Читать книгу The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas - Edward Westermarck - Страница 57

135 Stephen, History of the Criminal Law of England, i. 487 sq.; iii. 105.

For the explanation of these facts we have to remember what has been said before about collective responsibility in the case of revenge. Speaking of the Chinese doctrine of family solidarity, Dr. de Groot observes that, “under the influence of this doctrine, families, not men individually, came to be regarded, from the Government’s point of view, as the smallest particles, the molecules of the nation, each individual being swallowed up in the circle of his kinsfolk.”136 Such a doctrine assumes that the other members of the family-group are, in a way, accessories to any crime committed by a fellow-member. “Human nature,” says Lord Kames, “is not so perverse, as without veil or disguise to punish a person acknowledged to be innocent. An irregular bias of imagination, which extends the qualities of the principal to its accessories, paves the way to that unjust practice. This bias, strengthened by indignation against an atrocious criminal, leads the mind hastily to conclude, that all his connections are partakers of his guilt.”137 Among the ancients we also meet with a strong belief that, according to the course of nature, wicked fathers have wicked sons. “That which is begot,” says Plutarch, “is not, like some production of art unlike the begetter, for it proceeds from him, and is not merely produced by him, so that it appropriately receives his share, whether that be honour or punishment.”138 To destroy, or to make harmless, the family of an offender may be, not only an act of retaliation, but a precaution; according to an old Greek adage, “a man is a fool if he kills the father and leaves the sons alive.”139 This especially holds good for treason, which generally suggests accomplices; and of all crimes for which penalties are imposed upon other individuals besides the culprit, treason is probably the most common. This crime is also particularly apt to evoke the hatred of those who have the power to punish, hence the punishment of it, being closely allied to an act of revenge, is often inflicted without due discrimination. Moreover, by being extended to the criminal’s family, the punishment falls more heavily upon himself as well. Again, in case the crime is of a sacrilegious character, it is supposed to pollute everybody connected with the criminal, and even the whole community where he dwells.

136 de Groot, Religious System of China (vol. ii. book) i. 539.

137 Kames, Sketches of the History of Man, iv. 148.

138 Plutarch, De sera numinis vindicta, 16. Cf. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, op. cit. viii. 80.

139 Schmidt, Ethik der alten Griechen, ii. 126.

In their administration of justice, gods are still more indiscriminate than men. They hold the individual responsible for the whole to which he belongs. They punish the community for the sins of one of its members. They visit the iniquity of the fathers and forefathers upon the children and descendants.

The Sibuyaus, a tribe belonging to the Sea Dyaks, “are of opinion that an unmarried girl proving with child must be offensive to the superior powers, who, instead of always chastising the individual, punish the tribe by misfortunes happening to its members. They, therefore, on the discovery of the pregnancy fine the lovers, and sacrifice a pig to propitiate offended Heaven, and to avert that sickness or those misfortunes that might otherwise follow; and they inflict heavy mulcts for every one who may have suffered from any severe accident, or who may have been drowned within a month before the religious atonement was made.”140 According to Chinese beliefs, whole kingdoms are punished for the conduct of their rulers by spirits who act as avengers with orders or approval from the Tao, or Heaven.141 Prevalent opinion in China, continuously inspired anew by literature of all times and ages, further admits that spiritual vengeance may come down upon the culprit’s offspring in the form of disease or death.142 When a maimed or deformed child is born the Japanese say that its parents or ancestors must have committed some great sin.143 The Vedic people ask Varuna to forgive the wrongs committed by their fathers.144 Says the poet:—“What we ourselves have sinned in mercy pardon; my own misdeeds do thou, O god, take from me, and for another’s sin let me not suffer.”145 According to the ancient Greek theory of divine retribution, the community has to suffer for the sins of some of its members, children for the sins of their fathers.146 Hesiod says that often a whole town is punished with famine, pestilence, barrenness of its women, or loss of its army or vessels for the misdeeds of a single individual.147 Crœsus atoned by the forfeiture of his kingdom for the crime of Gyges, his fifth ancestor, who had murdered his master and usurped his throne.148 Cytissorus brought down the anger of gods upon his descendants by rescuing Athamas, whom the Achaians intended to offer up as an expiatory sacrifice on behalf of their country.149 When hearing of the death of his wife, Theseus exclaims, “This must be a heaven-sent calamity in consequence of the sins of an ancestor, which from some remote source I am bringing on myself.”150 According to Hebrew notions, sin affects the nation through the individual and entails guilt on succeeding generations.151 The anger of the Lord is kindled against the children of Israel on account of Achan’s sin.152 The sin of the sons of Eli is visited on his whole house from generation to generation.153 Because Saul has slain the Gibeonites, the Lord sends, in the days of David, a three years’ famine, which ceases only when seven of Saul’s sons are hanged.154 The sins of Manasseh are expiated even by the better generation under Josiah.155 The notion of a jealous God who visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Him,156 is also frequently met with in the Old Testament Apocrypha. “The inheritance of sinners’ children shall perish, and their posterity shall have a perpetual reproach.”157 “The seed of an unrighteous bed shall be rooted out.”158 The same idea has survived among Christian peoples. It was referred to in Canon Law as a principle to be imitated by human justice,159 and by Innocent III. in justification of a bull which authorised the confiscation of the goods of heretics.160 Up to quite recent times it was a common belief in Scotland that the punishment of the cruelty, oppression, or misconduct of an individual descended as a curse on his children to the third and fourth generation. It was not confined to the common people; “all ranks were influenced by it; and many believed that if the curse did not fall upon the first or second generation it would inevitably descend upon the succeeding.”161 In the dogma that the whole human race is condemned on account of the sin of its first parents, the doctrine of collective responsibility has reached its pitch.

140 St. John, Life in the Forests of the Far East, i. 63.

141 de Groot, op. cit. (vol. iv. book) ii. 432, 435. Davis, China, ii. 34 sq.

142 de Groot, op. cit. (vol. iv. book) ii. 452.

143 Griffis, Mikado’s Empire, p. 472.

144 Rig-Veda, vii. 86. 5. Cf. Atharva-Veda, v. 30. 4; x. 3. 8.

145 Rig-Veda, ii. 28. 9. Cf. ibid. vi. 51. 7; vii. 52. 2.

146 Nägelsbach, Nachhomerische Theologie des griechischen Volksglaubens, p. 34 sq. Schmidt, op. cit. i. 67 sqq. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, i. 76 sq.

147 Hesiod, Opera et dies, 240 sqq.

148 Herodotus, i. 91.

149 Ibid. vii. 197.

150 Euripides, Hippolytus, 831 sq.

151 Oehler, Theology of the Old Testament, i. 236. Dorner, System of Christian Doctrine, ii. 325. Montefiore, Hibbert Lectures, p. 103. Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 421. Schultz, Old Testament Theology, ii. 308. Bernard, ‘Sin,’ in Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, iv. 530, 534.

152 Joshua, vii. 1.

153 1 Samuel, ii. 27 sqq.

154 2 Samuel, xxi. 1 sqq.

155 Deuteronomy, i. 37; iii. 26; iv. 21. 2 Kings, xxiii. 26; xxiv. 3. Jeremiah, xv. 4 sqq.

156 Exodus, xx. 5; xxiv. 7, Numbers, xiv. 18. Deuteronomy, v. 9. Cf. Leviticus, xxvi. 39.

157 Ecclesiasticus, xli. 6. Cf. ibid. xvi. 4; xli. 5, 7 sqq.

158 Wisdom of Solomon, iii. 16. Cf. ibid. iii. 12, 13, 17 sqq.

159 Eicken, op. cit. p. 572.

160 Lecky, History of Rationalism in Europe, ii. 37 n.

161 Stewart, Sketches of the Character, &c., of the Highlanders of Scotland, p. 127.

Men originally attribute to their gods mental qualities similar to their own, and imagine them to be no less fierce and vindictive than they are themselves. Thus the retribution of a god is, in many cases, nothing but an outburst of sudden anger, or an act of private revenge, and as such particularly liable to comprise, not only the offender himself, but those connected with him. Plutarch even argued that the punishments inflicted by gods on cities for ill-deeds committed by their former inhabitants allowed of a just defence, on the ground that a city is “one continuous entity, a sort of creature that never changes from age, or becomes different by time, but is ever sympathetic with and conformable to itself,” and therefore “answerable for whatever it does or has done for the public weal, as long as the community by its union and federal bonds preserves its unity.”162 He further observes that a bad man is not bad only when he breaks out into crime, but has the seeds of vice in his nature, and that the deity, knowing the nature and disposition of every man, prefers stifling crime in embryo to waiting till it becomes ripe.163

162 Plutarch, De sera numinis vindicta, 15.

163 Ibid. 20.

But there are yet special reasons for extending the retribution of a god beyond the limits of individual guilt. Whilst the resentment of a man is a matter of experience, that of a god is a matter of inference. That some particular case of suffering is a divine punishment, is inferred either from its own peculiar character, suggesting the direct interference of a god, or from the assumption that a certain act, on account of its offensiveness, cannot be left unpunished. Now experience shows that, in many instances, the sinner himself escapes all punishment, leading a happy life till his death; hence the conclusion is near at hand that any grave misfortune which befalls his descendants, is the delayed retribution of the offended god.164 Such a conclusion is quite in harmony with the common notions of divine power. It especially forces itself upon a mind which has no idea of a hell with post mortem punishments for the wicked. And, where the spirit of a man after his death is believed to be still ardently concerned for the welfare of his family,165 the affliction of his descendants naturally appears as a punishment inflicted upon himself. As Dr. de Groot observes, the doctrine of the Chinese, that spiritual vengeance may descend on the offender’s offspring, tallies perfectly with their conception “that the severest punishment which may be inflicted on one, both in his present life and the next, is decline or extermination of his male issue, leaving nobody to support him in his old age, nobody to protect him after his death from misery and hunger by caring for his corpse and grave, and sacrificing to his manes.”166

164 Cf. Isocrates, Oratio de pace, 120; Cicero, De natura Deorum, iii. 38; Nägelsbach, op. cit. p. 33 sq.

165 Cf. Schmidt, op. cit. i. 71 sq. (ancient Greeks).

166 de Groot, op. cit. (vol. iv. book) ii. 452.

The retributive sufferings which innocent persons have to undergo in consequence of the sins of the guilty, are not always supposed to be inflicted upon them directly, as a result of divine resentment. They are often attributed to infection. Sin is looked upon in the light of a contagious matter which may be transmitted from parents to children, or be communicated by contact.

This idea is well illustrated by the funeral ceremonies of the Tahitians. “When the house for the dead had been erected, and the corpse placed upon the platform or bier, the priest ordered a hole to be dug in the earth or floor near the foot of the platform. Over this he prayed to the god by whom it was supposed the spirit of the deceased had been required. The purport of his prayer was that all the dead man’s sins, and especially that for which his soul had been called to the po, might be deposited there, that they might not attach in any degree to the survivors, and that the anger of the god might be appeased.” All who were employed in embalming the dead were also, during the process, carefully avoided by every person, as the guilt of the crime for which the deceased had died was believed to contaminate such as came in contact with the corpse; and as soon as the ceremony of depositing the sins in the hole was over, all who had touched the body or the garments of the deceased, which were buried or destroyed, fled precipitately into the sea to cleanse themselves from the pollution.167 In one part of New Zealand “a service was performed over an individual, by which all the sins of the tribe were supposed to be transferred to him, a fern stalk was previously tied to his person, with which he jumped into the river and there unbinding, allowed it to float away to the sea, bearing their sins with it.”168 The Iroquois White Dog Feast, which was held every year in January, February, or early in March,169 implied, according to most authorities, a ceremony of sin-transference.170 The following description of it is given by Mrs. Jemison, a white woman who was captured by the Indians in the year 1755:—Two white dogs, without spot or blemish, are strangled and hung near the door of the council-house. On the fourth or fifth day the “committee,” consisting of from ten to twenty active men who have been appointed to superintend the festivities, “collect the evil spirit, or drive it off entirely, for the present, and also concentrate within themselves all the sins of their tribe, however numerous or heinous. On the eighth or ninth day, the committee having received all the sin, as before observed, into their own bodies, they take down the dogs, and after having transfused the whole of it into one of their own number, he, by a peculiar sleight of hand, or kind of magic, works it all out of himself into the dogs. The dogs, thus loaded with all the sins of the people, are placed upon a pile of wood that is directly set on fire. Here they are burnt, together with the sins with which they were loaded.”171 Among the Badágas of India, at a burial, “an elder, standing by the corpse, offers up a prayer that the dead may not go to hell, that the sins committed on earth may be forgiven, and that the sins may be borne by a calf, which is let loose in the jungle and used thenceforth for no manner of work.”172 At Utch-Kurgan, in Turkestan, Mr. Schuyler saw an old man, constantly engaged in prayer, who was said to be an iskatchi, that is, “a person who gets his living by taking on himself the sins of the dead, and thenceforth devoting his life to prayer for their souls.”173

167 Ellis, Polynesian Researches, i. 401 sqq.

168 Taylor, Te Ika a Maui, p. 101.

169 Beauchamp, ‘Iroquois White Dog Feast,’ in American Antiquarian, vii. 236 sq. Hale, ‘Iroquois Sacrifice of the White Dog,’ ibid. vii. 7.

170 Beauchamp, loc. cit. p. 237 sq.

171 Seaver, Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison, p. 158 sqq. Cf. Mr. Clark’s description, quoted by Beauchamp, loc. cit. p. 238.

172 Thurston, ‘Badágas of the Nilgiris,’ in the Madras Government Museum’s Bulletin, ii. 4. Cf. Metz, Tribes inhabiting the Neilgherry Hills, p. 78; Graul, Reise nach Ostindien, iii. 296 sqq.

173 Schuyler, Turkistan, ii. 28.

In ancient Peru, an Inca, after confession of guilt, bathed in a neighbouring river, and repeated this formula:—“O thou River, receive the sins I have this day confessed unto the Sun, carry them down to the sea, and let them never more appear.”174 According to Vedic beliefs, sin is a contamination which may be inherited, or contracted in various ways,175 and of which the sinner tries to rid himself by transferring it to some enemy,176 or by invoking the gods of water or fire.177 It is washed out by Varuna, in his capacity of a water-god,178 and by Trita, another water-god,179 and even by “the Waters” in general, as appears from the prayer addressed to them:—“O Waters, carry off whatever sin is in me and untruth.”180 For a similar reason, as it seems, water became in the later, Brahmanic age, the “essence (sap) of immortality”181 and the belief in its purifying power still survives in modern India. No sin is too heinous to be removed, no character too black to be washed clean, by the waters of Ganges.182 At sacred places of pilgrimage on the banks of rivers, the Hindus perform special religious shavings for the purpose of purifying soul and body from pollution; and persons who have committed great crimes or are troubled by uneasy consciences, travel hundreds of miles to such holy places where “they may be released from every sin by first being relieved of every hair and then plunging into the sacred stream.”183 So, also, according to Hindu beliefs, contact with cows purifies, and, as in the Parsi ritual, the dung and urine of cows have the power of preventing or cleansing away not only material, but moral defilements.184 In post-Homeric Greece, individuals and a whole people were cleansed from their sins by water or some other material means of purification.185 Plutarch, after observing that “there are other properties that have connection and communication, and that transfer themselves from one thing to another with incredible quickness and over immense distances,” asks whether it is “more wonderful that Athens should have been smitten with a plague which started in Arabia, than that, when the Delphians and Sybarites became wicked, vengeance should have fallen on their descendants.”186 The Hebrews annually laid the sins of the people upon the head of a goat, and sent it away into the wilderness;187 and they cleansed every impurity with consecrated water or the sprinkling of blood.188 To this day, the Jews in Morocco, on their New-Year’s day, go to the sea-shore, or to some spring, and remove their sins by throwing stones into the water. The words of the Psalmist, “wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin,”189 were not altogether a figure of speech; nor is Christian baptism originally a mere symbol. Its result is forgiveness of sins;190 by the water, as a medium of the Holy Ghost, “the stains of sin are washed away.”191 That sin is contagious has been expressly stated by Christian writers. Novatian says that “the one is defiled by the sin of the other, and the idolatry of the transgressor passes over to him who does not transgress.”192

174 Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. 435.

175 Atharva-Veda, v. 30. 4; x. 3. 8; vii. 64. i. sq. Cf. Oldenberg, Religion des Veda, p. 290.

176 Rig-Veda, x. 36. 9; x. 37. 12.

177 Ibid. x. 164. 3. Atharva-Veda, vii. 64. 2. Cf. Kaegi, Rig-Veda, p. 157; Oldenberg, op. cit. pp. 291–298, 319 sqq.

178 Cf. Hopkins, Religions of India pp. 65 n. 1, 66.

179 Atharva-Veda, vi. 113. 1 sqq.

180 Rig-Veda, i. 23. 22. Sin is also looked upon as a galling chain from the captivity of which release is besought (ibid. i. 24. 9, 13 sq.; ii. 27. 16; ii. 28. 5; v. 85. 8; vi. 74. 3; &c.).

181 Hopkins, op. cit. p. 196.

182 Monier Williams, Brāhmanism and Hindūism, p. 347.

183 Ibid. p. 375.

184 Barth, Religions of India, p. 264. Laws of Manu, iii. 206; v. 105, 121, 124; xi. 110, 203, 213.

185 Stengel, Die griechischen Kultusaltertümer, p. 138 sqq.

186 Plutarch, De sera numinis vindicta, 14.

187 Leviticus, xvi.

188 Numbers, viii. 7; xix. 4–9, 13 sqq.; xxxi. 23. Leviticus, xvi. 14 sqq.

189 Psalms, li. 2.

190 Harnack, op. cit. ii. 140 sqq.

191 Catechism of the Council of Trent, ii. 2. 10, p. 162.