[107] Plutarch, Numa, iv. 5. Idem, Symposiaca problemata, viii. 1. 6 sq.
[108] St. Cyprian, De habitu virginum, 4, 22 (Migne, op. cit. iv. 443, 462). Cf. Methodius, Convivium decent virginum, vii. 1 (Migne, op. cit. Ser. Græca, xviii. 125).
[109] St. Cyprian, Epistola LXII., ad Pomponium de virginibus, 3 sq. (Migne, op. cit. iv. 368 sqq.). See also Neander, General History of the Christian Religion and Church, i. 378. The Council of Elvira decreed that such fallen virgins, if they refused to return back to their former condition, should be denied communion even at the moment of death (Concilium Eliberitanum, A.D. 305, ch. 13 [Labbe-Mansi, op. cit. ii. 8]).
[110] Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, 8 (Ante-Nicene Christian Library, xvi. 25). See also Gospel of the Nativity of Mary, 7 (ibid. xvi. 57 sq.).
[111] Wachsmuth, Hellenische Alterthumskunde, ii. 560.
[112] Cf. Lactantius, Divinæ Institutiones, i. 17 (Migne, op. cit. vi. 206):—“Deum mater et amavit formosum adolescentem, et eumdem cum pellice deprehensum exsectis virilibus semivirum reddidit; et ideo nunc sacra ejus a Gallis sacerdotibus celebrantur.”
Religious celibacy is further connected with the idea that sexual intercourse is defiling. In Efate, of the New Hebrides, it is regarded as something unclean.[113] The Tahitians believed that if a man refrained from all connections with women some months before death, he passed immediately into his eternal mansion without any purification.[114] Herodotus writes:—“As often as a Babylonian has had intercourse with his wife, he sits down before a censer of burning incense, and the woman sits opposite to him. At dawn of day they wash; for till they are washed they will not touch any of their common vessels. This practice is also observed by the Arabs.”[115] Among the Hebrews both the man and woman had to bathe themselves in water, and were “unclean until the even.”[116] The idea that sexual intercourse is unclean implies that some degree of supernatural danger is connected with it;[117] and, as Mr. Crawley has pointed out, the notion of danger may develop into that of sinfulness.[118] Where woman is regarded as an unclean being[119] it is obvious that intercourse with her should be considered polluting, but this is not a sufficient explanation of the idea of sexual uncleanness. A polluting effect is ascribed to any discharge of sexual matter[120]—originally no doubt on account of its mysterious propensities and the veil of mystery which surrounds the whole sexual nature of man.
[113] Macdonald, Oceania, p. 181.
[114] Cook, Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, ii. 164.
[115] Herodotus, i. 198.