[200] Supra, [i. 406 sq.]
[201] von Kremer, Culturgeschichte des Orients, ii. 129.
[202] Döllinger, op. cit. ii. 239.
[203] Dâdistân-î Dînîk, lxxvii. 11.
[204] Havelock Ellis, op. cit. p. 206.
[205] Genesis, xix. 31 sqq.
[206] Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, ii.-ii. 154. 12. Katz, Grundriss des kanonischen Strafrechts, pp. 104, 118, 120. Clarus, Practica criminalis, book v. § Sodomia, Additiones, 1 (Opera omnia, ii. 152):—“Hoc vitium est majus, quam si quis propriam matrem cognosceret.”
According to Zoroastrianism, unnatural sin had been created by Angra Mainyu.[207] “Aharman, the wicked, miscreated the demons and fiends, and also the remaining corrupted ones, by his own unnatural intercourse.”[208] Such intercourse is on a par with Afrâsiyâb, a Turanian king who conquered the Iranians for twelve years;[209] with Dahâk, a king or dynasty who is said to have conquered Yim and reigned for a thousand years;[210] with Tûr-i Brâdar-vakhsh, a heterodox wizard by whom the best men were put to death.[211] He who commits unnatural sin is “in his whole being a Daêva”;[212] and a Daêva-worshipper is not a bad Zoroastrian, but a man who does not belong to the Zoroastrian system, a foreigner, a non-Aryan.[213] In the Vendîdâd, after the statement that the voluntary commission of unnatural sin is a trespass for which there is no atonement for ever and ever, the question is put, When is it so? And the answer given is:—If the sinner be a professor of the religion of Mazda, or one who has been taught in it. If not, his sin is taken from him, in case he makes confession of the religion of Mazda and resolves never to commit again such forbidden deeds.[214] This is to say, the sin is inexpiable if it involves a downright defiance of the true religion, it is forgiven if it is committed in ignorance of it and is followed by submission. From all this it appears that Zoroastrianism stigmatised unnatural intercourse as a practice of infidels, as a sign of unbelief. And I think that certain facts referred to above help us to understand why it did so. Not only have homosexual practices been commonly associated with sorcery, but such an association has formed, and partly still forms, an incident of the shamanistic system prevalent among the Asiatic peoples of Turanian stock, and that it did so already in remote antiquity is made extremely probable by statements which I have just quoted from Zoroastrian texts. To this system Zoroastrianism was naturally furiously opposed, and the “change of sex” therefore appeared to the Mazda worshipper as a devilish abomination.
[207] Vendîdâd, i. 12.
[208] Dînâ-î Maînôg-î Khirad, viii. 10.