ETHICS AND RELIGION. 739 



ligious 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 func- 

 tions of a ministrant. In some cases we can see the grounds for 

 these provisions, in other cases they go back to customs of un- 

 known 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 Rech- 

 abites), the second regarded the hair as a seat of life, and there- 

 fore 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 clergy- 

 men 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 



