as the birth was of one or the other sex, has not been entirely explained. I submit, whether it may not have been merely intended to conciliate the greater respect for the mother of a male child, having reference to that studied recognition of the superiority of this sex, which pervades the Mosaic institutions. In regionibus septentrionalibus, lochia rubra post parturitionem plerumque per septem dies durant; lochia alba, quæ subeunt, per viginti seu triginta. Dicunt medici Græci, post partum fœmininum diutiùs morbo puerperam laborare, quam post virilem. Ἡ κάθαρσις γίνεται τῇσι γυναῖξι μετὰ τὸν τόκον, ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολύ· ἐπι μὲν τῇ κουρῃ ἡμερῇσι τεσσαράκοντα καὶ δύο . . . . . ἐπὶ δὲ τῷ κούρῳ ἡ κάθαρσις gintai nμięños <giánovra. (Hippocrates, Opera, Edit. Fos. p. 238.) Negant scriptores regionum temporumque nostrorum. In plagis diversis, hujusmodi res diversè se habent. Quærant viri docti in Egypto Syriâque de re, quæ institutioni Mosaicæ facem præbere valeat. ..... penalties, occasions by which they might be unintentionally and accidentally incurred would be guarded against and removed by timely precautions. Individuals would naturally use vigilance and forethought to avoid what would cause their company to be shunned by their neighbours.* But in respect to one prominent case, there is no obscurity whatever. A person, in whom appeared any mark, which might prove to be a symptom of leprosy, was bound to present himself to the priest for examination. If, in the priest's judgment, there was ground for apprehension that this was his disease, he was to be shut up apart for a week, and then to undergo a second inspection. If no alteration meanwhile had taken place, another week's seclusion and a third examination succeeded. If the symptoms had disappeared, or if, at the first view, they were found to furnish no cause for alarm, he was declared clean, on an authority, which would satisfy all doubts; and, without fear of being any longer suspected and shunned, might return to his accustomed associates and occupations.† If, on the contrary, the indications of leprosy, which are * Lev. xv. 1–15 de Gonorrhæà Virulentâ plerumque explicant interpretes, quæ contactu qualicunque facillimè propagatur. E versu 8 argumentatur Michaelis, medicos antiquos, sive mercurium dulcem, sive aliud tale medicamentum salivam proritans, in hujusmodi morbis sanandis adhibuisse. Hæmorrhoides tamen hæc præcepta spectare vult Car. Aug. Beyer. Vide Rosenmülleri Comment. ad loc. - Vers. 16-18, contra polygamiam nimiam cautum esse, quam leges Mosaicæ non prorsus vetant, (Marc. x. 5-8,) consentiunt docti. Ex. xxi. 10, Israelitæ novas nuptias facienti, concubitum debitum uxori prius adhibitæ negare vetitum est. Sed quid sit "concubitus debitus"? Sine dubio, definivit temporis illius opinio. Rabbinorum de hac re commenta lectores mei fastidirent. Certè vir toties pollutus, quoties debitum, certis temporibus solvendum, solverit, multas novas nuptias inire noluisset. Vers. 19-30 de Catemeniis et Menorrhagia fusè disseritur. Vers. 24 non idem facinus, quod Lev. xx. 18, sed lecti cum immundà societatem castigat. (Compara 21.) † xiii. 1-6. described with great minuteness,* should prove to be further developed after the delay, or if they should be manifest from the first, he was to be pronounced unclean, and, from that moment till he was restored, if that should be his good-fortune, he must dwell without the camp; and even there, lest any should come near enough to him in their walks to reach the contagion, he was required, as a notice to them, to go abroad only in tattered clothes, with his head uncovered, wearing a badge upon his face, and to warn them by crying out, as they approached, "Unclean, unclean."+ Should he recover, the priest visited him without the camp to ascertain and announce the fact, accompanying his restoration to society with a formal ceremonial. First, two healthy clean birds were to be taken, with a quantity of cedar wood, scarlet wool, and hyssop. One of them was to be killed over an earthen vessel, filled with fresh water, which, being thus stained with blood, was to be sprinkled seven times over the leper. Having shaved and bathed, he might again associate with others; the living bird being at the same time let loose to join its fellows, probably in token of his readmission into society. For greater caution, however, he was still not allowed to go to his own tent for a week longer.‡ At the end of that time, having repeated his personal purifications, he was to go through certain other ceremonies, in order to his full restitution, and permission to resort again to the Tabernacle. A he-lamb was to be * Lev. xiii. 9-44. † xiii. 7, 8, 45, 46. xiv. 1-8. For conjectures concerning the reason of the use of the blood-stained water, and of "cedar-wood, scarlet, and hyssop," which are obscure, see Patrick's "Commentary" ad loc. also Bochart's "Hierozoicon," pars 2, lib. 1, cap. 22. The ancients ascribed to cedar-wood and hyssop a sanative virtue in cutaneous disorders. See Le Clerc's "Commentary" ad loc. For some account of the scape-bird, see the next Lecture, p. 288, note. |