[160] Yasts, xii. 8.
[161] Aeschylus, Supplices, 445. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, i. 55.
[162] Ovid, Fasti, v. 141.
[163] Trumbull, The Threshold Covenant, p. 166 sq.
[164] Deuteronomy, xix. 14; xxvii. 17. Proverbs, xxii. 28; xxiii. 10 sq. Hosea, v. 10. Cf. Job, xxiv. 2.
[165] Plato, Leges, viii. 842 sq. Demosthenes, Oratio de Halonneso, 39, p. 86. See also Hermann, Disputatio de terminis eorumque religione apud Græcos, passim.
[166] Ovid, Fasti, ii. 639 sqq. Festus, De verborum significatione ‘Termino.’ Lactantius, Divinæ Institutiones, i. 10 (Migne, Patrologiæ cursus, vi. 227 sqq.). Pauly, Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Alterthumswissenschaft, vi. pt. ii. 1707 sqq. Fowler, Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic, p. 324 sqq.
[167] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiquitates Romanæ, ii. 74. Plutarch, Numa, xvi. i. Festus, op. cit. ‘Termino.’
This religious sanction given to ownership is no doubt in some measure due to the same circumstances as, in certain cases, make morality in general a matter of divine concern—a subject which will be dealt with in a future chapter. But there are also special reasons which account for it. Partly it has its origin in magic practices, particularly in the curse.
Cursing is a frequent method of punishing criminals who cannot be reached in any other way.[168] In the Book of Judges we read of Micah’s mother who had pronounced a curse with reference to the money stolen from her, and afterwards, when her son had confessed his guilt, hastened to render it ineffective by a blessing.[169] In early Arabia the owner of stolen property had recourse to cursing in order to recover what he had lost.[170] In Samoa “the party from whom anything had been stolen, if he knew not the thief, would seek satisfaction in sitting down and deliberately cursing him.”[171] The Kamchadales “think they can punish an undiscovered theft by burning the sinews of the stonebuck in a publick meeting with great ceremonies of conjuration, believing that as these sinews are contracted by the fire so the thief will have all his limbs contracted.”[172] Among the Ossetes, if an object has been secretly stolen, its owner secures the assistance of a sorcerer. They proceed together to the house of any person whom they suspect, the sorcerer carrying under his arm a cat, which is regarded as a particularly enchanted animal. He exclaims, “If thou hast stolen the article and dost not restore it to its owner, may this cat torment the souls of thy ancestors!” And such an imprecation is generally followed by a speedy restitution of the stolen property. Again, if their suspicions rest upon no particular individual, they proceed in the same manner from house to house, and the thief then, knowing that his turn must come, frequently confesses his guilt at once.[173] A common mode of detecting the perpetrator of a theft is to compel the suspected individual to make oath, that is to say, to pronounce a conditional curse upon himself.[174]