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  • From: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Re: [b-hebrew YHWH's attitude towards zonah
  • Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2004 09:27:56 -0500

Dear Karl and Patrina,

I had always had the impression that virgins in temple service had a responsibility to remain virgins. If a virgin violated her trust (pregnancy being good proof of violation) she was automatically fired.

HH: It could be worse than that. Philip Schaff in his History of the Christian Church (vol. 2, 398) writes that

The noblest form of heathen virginity appears in the six Vestal virgins of Rome, who, while girls of from six to ten years, were selected for the service of the pure goddess, and set to keep the holy fire burning on its altar; but, after serving thirty years, were allowed to return to secular life and marry. The penalty for breaking their vow of chastity was to be buried alive in the campus sceleratus.

HH: The Campus Sceleratus was near the Porta Collina, an ancient gate in Rome. Here's a paragraph or two about the Vestal virgins and the campus:
http://sights.seindal.dk/sight/318_Campus_Sceleratus.html

Their persons (the virgins) were inviolable and sacred and their blood could not be spilt. If a person sentenced to death met a vestal virgin on his way to the execution, he was automatically pardoned.

The punishment for breaking the vow of chastity was death by burial alive-the only way to kill a vestal without shedding her blood-in a place known as the "Evil Fields", or Campus Sceleratus, just outside the Servian Wall. Their lover would be flogged to death on the Comitium. The execution of one or more vestal virgins were carried out several times, but very infrequently.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard




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