Claudius F. Mayer: From Plato to Pope Paul / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 17. (Budapest, 1989)

race mixture.

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5 Their principle of inbreeding is based upon a spiritual basis, and not upon geographic situation. Their dispersion in early history would facilitate mixture,

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0 but for the religious laws they had since MOSES and EZRA until now.

107 Their history is almost nothing but a list of calamities, oppressions, persecutions.

108 Their Exodus can be considered a large scale eugenic experiment, and MOSES could be called the greatest practical "biological engineer" of all times.

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9 With the Ten Commandments

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0 he secured family life,

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1 and sanctified marriage.

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2 His health laws aimed at increase of the size and improvement of the progeny. He condemned castration, demanded chastity before marriage, matrimony at an early age, prohibited prostitution,

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3 and any sexual perversity (bestiality, homosexuality),

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4 banned marriage of lepers and epileptics, and punished adultery with death.

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5 He also established laws to prohibit intercourse with blood relations,

116 or the miscegenation with other races.

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7 He also established the caste of priests (= Levites),

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8 and ordered that no disabled or defective should offer gifts to god.

119 After MOSES, the prophets, especially EZECHIEL, stipulated healthy propagation of Jewry. Their sexual ethics was elaborated into a special, rigid systems, putting the maximum of human fecunditiy into the service of people. Male progeny is honorable, and sterility is a curse.

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0 The Talmudiç rule was also early marriage.

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1 The prophetic promises of Jehovah to the patriarchs show the sanctity of offspring, and the desire of great numbers for national prosperity. Hence, very little is said about population checks, except about "spilling the seed",

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2 The Talmud allowed abstinence in hungry years, if the family already had children.

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3 Induced abortion (= neftel) is not mentioned in the Bible. In later Jewish legislation, however, abortion was not condemned.

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4 Therapeutic abortion or embryotomy was also permissible to save the mother's life.

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5 The ancient Israelites were also ready just as the people of Carthage, to immolate their progeny to their LORD.

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6 IV. CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY GREEK CITIES AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE Numerous original documents and many modern studies of classical antiquity show that in Greece and Rome population were just as numerous and their practical solutions with the genetic knowledge of families, groups, and rulers were just as ingenious and variegated as they are in our times. The Greeks were a race of warriors who in their city states attempted to produce healthly citizens. Before the time of CECROPS, the ancient inhabitants of Attica had no restriction of their sexual life,

127 but the Greeks felt later that monogamy was a mark of civilization,

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8 and in the women they respected the sanctity of the family, and the integrity of the race.

129 Although in the mythology Zeus and Hera lived in a borther-sister marriage,

130 this type of sexual union was considered sign of barbarism.

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1 Adultery was also severely penalized.

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2 In the ancient time of fables they desired to have large families,

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3 many descendants who could perpetuate the family

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4 for ancestor worship.

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5 Disparity at age of mating was deplored by legislators, philosophers, and poets alike.

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6 Plato set 12