In yet another way the defiling effect attributed to the taking of human life has had an influence on religious and moral ideas. Such defilement is shunned not only by men, but, in a still higher degree, by gods. The shedding of human blood is commonly prohibited in sacred places. “In almost every Indian nation,” says Adair, “there are several peaceable towns, which are called ‘old-beloved,’ ‘ancient, holy, or white towns’; they seem to have been formerly ‘towns of refuge,’ for it is not in the memory of their oldest people, that ever human blood was shed in them; although they often force persons from thence, and put them to death elsewhere.”[43] The Aricaras of the Missouri, according to Bradbury, have in the centre of the largest village a sacred lodge called the “medicine lodge,” which, “in one particular corresponds with the sanctuary of the Jews, as no blood is on any account whatsoever to be spilled within it, not even that of an enemy.”[44] At Athens the prosecution for homicide began with debarring the criminal from all sanctuaries and assemblies consecrated by religious observances.[45] According to Greek ideas, purification was an essential preliminary to an acceptable sacrifice.[46] Hector said, “I shrink from offering a libation of gleaming wine to Zeus with hands unwashed; nor can it be in any way wise that one should pray to the son of Kronos, god of the storm-cloud, all defiled with blood and filth.”[47] In many parts of Morocco, a man who has slain another person is never afterwards allowed to kill the sacrificial sheep at the “Great Feast.”[48] When David had in his heart to build a temple, God said to him, “Thou shalt not build a house for my name, because thou hast been a man of war, and hast shed blood.”[49] A decree of the penitential discipline of the Christian Church, which was enforced even against emperors and generals, forbade anyone whose hands had been imbrued in blood to approach the altar without a preparatory period of penance.[50]
[43] Adair, History of the American Indians, p. 159.
[44] Bradbury, Travels in the Interior of America, p. 165 sq. Our informer adds, “Nor is any one, having taken refuge there, to be forced from it”; but with facts of this kind we are not concerned at present. They belong to the right of sanctuary, in the strict sense of the term, and, as will be seen, this right is based on a different principle, which prevents even the polluted manslayer, tainted with newly shed blood, from being dragged out of the sanctuary to which he has fled in the capacity of a suppliant.
[45] Aristotle, De republica Atheniensium, 57. Müller, Dissertations, p. 103.
[46] Donaldson, ‘Expiatory and Substitutionary Sacrifices of the Greeks,’ in Transactions Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, xxvii. 433. Farnell, op. cit. i. 72.
[47] Iliad, vi. 266 sqq. Cf. Vergil, Æneis, ii. 717 sqq.
[48] I found this custom prevalent both among Arab and Berber tribes in different parts of the country; see my article, “The Popular Ritual of the Great Feast in Morocco,” in Folk-Lore, xxii. 144.
[49] 1 Chronicles, xxviii. 2 sq.
[50] Lecky, History of European Morals, ii. 39.
Whilst, from fear of contaminating anything holy, casual restrictions have thus been imposed on all kinds of manslayers, whether murderers or those who have killed an enemy in righteous warfare, more stringent rules have been laid down for persons permanently connected with the religious cult. Adair states that the “holy men” of the North American Indians, like the Jewish priests, were by their function absolutely forbidden to shed human blood, “notwithstanding their propensity thereto, even for small injuries.”[51] Herodotus says of the Persian Magi that they “kill animals of all kinds with their own hands, excepting dogs and men.”[52] The Druids of Gaul never went to war,[53] probably in order to keep themselves free from blood-pollution;[54] it is true, they sacrificed human victims to their gods, but those they burnt.[55] To the same class of facts belong those decrees of the Christian Church which forbade clergymen taking part in a battle. Moreover, if a Christian priest passed a sentence of death he was punished with degradation and imprisonment for life;[56] nor was he allowed to write or dictate anything with a view to bringing about such a sentence.[57] He must not perform a surgical operation by help of fire or iron.[58] And if he killed a robber in order to save his life, he had to do penance till his death.[59] The hands which had to distribute the blood of the Lamb of God were not to be polluted with the blood of those for whose salvation it was shed.[60]