COW DUNG ALSO USED BY THE ISRAELITES.
“The tribes had not many feelings in common when they came to be writers and told us what they thought of each other. As a rule, they bitterly reviled each other’s gods and temples.... Judeans called the Samaritan temple, where calves and bulls were holy, in a word of Greek derivation, ‘Pelethos Naos,’ ‘the dung-hill temple.’ ... The Samaritans, in return, called the temple of Jerusalem ‘the house of dung.’”—(“Rivers of Life,” Forlong, vol. i. p. 162.)
Commentators would be justified in believing that these terms preserve the fact of there having been in these places of worship the same veneration for dung that is to be found to this day among the peoples of the East Indies.
In another place Dulaure calls attention to the similar use among the Hebrews of the ashes of the dung of the red heifer as an expiatory sacrifice.[34]
In one of the Hindu fasts the devotee adopts these disgusting excreta as his food. On the fourth day, “his disgusting beverage is the urine of the cow; the fifth, the excrement of that holy animal is his allotted food.”—(Maurice, “Indian Antiquities,” London, 1800, vol. v. p. 222.)
“I do not think that you can lay weight on the fact that in Israel, when a victim was entirely burned, the dung was not exempted from the fire. I think this only means that the victim was not cleared of offal, as in sacrifices that were eaten.”—(Personal letter from Prof. W. Robertson Smith, Christ College, Cambridge, England.)
“Refert etiam Waltherus Schulzius (“Oest-Indianische Reise,” lib. 3, cap. 10, 1, m. 188, seq.) certam Indorum sectam Gioghi dictam nullum assumere cibum, nisi fimo vaccino coctum; capillos et faciem Croco et Stercore vaccino inungunt; nemo etiam in hanc societatem admittitur nisi antea per longum temporis spatium Corpus suum hoc stercore nutriverit, etc.”—(Schurig, “Chylologia,” p. 783, quoted in “Bibliotheca Scatalogica,” pp. 93-96.)
Etmuller, “Opera Omnia,” Commentar. Ludovic., Lyons, 1690, vol. ii. pp. 171, 172, says that the Benjani, an Oriental sect, believers in the Transmigration of Souls, save the dung of their cows, gathering it up in their hands.
Rosinus Lentilius, in the “Ephemeridum Physico-Medicorum,” Leipsig, 1694, quotes from the Itinerary of Tavernier, lib. 1, cap. 18, in regard to the Scybolophagi Indorum, who, in pursuance of vows to eat flesh only, scrape up the droppings of horses, bulls, cows, and sheep. “Scybolophagi Indorum, de qua Tavernier, quod Benjanæ aliæque mulieres voto semet obstringant soli manducationi quisquiliarum, quas in pecorum, equorum, boum, vaccarum, stercoribus ruspatione sedula conquirunt.... Nec proprie de Homerda seu humanis excrementis, quibus Indorum nonnulli cibos condire, iisque ptarmici pulvere vice uti, quin et medicamentis, ceu panaceam, commiscere, non aversuntur.”
No mention is made by Marco Polo of the use by the people of India of cow-dung or urine in any of their religious ceremonies, excepting one example cited under the head of “Industries.” But the antiquity of the rite is demonstrated by the fact that it is frequently alluded to in the oldest of the canonical books of the people of India.
“Regarding the installation of Yudhisthira (the oldest son of Pandu and eldest brother of the Pandavas), who became Maharajah after the defeat and death of the Kauravas on the field of Kuruk-shetra, the Brahminical authors of the Maha-Bharata, in its present form, describe among the ceremonies used on the occasion the following one:” (Condensed from the text of J. Talboys Wheeler, “History of India,” “The Vedic Period and the Maha-Bharata,” vol. i. p. 371.) “After this, the five purifying articles which are produced from the sacred cow—namely, milk, the curds, ghee, the urine, and the ordure—were brought up by Krishna and the Maharaja and by the brothers of Yudhisthira, and poured by them over the heads of Yudhisthira and Draupadi.”
“The appearance of Krishna here stamps the narrative with the characteristic cultus of a period far later than that in which the Vedic Aryans had used the cow as a religious symbol. The animal was now sacred to Vishnu, who held no place in the Vedic Pantheon, and his worship had been sufficiently developed to admit of his incarnation as Krishna.”—(Personal letter from Dr. J. Hampden Porter, dated Washington, D. C., Sept. 29, 1888.)
De Gubernatis speaks of “the superstitious Hindoo custom of purifying one’s self by means of the excrement of a cow. The same custom passed into Persia; and the Kharda Avesta has preserved the formula to be recited by the devotee while he holds in his hand the urine of an ox or cow, preparatory to washing his face with it: ‘Destroyed, destroyed, be the Demon Ahriman, whose actions and works are cursed.’”—(“Zoölogical Mythology,” De Gubernatis, pp. 99-100, vol. i.)
“We must complete the explanation of another myth, that of the excrement of the cow considered as purifying. The moon, as aurora, yields ambrosia. It is considered to be a cow; the urine of this cow is ambrosia or holy water; he who drinks this water purifies himself, as the ambrosia which rains from the lunar ray and the aurora purifies and makes clear the path of the sky, which the shadows of night darken and contaminate.
“The same virtue is attributed, moreover, to cow’s dung, a conception also derived from the cow, and given to the moon as well as to the morning aurora. These two cows are considered as making the earth fruitful by means of their ambrosial excrements; these excrements being also luminous, both those of the moon and those of the aurora are considered as purifiers. The ashes of these cows which their friend the heroine preserves are not ashes, but golden powder or golden flour (the golden cake again occurs in that flour or powder of gold which the witch demands from the hero in Russian stories) which, mixed with excrement, brings good fortune to the cunning robber-hero.
“The ashes of the sacrificed, pregnant cow (i. e., the cow which dies after having given birth to a calf) were religiously preserved by the Romans in the Temple of Vesta with bean-stalks, which are used to fatten the earth sown with corn, as a means of expiation. Ovid mentions this rite. (Fasti, iv. 721.) The ashes of a cow are preserved both as a symbol of resurrection and as a means of purification.”—(“Zoöl. Mythol.,” De Gubernatis, vol. i. pp. 275-277.)
The learned author overlooks in his argument that cows were sacrificed and worshipped in India before they were transferred to the Zodiac and to the symbolism of the elements.[35]
“Religion, at its base, is the product of imagination working on early man’s wants and fears, and is in no sense supernatural or the result of any preconceived and deliberate thought or desire to work out a system of morals. It arose in each case from what appeared to be the pressing needs of the day or season on the man or his tribe. The codification and expansion of faiths would then be merely the slow outcome of the cogitations and teachings of reflective minds, working usually with a refining tendency on the aforesaid primitive Nature-worship, and in elucidation of its ideas, symbolism, and legends. Early rude worshippers could not grasp abstractions, nor follow sermons even if they had been preached, and certainly not recondite theories on what the West designates ‘Solar,’ and other theories.”—(“Rivers of Life,” Forlong, vol. i. p. 36.)
“In the Shapast la Shayast (Sacred Books of the East, vol. v. part I.) much stress is laid on bull’s urine as a purifier.”—(Personal letter from Professor R. A. Oakes, Watertown, New York, April 20, 1888.)
“During the last few years we have been treated to a great deal of foolish gush about the beauty and nobility of Eastern religions. I don’t deny that there are many commendable features about them, and that they often get near to the heart of true religion, as we understand it. But in their practical results they cannot be compared with Christianity. Take a concrete instance:—
“The Rev. T. W. Jex-Blake has this to say about Benares, with its three thousand Hindu temples: ‘Step into the city,’ he says; ‘one temple swarms with fœtid apes; another is stercorous with cows. The stench in the passages leading to the temples is frightful; the filth beneath your feet is such that the keenest traveller would hardly care to face it twice. Everywhere, in the temples, in the little shrines in the street, the emblem of the Creator is phallic. Round one most picturesque temple, built apparently long since British occupation began, probably since the battle of Waterloo, runs an external frieze, about ten feet from the ground, too gross for the pen to describe,—scenes of vice, natural and unnatural, visible to all the world all day long, worse than anything in the Lupanar in Pompeii. Nothing that I saw in India roused me more to a sense of the need of religious renovation by the Gospel of Christ than what met the eye openly, right and left, at Benares.” (“Tribune,” New York, Nov. 11, 1888.)
“Forty years ago, during a stay of three months in Bombay, I saw frequently cows wandering in the streets, and Hindu devotees bowing, and lifting up the tails of the cows, rubbing the wombs of the aforesaid with the right hand, and afterwards rubbing their own faces with it.”—(Personal letter from Captain Henri Jouan, French Navy, dated Cherbourg, France, July 29, 1888.)
Almost identical information was communicated by General J. J. Dana, U. S. Army, who, in the neighborhood of Calcutta, over forty years ago, had seen Hindu devotees besmeared from head to foot with human excrement.
Among the superstitious practices of the Greeks, Plutarch mentions “rolling themselves in dung-hills.” (“Morals,” Goodwin’s trans., Boston, 1870, vol. i. p. 171, art. “Superstitions.”) Plutarch also mentions “foul expiations,” “vile methods of purgation,” “bemirings at the temple,” and speaks of “penitents wrapped up in foul and nasty rags,” or “rolling naked in the mire,” “vile and abject adorations,”—(pp. 171-180.)
This veneration for the excrement of the cow is to be found among other races. The Hottentots “besmear their bodies with fat and other greasy substances over which they rub cow-dung, fat and similar substances.”—(Thurnberg’s “Account of the Cape of Good Hope,” in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. pp. 25, 73, 139.)
“Every idea and thought of the Dinka is how to acquire and maintain cattle; a certain kind of reverence would seem to be paid them; even their offal is considered of high importance. The dung, which is burnt to ashes for sleeping in and for smearing their persons, and the urine, which is used for washing and as a substitute for salt, are their daily requisites.”—(Schweinfurth, “Heart of Africa,” vol. i. p. 58.)
In the religious ceremonies of the Calmuck Lamas, “Les pauvres jettent au commencement de l’office, qui dure toute la journée, un peu d’encens sur de la bouse de vache allumée et portée par un petit trépied de fer.”—(“Voy. de Pallas,” vol. i. p. 563.)
XVIII.
ORDURE ALLEGED TO HAVE BEEN USED IN FOOD BY THE ISRAELITES.
Among the Banians of India, proselytes are obliged by the Brahmans to eat cow-dung for six months. They begin with one pound daily, and diminish from day to day. A subtle commentator, says Picart, might institute a comparison between the nourishment of these fanatics and the dung of cows which the Lord ordered the prophet Ezekiel to mingle with his food.[36]
This was the opinion held by Voltaire on this subject. Speaking of the prophet Ezekiel, he said: “He is to eat bread of barley, wheat, beans, lentils, and millet, and to cover it with human excrement.”[37] It is thus, he says, that the “children of Israel shall eat their bread defiled among the nations among which they shall be banished.” But “after having eaten this bread of affliction, God permits him to cover it with the excrement of cattle simply.”
The view entertained by some biblical commentators is that the excrement was used for baking the bread; but if this be true, why should human fæces be used for such a purpose? (Consult Lange’s Commentaries, article “Ezekiel,” and McClintock and Strong’s Cyclopædia, article “Dung.”)
“For mere filth, what can be fouler than 2 Kings xviii. 27, Isaiah xxxvi. 12, and Ezekiel iv. 12-15 (where the Lord changes human ordure into ‘cow chips’)? ‘Ce qui excuse Dieu,’ said Henri Bayle, ‘ce qu’il n’existe pas.’ I add, as man has made him.”—(Richard F. Burton, “Terminal Essay” to his edition of the “Arabian Nights,” vol. x. p. 181, foot-note, London, 1886.)
Bayle does not allude to the baking of bread with ordure in his brief article upon the prophet Ezekiel; neither does Prof. J. Stuart Blaikie in his more comprehensive dissertation in the Encyclopædia Britannica, article “Ezekiel.”
“The use of dung by the ancient Israelites is collected incidentally from the passage in which the prophet Ezekiel, being commanded, as a symbolic action, to bake his bread with dung, excuses himself from the use of an unclean thing, and is permitted to employ cow’s dung instead.”—(Strong and McClintock’s “Cyclopædia of Biblical and Classical Literature,” New York, 1868, vol. ii. article “Dung.”)
“I fear that Voltaire cannot be taken as an authority on Hebrew matters. I believe that the passage from Ezekiel is correctly rendered in the revised edition, where at verse 15 ‘thereon’ is substituted for ‘therewith’ of the old version. The use of dried cow’s-dung as fuel is common among the poorer classes in the East; and in a siege, fuel, always scarce, would be so scarce that a man’s dung might have to be used. I do not think that one need look further for the explanation of verses 15-17; the words of verse 15 are not ambiguous, and that used for dung is the same as the Arabs still apply to the dried cakes of cow’s dung used for fuel. Voltaire and Picart both seem to have used the Vulgate, in which verse 12 is wrongly rendered.”—(Personal letter from Prof. W. Robertson Smith, Cambridge, England.)
“Les nombreux exemples qui précèdent rendent moins intéressante la question de savoir an Ezéchias stercus comederit; ce ne serait qu’un mangeur de plus. Pourtant on peut voir dans la Bible le verset 12 du chap. iv. de ce prophète: ‘et quasi sub cinericium hordaceum comedes illud et stercore quod egreditur de homine operies illud in oculis eorum;’ et les diverses interprétations données par les différents traducteurs et commentateurs.”—(Bibliotheca Scatalogica, pp. 93-96.)
Schurig consacre un paragraphe à discuter an Ezechias stercus comederit.—(Idem, p. 39.)
Just exactly what Schurig thought on this subject may be stated in his own words. Although not positive, he inclines to the opinion that Ezekiel did eat excrement:—
“Denique, mandato divino, Propheta Ezechiel, cap. iv. ver. 12, placentam hordeaceam cum stercore humano parasse atque comedisse primo intuitu videtur, juxta versionem Lutheri.... Juxta Junium et Tremellium allegata verba sic sonant: Comedes cibum ut placentam hordeaceam, et ad orbes excrementi humani parabis placentam istam in oculis illorum. Juxta Sebastianum Schmidium: Sicut placentam hordeorum comedes eum; quod ad ipsum tamen, cum stercore fimi hominis facies in oculis eorum. Bene etiam hunc locum explicat Textus Gallicus meæ editionis: Tu mangeras de fouaces d’orge, et les cuiras avec la fiente qui sort hors de l’homme eux le voyans.”—(“Chylologia,” Dresden, 1725, pp. 782, 783.)
“Ezekiel says that his God told him to lie for three hundred and ninety days on his left side, and then forty days on his right side, when ‘he would lay hands on him and turn him from one side to another;’ also that during all this period he was only to eat barley bread baked in too disgusting a manner to be described.”—(“Rivers of Life,” Forlong, vol. ii. p. 597.)
“This last command was, however, so strongly resented that his Deity somewhat relaxed it.”—(Idem.)
The most rational explanation of this much-disputed and ambiguous passage must necessarily be such as can be deduced from a consideration of Ezekiel’s environment.
Giving due weight to every doubt, there remains this feature: the prophet unquestionably was influenced and actuated by the ideas of his day and generation, which looked upon the humiliations to which he subjected himself as the outward manifestations of an inward spirituality.
Psychologically speaking, there is no great difference between the consumption of human excrement and the act of lying on one’s side for three hundred and ninety days; both are indications of the same perverted cerebration, mistaken with such frequency for piety and holiness.
“Isaiah had periods of indecent maniacal outbursts; for we are told that he once went about stark naked for three years, because so commanded by the Lord.”—(“Rivers of Life,” vol. ii. p. 537, quoting Isaiah xx. 2, 3.)