DISCHARGES FROM MALES. These are evidently regarded as abnormal. The greatest care is taken to mark the contagion arising from them. Keener precautions could not be taken with what is the most loathsome disease of our modern civilisation. The bed, the seat, anyone who has touched the bed or the seat... [ Continue Reading ]
LEVITICUS 15. ISSUES. Four kinds are considered; the first of these (Leviticus 15:1) is apparently pathological, though there is no reference to venereal diseases, which are unknown in the OT; the second (Leviticus 15:16) normal; the third (Leviticus 15:19), normal and periodic; the fourth (2 Leviti... [ Continue Reading ]
EMISSIONS, VOLUNTARY OR OTHERWISE. Here only washing is needed. The existence of the first part of the law may well help to allay the horror with which the phenomenon is often needlessly regarded. In the second part, there is no suggestion of sin, as in the writings of Augustine and other fathers, o... [ Continue Reading ]
Here the ceremonial has become almost identical with what would now be considered the hygienic. The prescriptions for infected persons are the same as those in Leviticus 15:1; Leviticus 15:24 conveys a very salutary caution: contrast Leviticus 20:18 the two cases, however, may not be the same. The i... [ Continue Reading ]
ABNORMAL PROLONGATION OF DISCHARGE. Here the treatment of the patient is identical with that of the man in Leviticus 15:1. In neither case, however, is any treatment in the modern sense of the word mentioned. Even if the law is by implication hygienic, it is not medical.... [ Continue Reading ]
CONCLUSION. These five Chapter s, and espe_ cially the_ last, throw a strong light on the conception of sin in P. Sin is not an act, but a condition. The sacrifices prescribed for it are not punishments, nor even methods of escape, but means by which, the abnormal conditions gone, the functions of t... [ Continue Reading ]