Note 4 — Chapter V · Trial by Ordeal.
Reading edition
Numbers, V., 14, 15, 19, 24, 27, 28.
This same ordeal is in use among the Africans, of the Gold Coast, to determine incontinence on the part of a woman.
From Herodotus it would seem that the ancient Egyptians believed in ordeals, with other divine power, to solve the guilt of prisoners, in cases where the evidence was doubtful, as he narrates instances where Aames II. who led a dissolute life, was convicted on the supposed divine judgment of the oracle. Herodotus II., 174.
In their excellent history of English Law, Pollock and Maitland say, of the trial by ordeal: “The history of ordeals is a long chapter in the history of mankind; we must not attempt to tell it. Men of many, if not all races, have carried the red-hot iron or performed some similar feat, in proof of their innocence.” (Vol. II., p. 598.)