"UNCLEAN” ANIMALS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23517, 4 June 1938, Page 27

"UNCLEAN” ANIMALS

ro THE EDITOR

Sir, —Mr James Braid should be the last to accuse another of being “egotistic and dogmatic,” as only in your issue of May 27 he dogmatically condemns some statements by “ Maranatha ” as being “ very glaring false assertions,” and then goes on egotistically to place his own intelligence •(along with that of most of your readers) as above that of “ Maran-atha ”1 Apparently he is privileged to indulge in egotism and dogmatism. In claiming the support of most of your readers he only, of course, accentuates his egotism, He will find no such “glaring” egotism in my letter, and if I am damned as unfit to discuss matters, then I refrain from mentioning his condition. He says it is worse than useless to discuss with me when I have to resort to “so many hypothetical ‘ ifs,’ ‘ perhapses,’ possibilities,’ ‘ maybeV and ‘probabilities.’ ” What does he hope to gain by such irresponsible misrepresentation? “So many! ” If he is not ashamed of himself he will point out where I have used those terms in the manner he asserts. He seems to be so obsessed with an anti-evolution complex that in the most simple expression he imagines I am trying to introduce, furtively, the subject of evolution. He asks: “ Why was the consumption of ‘unclean’-animals forbidden if it were not for health considerations? ” For answer, I refer him to my last letter. I have given in it the reason why. But I wjll ask him in return, If “ unclean ” is to be understood in a modem hygienic sense, then why was a woman “ unclean ” for a longer period after the birth of a female than after that of a male? Without any desire to be egotistical or dogmatic, I am compelled to say that Mr Braid shows just pure ignorance respecting this matter. Christian scholars them-, selves accept the meaning of ‘‘unclean” which I have given. I advise Mr Braid to read the section under the heading of "Holy” in the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics In the Library reference room, also “ Unclean ” in Hastings’s “ Dictionary of the Bible,” and he will see the sheer folly of disputing such established facts.

I certainly am not ashamed of myself or my writings; and as for coming out In the open—well, when the power of religion is less Intolerant and freedom of thought Is more welcome than it is, then I will. For the information of Mr Braid, as for others, I may say that I use my pen-name in its original sense, as given by Ward Fowler in his "Roman Essays and Interpretations” (p. 211); those who, in sacred law, had no right to be present at the temple of worship; those who had not performed the requisite ablutions. So, as one who is outside any temple of worship and has not performed the requisite "ablutions” to enable me to enter, —I am, etc., Profanum Vulgus. Dunedin, June 2.