[ [217] Or it may be read Ciessua; Ramusio, Cressuamengan; Lisbon edition, Cryuamergam.
[ [218] That is, the first mass said by a new priest.
[ [219] Como mayorazgo.
[ [220] See Cardinal Wiseman's Lectures with regard to this subject, also the work of another Catholic author, where this Hindu doctrine is termed an adumbration. The Abbé Huc is opposed to the above-mentioned divines, and calls this a counterfeit of Satan. Unless his theory, or another alternative, be adopted, it must be assumed, since the Brahminical books were contemporary with David, perhaps with Moses, that the Hindus were more favoured than the Chosen People of Israel: which is impossible.
"Il faut ajouter que la science brâhmanique n'a pas été étrangère au développement du génie grec, l'une des sources de notre civilisation, ni à la formation du christianisme, religion de tout l'Occident." M. Emile Burnouf, La Civilisation Chrétienne en Orient, Revue des deux Mondes, 1er Juin, 1865, pp. 632, 633; see also pp. 638, 639.
[ [221] This may be estimated from the value of rice, 150 to 200 maravedis the 4 bushels or 90 lbs. See above.
[ [222] The explanation of this ceremony is to be found in Plato:—
"We said, you remember, that the children ought to be the issue of parents who are still in their prime." "True." " And do you agree with me that the prime of life may be reasonably reckoned at a period of twenty years for a woman, and thirty for a man?" "Where do you place these years?" "I should make it the rule for a woman to bear children to the state from her twentieth to her fortieth year: and for a man, after getting over the sharpest burst in the race of life, thenceforward to beget children to the state until he is fifty-five years old." "Doubtless," he said, "in both sexes, this is the period of their prime both of body and mind." "If, then, a man who is either above or under this age shall meddle with the business of begetting children for the commonwealth, we shall declare his act to be an offence against religion and justice; inasmuch as he is raising up a child for the state, who, should detection be avoided, instead of having been begotten under the sanction of those sacrifices and prayers, which are to be offered up at every marriage ceremonial by priests and priestesses, and by the whole city, to the effect that the children to be born may ever be more virtuous and more useful than their virtuous and useful parents, will have been conceived under cover of darkness by aid of dire incontinence." "You are right." "The same law will hold should a man, who is still of an age to be a father, meddle with a woman, who is also of the proper age, without the introduction of a magistrate; for we shall accuse him of raising up to the state an illegitimate, unsponsored, and unhallowed child." "You are perfectly right." "But as soon as the women and the men are past the prescribed age, we shall allow the latter I imagine to associate freely with whomsoever they please, so that it be not a daughter, or mother, or daughter's child, or grandmother; and in like manner we shall permit the women to associate with any man, except a son or a father." Republic, book v, sect. 461. Davis and Vaughan's Translation, p. 190.
"Explicemus jam tandem, quam nam florentem ætatem in utroque sexu existimemus, mulierem porro florenti esse ætate arbitramur, si a vigesimo ætatis suæ anno usque ad quadragesimum generationi incumbat, virum autem a trigesimo usque ad quinquagesimum quintum operam suam in gignendo civitati præbere præcipimus, in hoc enim annorum cursu et robur corporis, et prudentiæ vim sexus utriusque consistere certum est. Si quis igitur vel senior vel junior his generationes eas, quæ ad publicum civitatis commodum ordinatæ sunt, attigerit profanum et illegitimum hoc esse censebimus, quasi civitati fœtum largiatur, qui si latuerit non sacrificiorum vel præcationum fiat inauguratione, quas tamen in singulis nuptiis cum universâ civitate peragent sacerdotes, ut ex bonis meliores et ex utilibus utiliores semper enascantur vota concipientes; sed id fiat sub tenebris ex vehementis cujusdam incontinentiæ libidine, eadem autem lex etiam erit servanda, si quis eorum qui et in ætate sunt apta ad matrimonium contrahendum, non assentiente tamen magistratu ad mulieres ætate nubiles accesserit, hunc enim statuemus edere civitati spurium profanum, et illegitimum partum; ubi vero et mulieres, et viri statutum generationi tempus pertransierint, immunes a lege faciemus ut possint cum quacumque libuerit commisceri; præter quam cum filia et matre et filiis filiarum ac matris ascendentibus; et parem concedemus quoque libertatem mulieribus, ut possint cum quovis conjungi, præter quam cum filio, vel patre, et ascendentibus, vel descendentibus ex his, quæ omnia, ubi mandaverimus curabimus, ne partus ullus omnino ex hujusmodi coitibus ortus in lucem proferatur, quod si proferetur sic expositus sit perinde ac quasi nulla ei adsint alimenta." Plato's Republic, book v. Translation of John Sozomenus, Venice, 1626.
[ [223] Plato perhaps got this idea as well as others from India:
"Consider, then, I continued, whether the following plan is the right one for their lives and their dwellings, if they are to be of the character I have described. In the first place no one should possess any private property, if it can possibly be avoided: secondly, no one should have a dwelling or storehouse into which all who please may not enter; whatever necessaries are required by temperate and courageous men who are trained to war, they should receive by regular appointment from their fellow-citizens, as wages for their services, and the amount should be such as to leave neither a surplus on the year's consumption nor a deficit...; but whenever they come to possess lands and houses and money of their own, they will be householders and cultivators instead of guardians, and will become hostile masters of their fellow-citizens rather than their allies." Republic, book iii, sect. 417. Davis and Vaughan's Translation, pp. 129, 130.
"Itaque Adiutores communes habere filios et uxores summopere expedit, quæ et consentiunt omnino iis quæ superius a nobis dicta sunt, diximus enim hos neque domos proprias habere debere; neque terram possidere, vel aliud quidpiam in bonis adnumerare: sed a cæteris enutritos hanc quasi custodiæ mercedem accipere, quam et in communi positam consumant, si re vera custodes futuri sunt; ut et quæ prius a nobis dicta sunt, et quæ nunc etiam dicuntur efficiant ipsos veros custodes, et ne Rempublicam in partes dividant; sed ut uno potius animo de propriis judicantes, et ad id tendantes omnes, uno eodemque et doloris et voluptatis sensu afficiantur." Platonis de Rebuspublicis, liber quintus. A Joanne Sozomeno, Venetiis, 1626.
"Etenim Plato cum multas Regiones lustrasset, et mores hominum varios inspexisset, ac sui temporis Respublicas contemplatus abundé fuisset, nec non antiquorum philosophorum ac legumlatorum monumenta studiosissime perquisivisset, senior tandem factus, politias quidem omnes nihil aliud esse intelligens, nisi concordem quandam in societate civili Regulam, ac ordinem quo eædem continerentur." Joannes Sozomenus Lectoribus.