The fifth chapter of the Book of Numbers (11--31) exhibits as gross a
specimen of superstition as can be culled from the customs of any
known race of savages. The divine "law of jealousy," to which I allude,
provides that a man who is jealous of his wife may, simply to satisfy
his own suspicions, and without having the slightest evidence against
her, bring her before the priest, who shall take "holy water," and
charge her by an oath of cursing to declare if she has been unfaithful
to her husband. The priest writes out the curse and blots it into the
water, which he then administers to the woman. The description of the
effects of the water is more suitable to the pages of the holy Bible
than to those of a modern book. Sufficient to say, if faithful, the holy
water has only a beneficial effect on the lady, but if unfaithful,
its operation is such as to dispense with the necessity of her husband
writing out a bill of divorcement.
The absurdity and atrocity of this divine law only finds its parallel in
the customs of the worst barbarians, and in the ecclesiastical laws of
the Dark Ages, that is of the days when Christianity was predominant and
the Bible was considered as the guide in legislation.
A curious approach to the Jewish custom is that which found place among
the savages at Cape Breton. At a marriage feast two dishes of meat were
brought to the bride and bridegroom, and the priest addressed himself to
the bride thus:
"Thou that art upon the point of entering the marriage state, know that
the nourishment thou art going to take forebodes the greatest calamities
to thee if thy heart is capable of harboring any ill design against thy
husband or against thy nation; should thou ever be led astray by the
caresses of a stranger; or shouldst thou betray thy husband or thy
country, the victuals in this vessel will have the effect of a slow
poison, with which thou wilt be tainted from this very instant. If, on
the other hand, thou art faithful to thy husband and thy country, thou
wilt find the nourishment agreeable and wholesome."*
* Genuine Letters and Memoirs Relating to the Isle of Cape
Breton. By T. Pichon. 1760.
This custom manifestly was, like the Christian doctrine of hell,
designed to restrain crime by operating upon superstitious fear. It was
devoid of the worst feature of the Jewish law--the opportunity for crime
disguised under the mask of justice. For this we must go to the tribes
of Africa.
Dr. Kitto, in his _Bible Encyclopedia_ (article Adultery), alludes thus
to the trial by red water among African savages, which, he says, is so
much dreaded that innocent persons often confess themselves guilty in
order to avoid it.
"The person who drinks the red water invokes the Fetish to destroy him
if he is really guilty of the offence of which he is charged. The drink
is made by an infusion in water of pieces of a certain tree or of herbs.
It is highly poisonous in itself; and if rightly prepared, the only
chance of escape is the rejection of it by the stomach, in which case
the party is deemed innocent, as he also is if, being retained, it has
no sensible effect, which can only be the case when the priests,
who have the management of the matters, are influenced by private
considerations, or by reference to the probabilities of the case, to
prepare the draught with a view to acquittal."*
* In like manner Maimonides, the great Jewish commentator,
said that innocent women would give all they had to escape
it, and reckoned death preferable (Moreh Nevochim, pt. iii.,
ch. xlix.)
Dr. Livingstone says the practice of ordeal is common among all the
negro natives north of the Zambesi:
"When a man suspects that any of his wives have bewitched him, he sends
for the witch-doctor, and all the wives go forth into the field, and
remain fasting till the person has made an infusion of the plant called
'go ho.' They all drink it, each one holding up her hand to heaven
in attestation of her innocence. Those who vomit it are considered
innocent, while those whom it purges are pronounced guilty, and are put
to death by burning."
In this case, be it noticed, there is no provision for the woman who
thinks her husband has bewitched her, as in the holy Bible there is
no law for the woman who conceives she has cause for jealousy; nor,
although she is supernaturally punished, is there any indication of any
punishment falling on the male culprit who has perhaps seduced her from
her allegiance to her lord and master.
Throughout Europe, when under the sway of Christian priests, trials by
ordeal were quite common. It was held as a general maxim that God would
judge as to the righteousness or unrighteousness of a cause. The chief
modes of the Judicium Dei, as it was called, was by walking on or
handling hot iron; by chewing consecrated bread, with the wish that the
morsel might be the last; by plunging the arm in boiling water, or by
being thrown into cold water, to swim being considered a proof of guilt,
and to sink the demonstration of innocence. Pope Eugenius had the
honor of inventing this last ordeal, which became famous as a trial for
witches.
Dr. E. B. Tylor, whose information on all such matters is only equalled
by his philosophical insight, says of ordeals:
"As is well known, they have always been engines of political power in
the hands of unscrupulous priests and chiefs. Often it was unnecessary
even to cheat, when the arbiter had it at his pleasure to administer
either a harmless ordeal, like drinking cursed water, or a deadly
ordeal, by a dose of aconite or physostigma. When it comes to sheer
cheating, nothing can be more atrocious than this poison ordeal. In West
Africa, where the Oalabar bean is used, the administers can give the
accused a dose which will make him sick, and so prove his innocence; or
they can give him enough to prove him guilty, and murder him in the
very act of proof. When we consider that over a great part of that great
continent this and similar drugs usually determine the destiny of
people inconvenient to the Fetish man and the chief--the constituted
authorities of Church and State--we see before us one efficient cause of
the unprogressive character of African society."
Trial by ordeal was in all countries, whether Pagan or Christian, under
the management of the priesthood. That it originated in ignorance
and superstition, and was maintained by fraud, is unquestionable.
Christians, when reading of ordeals among savages, deplore the ignorance
and barbarity of the unenlightened heathen among whom such customs
prevail, quite unmindful that in their own sacred book, headed with
the words "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying," occurs as gross an
instance of superstitious ordeal as can be found among the records of
any people.