HUNTINGTON FREE LIBRARY 
 AND READING ROOM 
 
 MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN 
 HEYE FOUNDATION 
 
 Huntington Free Library 
 
 Native American 
 Collection 
 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 LIBRARY 
 
3 1924 100 743 115 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924100743115 
 
PHALLISM IN ANCIENT WORSHIPS. 
 
Canesa, 
 
 THE GOD OF WISDOM, IN THE HINDU PANTHEON. 
 
ANCIENT SYMBOL WORSHIP. 
 INFLUENCE OF THE PHALLIC IDEA 
 
 IN THE 
 
 Religions of Antiquity. 
 
 BY 
 
 H ODDER M WESTROPP 
 
 AND 
 
 C. STANILAND WAKE. 
 
 WITH AN 
 
 INTRODUCTION, ADDITIONAL NOTES, AND AN APPENDIX. 
 By ALEXANDER WILDER, M.D. 
 
 SECOND EDITION, ILLUSTRATED. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 J. W. BOUTON, 706 BROADWAY. 
 
 1875- 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, 
 
 By JAMES W. BOUTON, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The historian Gibbon has remarked that " a lively desire of 
 knowing and recording our ancestors so generally prevails, that 
 it must depend on the influence of some common principle in 
 the minds of men." To this we are probably to refer the inquisi- 
 tiveness that leads individuals to the investigation of the relics 
 of bygone periods, whether as naturalists, philologists, or his- 
 torical inquirers. The Book of Genesis has been eagerly scruti- 
 nized as containing a divinely-inspired record of the Origin of 
 Mankind ; and ancient histories are carefully turned over in 
 quest of clews in the same direction. The studies of language 
 and etymology are interesting as affording traces of the ancestry 
 of our modern peoples. The same plea holds good in regard to 
 religious inquiry. Language and worship are crystallized history. 
 
 Unbecoming alike are the supercilious disdain and the sancti- 
 monious contempt flung by pretentious men upon ancient ideas 
 and usages. The ignorant cock that scorned the jewel because 
 he knew not how to ascertain its value, and preferred the corn 
 which he could scratch out from the dunghill, is an apt likeness of 
 such persons. It is certainly proper to pay due regard to utility and 
 present advantage. But the disposition to confine the attention 
 to that limit is as imbruting and sensual as anything in fetish- 
 worship or the orgies of the old-time divinities. The generous 
 mind will cast aside such a temper, and, in obedience to its own 
 instincts, hasten to broader fields of exploration, whether in 
 natural science, metaphysical inquiry, or archaeological investiga- 
 tion. Labor which makes a person better acquainted with 
 himself or his fellow-men is not wasted. 
 
 In former periods it was the practice to check exuberant 
 
vi Preface. 
 
 curiosity by destroying records, and inflicting summary penal- 
 ties on those who exceeded the bounds that had been set to 
 scientific and literary pursuits. Cardinal Ximenes burned the 
 old Arabic manuscripts ; GaUleo languished in prison ; Socrates 
 drank the hemlock, and Servetus perished at the stake ; the 
 Gauls destroyed the annals of Old Rome, and the Romans those 
 of ancient Carthage and Spain ; the Brahmins were alike maUg- 
 nant to the population and literature of Hindustan, and the 
 Moslems equally destructive to the books that fell in their way 
 from Benares and Bactria to Syria and Alexandria. All hoped 
 in this way to put an end to the supremacy of .scholars and rival 
 nations, and to confine thought to the metes and limits of re- 
 ligious orthodoxy. They succeeded for a time, but only par- 
 tially. Knowledge extinguished in one place broke forth in 
 another ; and every nation that burned records and slaughtered 
 teachers speedily declined into insignificance. At the present time 
 the Index Expurgatorius of the Vatican, so far from excluding 
 books from general reading, has become the best medium for 
 advertising them ; and the achievements of Omar at Alexandria, 
 Nabonasar at Babylon, and Torquemeda at Sa,lamanca, to be 
 successful, would require a general holocaust. Those who pro- 
 test against scientific and archeeological studies as tending to 
 unsettle the mind in regard to accepted doctrines, are speaking 
 too late. Devotion which is born of ignorance is not worthy of 
 being cherished. 
 
 Nevertheless, there is little ground for apprehension that the 
 foundations of a genuine religious belief will be undermined. 
 The investigation of the beginnings of a religion is never the 
 work of infidels, but of the most reverent and conscientious 
 minds. Those who are at liberty to develop themselves freely, 
 will seldom molest themselves about the opinions of others. 
 Mystics and philosophers do not clash, but often arrive at like 
 conclusions by different routes and the exercise of different 
 faculties of mind. 
 
 The papers of Messrs. Westropp and Wake, showing the influ- 
 
Preface. vii 
 
 ence of " pliallism" upon former religious ideas, are entitled to a 
 candid and careful perusal. The ripe scholarship of those gen- 
 tlemen is beyond question ; and the fidelity with which they 
 performed their labor is worthy of praise. They have treated 
 the subject with a delicacy that is commendable, and with a 
 dignity and fairness characteristic of the scholar and the sage. 
 Their purpose, as will be perceived, is not merely to portray its 
 features, but to exhibit it in its relations to modem idea. 
 
 This much is claimed especially for the investigations noted in 
 these pages. Whatever may be thought of the men who, accord- 
 ing to our modern notions, took such extraordinary views of 
 divine things and resorted to what would be regarded as offen- 
 sive methods to express them, it is certain nevertheless that in 
 important respects they were equal, if not superior, to the fore- 
 most thinkers of our boasted nineteenth century. Our archi- 
 tects learned of them how to build ; and they possessed accurate 
 scientific knowledge. Our theories of government, modes of 
 inquiry, and even our religious opinions, were derived from the 
 same sources. If we have degraded the ideas which they cher- 
 ished with reverence, if we have rendered obscene the mysteries 
 of hfe which they adored as pure and instituted by God himself 
 let us not add to the injury by endeavoring to cast upon them 
 the reproach which belongs to those who thus calumniate them. 
 
 Herein, it may be, the ancients have us at disadvantage. 
 They worshipped the Supreme Being as the Father of men, and 
 saw no impurity in the symbolism of parentage to indicate the 
 work of creation. What is divine to be and to do cannot be im- 
 modest and wicked to express. No man born of woman can 
 with decency impugn the operation of that law to which he owes 
 his existence ; and he is impious beyond others who regards that 
 law as only sensual. We may easily perceive how the phallic 
 emblems were adopted to denote the kinship of mankind to the 
 Creator. Those who employed them apprehended no wrong in 
 so doing, till impurity of life had caused all that related to the 
 subject to be considered as indecorous. 
 
viii Preface. 
 
 In these pages the endeavor has been to discourse of the sev- 
 eral topics without levity or discourtesy toward any individual or 
 people. There may be views taken which differ essentially from 
 those commonly entertained, but there is no design to treat any 
 person, topic, or opinion with disrespect. It will also be seen, 
 from the references, that the facts here presented have generally 
 been long familiar to the educated pubUc. The subject is inter- 
 esting, not merely because of its peculiar character, but as afford- 
 ing more complete views of ethnology, as well as of the earlier de- 
 velopment of religious thought. Nothing of value can be lost, 
 and much will be gained in every way, by investigation pursued 
 with candor and dispassionately. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Baal None older is than I. When Man came forth. 
 
 The final effort, wrung from monstrous forms. 
 And Earth's outwearied forces could no more, 
 I warmed the ignorant bantling on my breast. 
 We rose together, and my kingdom spread 
 From these cold hills to hamlets in the palms. 
 That grew to Memphis and to Babylon : 
 While I on towers and hanging terraces. 
 In shaft and obelisk, beheld my sign 
 Creative, shape of first imperious law. 
 
 "Masque of the Gods,^' by Bavard Taylor. 
 
 The classic scholar whose studies have hardly exceeded the 
 limits prescribed in the curriculum of the universities, and the 
 biblical student whose explorations of the Hebrew Scriptures have 
 not led him beyond the field of exegesis and theological pursuit, 
 are ill-prepared to hear of a larger world than Greece, .Rome, and 
 Palestine, or of an archaic time which almost remands the annals 
 of those countries into the domain of modern history. Olympian 
 Zeus with his college of associate deities, afterward Latinized 
 into Jupiter and his divine subordinates, and the Lord alone with 
 his ten thousands of sacred ones, comprise their idea of the 
 supernal world and its divinities. Beyond, they recognize a vague 
 and misty chaos of mythologies, which, not accurately under- 
 standing, they superciliously affect to despise. Whoever would be 
 really intelligent, must boldly explore that chaos, voyaging through 
 the " outer world " away from Troy and Greece, as far as Ulysses 
 went, and from biblical scenes to the very heart of the ancient 
 empires. There is no occasion for terror, like that displayed by 
 the mariners who sailed with Columbus into the unknown ocean. 
 Wherever man is to be found, like instincts, passions, hopes, and 
 ambitions will attest a common kindred. Each person's life is in 
 some manner repeated in that of his fellows, and every human 
 soul is a mirror in which other souls, as well as future and former 
 events, reflect their image. 
 
 It is more than probable that the diversified customs, insti- 
 tutions, and religions of the several nations of the world are less 
 I 
 
10 Introduction. 
 
 dissimilar in their origin than is often imagined. The differences 
 uprose in the progress of time, the shifting scenes of climate, 
 condition, and event. But the original ideas of existence, and 
 the laws which pertain to all created things, are p.retty much the 
 same among the various tribes of mankind. The religions, philo- 
 sophical systems and symbolisms, are outgrowths, — the aspirations 
 of thinking and reverential men to solve and express in suitable 
 form the facts which underlie and constitute all things. 
 
 We should therefore approach the subject of human faith and 
 worship with candor, modesty, and respect. Men's beliefs are 
 entitled to so much. The unwitting individual may be astonished 
 at beholding men, the masters of the science and thought of their 
 time, adoring gods that are represented as drunken and adulter- 
 ous, and admitting extravagant stories and scandalous narrations 
 among their religious verities. In his simplicity he may conceive 
 that he has a right to contemn, and even to scoff at, such pro- 
 digious infatuation. But the infatuation and absurdity are only 
 apparent. There is a fuller, profounder meaning, which sanctifies 
 the emblems and legends which ignorant and superficial men de- 
 nounce. M. R6nan speaks justly as well as eloquently: "It is 
 sacrilege, in a religious light, this making sport of symbols con- 
 secrated by Time, wher^ein, too, man had deposited his first views 
 of the divine world." * 
 
 Religions were never cunningly devised by priests, or ambitious 
 leaders, for the purpose of enabling them to hold the human mind 
 in abject bondage. Nor did they come into existence, full-grown, 
 like Athen6, the Jove-born ; nor were they constructed from the 
 lessons of sages or even of prophets. They were born, like men, 
 not mature. but infantile; the body and life as a single entity, 
 without a definite evolving of the interior, symbolized idea, yet 
 containing all potentially ; so that time and growth were required 
 to enable the intelligent mind to distinguish rightly between the 
 form and the substance which it envelops and shadows forth. 
 When this substance, like tlie human soul, has fully developed, 
 the external forms and symbols become of little value, and are 
 cast off and rejected like chaff from the wheat. Yet for the sake ■ 
 of their use they are to be valued and respected. The well- 
 thinking medical student never indulges in ribald hilarity at or in 
 the presence of the corpse which he dissects, from reverence for 
 * tltudes cTHistoire Religieuse, Frothingham's translation. 
 
Introduction. il 
 
 the human soul that was once its tenant. But religious symbols 
 lose their sacredness when they are employed to supplant the 
 idea which alone had rendered them valuable. 
 
 Let there be no contempt, then, for the Children of the Mist, 
 who love to gaze backward into the past to ascertain what man 
 has been, and to look within to learn what he is and ought to be. 
 They are not prophets without inspiration, or apostles that have 
 no mission. Behind the vail is the Shekinah ; only the anointed 
 have authority to lift aside the curtain. 
 
 Modern science somewhat audaciously has endeavored to set 
 aside the time-honored traditions of a Golden Age. ' We do not 
 undertake to controvert the new doctrine, so necessary to estab- 
 lish the recently-traced relationships between men and monkeys. 
 The same social law which allows every man to choose his own 
 company, can be extended perhaps to the selection of his 
 kindred. 
 
 But, so far as we are able to perceive, there have been cycles 
 of human development, analogous to the geological periods, that 
 have been accomplished upon the earth. Men, nations, and 
 civilizations, like the seasons, have passed over the great theatre 
 of existence. We have often only the traces of them in a few 
 remains of language, manufacture, and religion. Much is lost 
 save to conjecture. Judging from our later observations of 
 human progress, there must have been a long term of discipline 
 that schooled them ; yet, perhaps, it was the divine intuition and 
 instinct implanted in them that enabled them to achieve so 
 much. It is not possible, however, to extend researches back 
 far enough to ascertain. We are not equal to the task of de- 
 scribing the fossils of a perished world. We are compelled to 
 read the archaic history through the forms and mysteries * of 
 
 * By mysteries the educated reader will not understand merely doctrines or 
 symbols, or even secrets as such, but a system of discipline and instruction in 
 esoteric learning which was deemed too sacred and recondite for those who 
 had not complied with the essential conditions. Every ancient country had 
 its sacerdotal order, the members of which had been initiated into the mys- 
 teries; and even Jesus defended his practice of discoursing in parables or 
 allegories, because that only to his disciples was it given to understand the 
 mysteries of the kingdom of God, whereas to the multitude it was not 
 given. The priests of Egypt, the Magians of the ancient countries beyond 
 the river Euphrates, the priests of Phoenicia and the other countries of West- 
 ern Asia, were all members of sacerdotal colleges that might not divulge the 
 esoteric knowledge to the uninitiated. Even the Brahmins of India are said 
 
12 Introduction. 
 
 religion, and the peculiarities of language, rather than in the 
 pages of the annalist. The amber of mythology has served to 
 preserve to us the most of what is to be learned on these topics. 
 
 The primitive religion of mankind is perhaps only to be ascer- 
 tained when we know accurately their original habitats. But this, 
 like the gilded butterfly, eludes our search. India, Persia, Baby- 
 lonia, Syria, Phoenicia, Egypt, were but colonies. The Vendidad 
 indicates a country north of the river Oxus ; and Sir William Jones, 
 adopting the story of the learned Sufi, Mohsan Fani, declared 
 his belief that a powerful monarchy once existed there long 
 before the Assyrian empire ; the history of which was engrafted 
 upon that of the Hindoos, who colonized the country between 
 the river Indus and the Bay of Bengal. In conformity with the 
 views of this writer, Sir William accordingly describes the prime- 
 val religion of Iran and the Aryan peoples as consisting of " a 
 firm belief that One Supreme God made the world by his power 
 and continually governed it by his providence : — a pious fear, 
 love, and adoration of him ; — a due reverence for parents and 
 aged persons ; a paternal affection for the whole human species, 
 and a compassionate tenderness even for the brute creation." 
 
 But, however much of truth there may be in this description, it 
 evidently relates only to the blonde races. We see plainly enough 
 the engrafting of " history," or rather legends, in many other 
 countries, as well as among the Brahmins of India. The Hebrew 
 records, tracing their patriarchs to Egypt and Assyria, are prob- 
 
 to have also their mysteries at the present time ; and the late Godfrey Hig- 
 gins relates that a Mr. Ellis was enabled, by aid of the masonic tokens, to 
 enter the penetralia of a temple in the presidency of Madras. That there is 
 some such " freemasonry " existing in many of the countries which we denom- 
 inate, uncivilized and pagan, is probable. The early Christians and heretical 
 sects had also their signs of recognition, and were distinguished lilce the ini- 
 tiates of the older worships, according to their grade, as neophytes (i Tim- 
 othy iii. 6), spiritual, and perfect. The mysteries most familiar to classical 
 readers are the Eleusinia, which appear to have descended firom the pre- 
 historic periods. Pococke declares them to have been of Tartar origin, 
 which is certainly plausible, and to have combined Brahminical and Bud- 
 dhistical ideas. Those admitted only to the Lesser Mysteries were denomi- 
 nated Mystis, or vailed ; those initiated into the Greater Mysteries were 
 epoptai, or seers. Socrates was not initiated, yet after drinking the hemlock 
 he addresses Crito : " We owe a cock to ^sculapius." This was the peculiar 
 offering made by initiates on the eve of the last day, and he thus sublimely 
 asserted that he was about to receive the great apocalypse. 
 
Introduction. 13 
 
 ably no exception. The Garden of Eden appears to have been 
 well known to the king of Tyre (Ezekiel xxviii. 13-16), who is 
 styled " the anointed cherub ; " the Assyrian is also described 
 (xxxi. 3-18) as a cedar in Lebanon, " fair by the multitude of his 
 branches, so that all the trees of Eden that were in the garden 
 of God envied him ; " and Pharaoh, king of Egypt, is also 
 assured that he shall " be brought down with the trees of Eden 
 into the nether parts of the earth.'' From that region Abraham 
 is reputed to have emigrated, and its traditions are probably 
 therefore consecrated as religious legends. 
 
 If we had time and space to follow this subject, we might be 
 able to show that the period when the Hebrew patriarch is sup- 
 posed to have removed from the region of the Upper Euphrates, 
 revolutions were occurring there which changed the structure of 
 society. "Your fathers,'' said Joshua to the assembled Israelites, 
 " your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even 
 Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor ; and they 
 served other gods." * The Persian legend of " Airyana-vaeja, of 
 the good creation which Anra-mainyas (Ahriman) full of death 
 filled with evils,'' f and the Hebrew story of the garden of Eden J 
 which was by the headwaters of the Oxus, Tigris, and Euphrates, 
 where dwelt the man and the woman till the successful invasion of 
 the Serpent, indicate the Great Religious War of which traditions 
 exist in the principal countries of ancient time. It occurred 
 between the nations of the East and the nations of the West, the 
 Iranians and Turanians, the Solar and Lunar nations, the Lin- 
 gacitas and the Yonijas, those who venerated images and religious 
 symbols, and those who discarded them. Vast bodies of men 
 were compelled to abandon their homes, many of them skilled 
 in the arts of civilization and war. Tribes and dynasties emi- 
 grated to escape slavery and destruction ; and other chmates 
 received and cherished those who had been deemed unworthy to 
 live. These events are superimposed upon the history of every 
 people. Whether the migration mentioned by Juno of the gens 
 inimica, the Trojans, from Troy to Italy, bearing its political 
 genius and conquered divinities, depicts any actual occurrence, 
 we do not undertake to say ; but convulsions did take place, by 
 which peoples once living as one nation, the Hindoos and Per- 
 sians, Greeks and Romans, Germans and Slaves, were divided 
 * Joshua xxiv. 2. f Vendidad, i. 5-12. % Genesis ii. and UL 
 
14 Introduction. 
 
 from each other and removed to other regions. The Ethiopian 
 or Hamitic races underwent a like overturning and dispersion, 
 probably from their contests with the blonde invaders of the 
 North. Thus, the second chapter of Genesis describes the river 
 Pison, as compassing the land of Ethiopia or Cush, which was 
 evidently situated upon the Erythraean or Arabian Sea. The 
 people of this region appear to have occupied or colonized 
 India, Babylonia, Arabia, Syria, Egypt, and other countries of the 
 West. They were the builder-race par excellence ; and carried 
 civilization, architecture, mathematical science, their arts and 
 political institutions wherever they went. Their artisans, doubt- 
 less, erected the temples and pyramids of Egypt, India, and 
 Babylon ; excavated the mountain of Ellora, the islands of Sal- 
 sette and Elephanta, the artificial caves of Bamian, the rocks of 
 Petra and the hypogea of Egypt ; built the houses of Ad in 
 Arabia, the Cyclopean structures of India, Arabia, and the more 
 western countries ; constructed ships for the navigation of the 
 seas and oceans, and devised the art of sculpture. Mathematics 
 and astronomy, alphabetical as well as hieroglyphical writing, 
 and many other sciences, perhaps those which have been dis- 
 covered in later times, were possessed and cultivated by these 
 " blameless Ethiopians,* most ancient of men." 
 
 The Hebrew Scriptures, which have been regarded as especially 
 the oracles of religious truth, develop the fact, as has been al- 
 ready suggested, of a close resemblance of the earlier Israelites 
 with the surrounding nations. Their great progenitor, Abraham, 
 is described as emigrating from the region of Chaldea, at the 
 ^junction of the Tigris and Euphrates, in the character of a dis- 
 senter from the religion of that country, f Yet he and his imme- 
 
 * The term Ethiopian cannot be regarded, when applied to any ancient 
 people, as indicating negro or negroid origin. Like other names, it had a 
 religious meaning, and was applied to Zeus or Jupiter, and also to Prome- 
 theus. The best-defined opinion connects it with the serpent-worship, which 
 prevailed, along with that of the lingam, among the Cushite and kindred 
 peoples. It is noticeable that ethnology has given the Chinese and Mon- 
 golian tribes a world apart. There seems to be a wall between them and 
 the populations of other climates. The Chinese nevertheless manifested 
 themselves occasionally tpon the surface of Asiatic history ; and the Tartars 
 have often appeared as invaders and conquerors, designated in the metaphors 
 and allegories of the old languages, as floods of waters, destroying the world. 
 
 \ Joshua xxiv. 2, 3. 
 
P X 
 
 fi « 
 
 s 
 
 H 
 O 
 
 < 
 O 
 
 D 
 
 z; 
 
Introduction. iS 
 
 ciate descendants appear to have at least employed the same re- 
 ligious symbols and forms of worship as the people of Canaan 
 and Phcenicia, who are recorded to have already occupied Pales- 
 tine.* He erected altars wherever he made a residence ; and 
 " planted agrove " or pillar in Beer-sheba, as a religious emblem.f 
 He is also represented as conducting his son to the land of 
 Moriah, to immolate him as a sacrifice to the Deity, as was some- 
 times done by the Phoenicians ; and as was afterwards authorized 
 in the Mosaic law.J One of the suffets, or judges, Jephthah the 
 Gileadite, in like manner sacrificed his own daughter.at Mizpeh ; § 
 and the place where Abraham built his altar was afterwards 
 selected as the site for the temple of Solomon. || Jacob is twice 
 mentioned as. setting up a pillar, calling the place Beth-el, Tf 
 and as making libations. On the occasion also of forming a treaty 
 of amity with his father-in-law, Laban, the Syrian, he erected a 
 pillar and directed his brethren to pile up a cairn, or heap of 
 stones ; to which were applied the names Galeed, or circle, and 
 Mizpeh, or pillar. Monoliths, or " great stones," appear to have 
 been as common in Palestine as in other countries, and the cairns 
 and circles (gilgals) were equally so, as well as the mounds or 
 "high places." The suffets** or "judges," and the kings, main- 
 tained them till Hezekiah. Samuel the prophet worshipped 
 at a high place at Ramah, and Solomon at the "great stone," or 
 high place in Gibeon.ff There were also priests, JJ and we suspect 
 kadeshim, stationed at them. At Mizpeh, probably at the pillar, 
 was a seat of government of the Israelites ; and Joshua set up 
 a pillar under the oak of Shechem, by the sanctuary. Jephthah 
 the judge made his residence at the former place, and his daugh- 
 
 * Genesis xii. 6 ; xiii. 7- 
 
 •|- Genesis xxi. 33. 
 
 % Leviticus xxvii. 28, 29. 
 
 § Judges xi. 30, 31, and 34-40. 
 
 I 2 Chronicles iii. i. 
 
 Tf Genesis xxxviii. 18-22 ;xxxv. 1-15. 
 
 ** Tlie suffet was a magistrate under the Phcenician system, as is observed at 
 Carthage. The patriarchal government was that of sheiks, as among the 
 nomadic Arabs, while the Israelites of Goshen and the desert are described 
 'as being organized like the' Arabs of the towns. 
 
 \\ I Kings iii. 4. See also ch. xv. 14; xv. 14; xv. 14; xxii. 43. 2 Kings xii. 
 2 ; xiv. 4 ; xv. 4. 
 
 \\ 2 Kings xxiii. 9. 
 
i6 Introduction. 
 
 ter, the Iphigenia of the Book of Judges, was immolated there. 
 Samuel was also inaugurated there as suffet of Israel. There 
 were other " great stones " mentioned, as Abel,, Bethshemesh or 
 Heliopolis ; Ezel, where David met with Jonathan ; and Eben- 
 ezer, erected by Samuel on the occasion of a victory over the 
 Philistines. 
 
 But Hezekiah appears to have changed the entire Hebrew 
 religious polity. He removed the Hermaic or Dionysiac statues, 
 and the conical omphalic emblems of Venus-Ashtoreth ; over- 
 threw the mounds and altars, and broke in pieces the serpent of 
 brass made by Moses, to which the people had burned incense 
 " unto those days." Josiah afterwards also promulgated the law of 
 Moses, and was equally iconoclastic. He removed the para- 
 phernalia of the worship of the sun, destroyed the image of 
 Semel, or Hermes, expelled the kadeshim, or consecrated men 
 and women, from the cloisters of the Temple, and destroyed the 
 statutes and emblems of Venus and Adonis. * 
 
 We have suggested that Abraham was represented in the char- 
 acter of a dissenter from the worship prevailing at " Ur of the 
 Khasdim." As remarked on a subsequent page by Mr. Wake, 
 " that some great religious movement, ascribed by tradition to 
 Abraham, did take place among the Semites at an early date, is 
 undoubted." It may have been the " Great Religious War." 
 The religion of the patriarchs appears to have had some affinity 
 with that of the Persians, insomuch that some writers intimate 
 an identity of origin. This was certainly the case at a later 
 period. Other peoples were also driven to emigration. Many 
 Scythian nations abandoned their former seats. The Phoeni- 
 cians left their country on the Erythrean Sea, and emigrated to 
 the shores of the Mediterranean. The Pali, or shepherds on the 
 Indus, removed to the west. A part of the population of 
 Asiatic Ethiopia, or Beluchistan, it is supposed, also emigrated. 
 The Hyk-sos,f during the Sixth Dynasty of the Old Monarchy, 
 
 * 2 Kings xxiii. 4-20. 
 
 ■)• Manetho translates this term, from the "sacred language," kingly shep- 
 herds ; hyk signifying king, and sos a shepherd. He seems to hesitate, how- 
 ever, for he also remarks that " some say that they were Arabians," and that 
 " in the sacred books they were also styled captives." Shos signifies Arabian, 
 and sus a horse. Are we not allowed to suppose them to be shepherds as 
 rearing and using horses ? They appear to have introduced the horse into 
 Egypt, which makes this idea seem plausible. 
 
Introduction. 17 
 
 appeared in Egypt. Josephus, abandoning his own history of 
 Jewish Antiquities, construes the account by Manetho, in regard 
 to them, as relating to the ancient Hebrews, remarking: "Our 
 ancestors had the dominion over their country.'' * If we might 
 interpret the story of Abraham and other patriarchs as we would 
 the traditions of o'ther nations, we would assign to it a religious 
 or esoteric meaning rather than a secular and historical one, and 
 fix a later period for the beginning of the authentic annals. The 
 early association of the Shemitic with the Ethiopian nations, how- 
 ever, appears to be abundantly corroborated by profane as well 
 as sacred history. 
 
 Similarity of customs indicate that the " chosen people," if 
 they had a separate political existence, were in other respects 
 substantially like the earlier nations. We may expect to find 
 these resemblances close enough to show even a family likeness. 
 Of course, every intelligent reader is aware that the Hamitic and 
 Shemitic populations of Asia, Africa, and Europe, belonged to 
 what is denominated the Caucasian or Indo-Germanic race. 
 
 The earliest deity of the Ethiopian or Hamitic nations, whose 
 worship was most general, was the one known in the Bible by 
 the designation of Baal. He bore, of course, a multiplicity of 
 titles, which were often personified as distinct tiTibx aleim, or 
 divinities ; besides having in Syria a separate name for every 
 season of the year. In the Sanscrit language he was styled 
 Maha Deva, or Supreme God ; and after the Aryan conquest, 
 was added to the Brahmin Trimourti under the title Siva. Other 
 names are easily traced in the Hamitic languages ; as Bala in 
 Bel, the tutelar deity of Babylon ; Deva Nahusha, or Dionysus, of 
 Arabia and Thrace ; Iswara, or Oseiris, of Egypt. In western 
 mythology he become more generally known through the Phoe- 
 nicians. In Tyre he was Mel-karth, the lord of the city ; in 
 Syria he was Adonis and Moloch ; but all through Europe he is 
 best known by the hero-name Hercules. His twelve labors 
 typify the sun passing through the signs of the zodiac ; his con- 
 quests in the west show whither the Phoenician navigators di- 
 rected their course ; while the maypoles, Bal-fires, and other 
 remnants of old worships, exist as his memorials. The story of 
 his achievements is a fair outline of the history of Phcenician 
 adventure. 
 
 * Against Afion, i. 25. 
 
1 8 Introduction. 
 
 " The wonderful and universal power of light and heat," says 
 that most modest and amiable writer, Mrs.Lydia Maria Child,* 
 "has caused the Sun to be worshipped as a visible emblem of 
 deity in the infancy of nearly all nations. Water is recognized 
 as another obvious symbol of divine influence. Hence the 
 sacred rivers, fountains, and wells abounding in Hindostan. The 
 Air is likewise to them a consecrated emblem. Invisible, pervad- 
 ing all space, and necessary to the life of all creatures, it 
 naturally suggests the spirit of God. Nearly all languages de- 
 scribe the soul by some phrase similar in signification to ' the 
 breath of life.' Brahm is sqmetimes called Alma, or the Breath- 
 ing Soul. 
 
 " Other emblems deemed sacred by the Hindoos, and wor- 
 shipped in their temples, have brought upon them the charge of 
 gross indecency. But if it be true at the present time, it prob- 
 ably was not so at the beginning. When the world was in its 
 infancy, people spoke and acted with more of the -simplicity and 
 directness of little children than they do at present. In the in- 
 dividual child, and in the childhood of society, whatever is incom- 
 prehensible produces religious awe. As the reflective faculties 
 develop, man is solemnly impressed with the wonders of creation, 
 in the midst of which his soul wakes up, as it were, from a dream. 
 And what so miraculous as the advent of this conscious soul into 
 the marvellous mechanism of a human body? If Light with 
 its grand revealings, and Heat making the earth fruitful with 
 beauty, excited wonder and worship in the fif st inhabitants of our 
 world, is it strange that they likewise regarded with reverence 
 the great mystery of human Birth ? Were they impure thus to 
 regard it ? Or, are we impure that we do not so regard it ? We 
 have travelled far, and unclean have been the paths, since those 
 old anchorites first spoke of God and the soul in the solemn 
 depths of their first sanctuaries. Let us not smile at their mode 
 of tracing the Infinite and Incomprehensible Cause throughout all 
 the mysteries of Nature, lest by so doing we cast the shadow of 
 our own grossness on their patriarchal simplicity. 
 
 " From time immemorial, an emblem has been worshipped 
 in Hindostan as the type of creation,f or the origin of life. It 
 
 * Progress of Religious Ideas through Successive Ages. Vol. I, pp. 15, 
 16, 17. 
 \ The first verse of the Book of Genesis declares creation to have been a 
 
Introduction. 19 
 
 is the most common symbol of Siva [Baal or Maha Deva], and 
 is universally connected with his worship. To understand the 
 original intention of this custom, we should remember that 
 Siva was not merely the reproducer of human forms ; he rep- 
 resented the Fructifying Principle, the Generating Power that 
 pervades the universe, producing sun, moon, stars, men, animals, 
 and plants. , The symbol to which we have alluded is always in 
 his temples. It is usually placed in the inmost recess, or sanc- 
 tuary, sculptured in granite, marble, or ivory, often crowned with 
 flowers, and surmounted by a golden star. Lamps are kept 
 burning before it, and on festival occasions it is illuminated by a 
 lamp with seven branches, supposed to represent the planets. * 
 Small images of this emblem, carved in ivory, gold, or crystal, 
 are often worn as ornaments about the neck. The pious use 
 them in their prayers, and often have them buried with them. 
 Devotees of Siva have it written on their foreheads in the form 
 of a perpendicular mark. The maternal emblem is likewise a 
 religious type ; and worshippers of Vishnu represent it on their 
 forehead by a horizontal mark, with three short perpendicular 
 lines." 
 
 These symbols are found in the temple-excavations of the 
 islands of Salsette and Elephanta, of unknown antiquity ; in 
 the grotto-temples of EJlora, at the "Seven Pagodas" on the 
 Coromandel coast, in the old temple at Tanjore, and elsewhere, 
 where Siva-worship is in the ascendant. Although these symbols, 
 the lingam and yoni, have been adopted by the Brahmins, there 
 is little harmony between the Lingayats and Vishnavites. " In 
 the sacrifice of Wisdom," says Daksha, " no Brahmin is wanted 
 to officiate." The Rig- Veda denounces the "lascivious wretch- 
 es " who adore the sexual emblems, in such language as this : 
 "Let not the lascivious wretches approach our sacred rites, f 
 "The irresistible [Indra] overcame the lascivious wretches." 
 
 In her chapter on Egypt, Mrs. Child again remarks : " Because 
 plants cannot germinate without water, vases full of it were 
 
 series of Toledoth, or generations. It is properly translated.' "God (the 
 Aleun) engendered (B'RA) the heavens and the earth." 
 
 * The seven-branched candlestick of the Mosaic tabernacle has here its pro- 
 totype. 
 
 f Rig- Veda, vii. 21:5; and x. 99 : 3. The term used is Sisna-devas, or 
 phallus-gods. 
 
20 Introduction. 
 
 carried at the head of processions in honor of Oseiris, and his 
 votaries refrained from destroying or polluting any spring. This 
 reverence for the production of Life, introduced into his worship 
 the sexual emblems so common in Hindostan. A colossal image 
 of this kind was presented to his temple in Alexandria, by King 
 Ptolemy Philadelphus. Crowned with gold and surmounted by a 
 golden star, it was carried in a splendid chariot in the midst of 
 religious processions. A serpent, the emblem of Immortality, 
 always accompanies the image of Oseiris." . . . 
 
 " Reverence for the mystery of organized life led to the recog- 
 nition of a mascuUne and feminine principle in all things spiritual 
 or material. Every elemental force was divided into two, the 
 parents of other forces. The active wind was masculine, the 
 passive mist, or inert atmosphere, was feminine. Rocks were 
 masculine, the productive earth was feminine. The presiding 
 deity of every district \nome\ was represented as a Triad or 
 Trinity. At Thebes it was Amun, the creative Wisdom ; Neith, 
 the spiritual Mother; and a third, supposed to represent the 
 Universe. At Philae it was Oseiris, the generating Cause ; Isis, 
 the receptive Mould, and Horus, the Result. The sexual em- 
 blems everywhere conspicuous in the sculptures of their temples 
 would seem impure in description, but no clean and thoughtful 
 mind could so regard them while witnessing the obvious simplicity 
 and solemnity with which the subject is treated." 
 
 "All the idolaters of that day," says Colonel Tod,* seem to 
 have, held the grosser tenets of Hinduism. . . When Judah did 
 evil in the sight of the Lord, and ' built them high places and 
 images and groves [mounds, hermaic pillars, and omphalic 
 statues] on every high hill and under every green tree,' the 
 object was Bal ; and the pillar (the lingam, matzebah or phallus) 
 was his symbol, t It was on his altar that they burned incense, 
 and ' sacrificed unto the Calf on the fifteenth day of the eighth 
 month,' the sacred Amavus of the Hindus. The Calf of Israel 
 is the Bull (nanda) of Balc6sar or Iswara, the Apis of the Egyp- 
 tian Oseiris. . . Mahadeva, or Iswara, is the tutelary divinity of 
 the Rajpoots in Mewar, and from the early annals of the dynasty 
 appears to have been, with his consort Isa, the sole object of 
 
 * Rajasthan^ vol. i. , 76-79. 
 
 f I Kings xiv. 22. The introduction of kadeshimy or persons consecrated 
 and set apart, like nautch-girls, or almas, is first mentioned in this connection. 
 
Introduction . 2 1 
 
 Gehlote adoration. Iswara is adored under the epithet of Ek- 
 ■linga, and is either worshipped in his monolithic symbol, or as 
 Iswara Chaomukhi, the quadriform divinity represented by a 
 bust with four faces." 
 
 These spectacles, however, were regarded as sacred, and few 
 regarded them as possessing moral turpitude. "This worship 
 was so general as to have spread itself over a large part of the 
 habitable globe ; for it flourished for many ages in Egypt and 
 Syria, Persia, Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy ; it was and still is in 
 vigor in India and many parts of Africa, and was even found in 
 America on its discovery by the Spaniards." * 
 
 Being regarded as the most sacred objects of worship, and 
 consecrated by religion, the cultus was associated with every idea 
 and sentiment which was regarded as ennobling to man. The 
 reflecting men of all the older ages, down to Plato, Plotinus, 
 lamblichus, and the followers of the Gnosis, all paid like respect 
 to the great arcanum of life and of Man. We need not look 
 superciliously upon their veneration ; for however different our 
 modes of thought, however exaggerated above theirs our fasti- 
 diousness, we cannot escape the same problems which they thus 
 labored to solve, nor the necessity to realize the vailing and the 
 apocalypse which the symbols and the mysteries foreshadowed. 
 
 * Aphrodisiacs and Anti- Aphrodisiacs. Three Essays on the Powers of 
 Reproduction, with some Account of the Judicial " Congress," as practised in 
 France during the Seventeenth Century. By John Davenport. Small quarto, 
 with eight full-page illustrations. London, i86g. 
 
PHALLIC WORSHIP.* 
 
 BY HODDER M. WESTROPP. 
 
 Human Nature is the same in all climes ; and the 
 workings of this same human nature are almost identical 
 in the different stages of its growth. Hence similar and 
 analogous ideas, beliefs, and superstitious practices are fre- 
 quently evolved independently among different peoples. 
 These are the result of suggestions arising spontaneously 
 in the human mind at certain stages of its development, 
 and which seem almost universal. 
 
 As a remarkable instance, of this, I have drawn up the 
 following sketch of phallic worship, which was one of 
 those beliefs or superstitious practices which have sprung 
 up independently, and which seem to have extensively 
 prevailed among many nations. 
 
 It will acquire additional interest when it is considered 
 that it is the most ancient of the superstitions of the hu- 
 man race, that it has prevailed more or less among all 
 known people in ancient times, and that it has been 
 handed down even to a very late and Christian period. 
 
 In the earlier ages the operations of nature made a 
 stronger impression on the minds of men. Those ideas, 
 springing from the coristant observation of the modes of 
 acting in nature, were consequently more readily suggested 
 to the minds of all races of men in the primitive ages. 
 
 Two causes must have forcibly struck the minds of men 
 in those early periods when observant of the operations of 
 nature, one the generative power, and the other the pro- 
 ductive, the active and passive causes. This double mode 
 
 * A paper read before the Anthropological Society of London, April 5th, 
 1870. 
 
24 Phallic Worship. 
 
 of production visible in nature must have given rise to 
 comparisons with the mode of proceeding in the genera- 
 tion of animals, in which two causes concur, the one act- 
 ive and the other passive, the one male and the other 
 female, the one as father, the other as mother. These 
 ideas were doubtless suggested independently and sponta- 
 neously in different countries ; for the human mind is so 
 constituted that the same objects and the same operations 
 of nature will suggest like ideas in the minds of men of all 
 races, however widely apart. 
 
 Nature to the early man was not brute matter, but a be- 
 ing invested with his own personality, and endowed with 
 the same feelings, passions, and performing the same ac- 
 tions. He could only conceive the course of nature from 
 the analogy to his own actions. Generation, begetting — 
 production, bringing forth — were thus his ideas of cause 
 and effect. The earth was looked upon as the mould of 
 nature, as the recipient of seeds, the nurse of what was 
 produced in its bosom ; the sky was the fecundating and 
 fertilizing power. An analogy was suggested in the union 
 of the male and female. These comparisons are found 
 in ancient writers. " The sky," Plutarch says, "appeared 
 to men to perform the functions of a father, as the earth 
 those of a mother. The sky was the ftither, for it cast 
 seed into the bosom of the earth, which in receiving them 
 became fruitful and brought forth, and was the mother." 
 
 This union has been sung in the following verses by 
 Virgil : 
 
 "Turn pater omnipotens fecundis imbribis aether 
 Conjugis in gremium Isetse descendit." — Geor. ii. 
 
 Columella has related, in his treatise on agriculture, 
 the loves of nature, or the marriage of heaven and earth, 
 which takes place in the spring of the year. 
 
 These ideas bear a prominent part in the religious creeds 
 of several nations. In Egypt the Deity or principle of 
 generation was Khem, called " the father " — the abstract 
 idea of father ; as the goddess Maut was that of mother. 
 The office of Khem was not confined to the procreation 
 
Phallic Worship. 25 
 
 and continuation of the human species, but extended even 
 to the vegetable world, over which he presided, when 
 we find his statue accornpanied by trees and plants ; and 
 kings offering to him herbs of the ground, cutting the corn 
 before him, or employed in his presence tilling the land, and 
 preparing it to receive the generating influence of the deity. 
 In the Saiva Purana of the Hindoos, Siva says : "From 
 the supreme spirit proceed Purusha (the generative or 
 male principle), Prakriti (the productive or female princi- 
 ple), and Tirue ; and by them was produced this universe, 
 the manifestation of the one god. . . . Of all organs of 
 sense and intellect, the best is mind, which proceeds from 
 Ahankara, Ahankara from intellect, intellect from the su- 
 preme being, who is, in fact, Purusha. It is the primeval 
 male, whose form constitutes the universe, and whose 
 breath is the sky ; and though incorporeal, that male am 
 I." In the Kritya Tatwa, Siva is thus addressed by 
 Brahma: "I know that Thou, O Lord, art the eternal 
 Brahm, that seed which, being received in the womb of 
 thy Sakti (aptitude to conceive), produced this universe ; 
 that thou united with thy Sakti dost create the universe 
 from thine own substance like the web from the spider." 
 In the same creed Siva is the personification of the sun 
 (which he is equally with Surya) or fire, the genial heat 
 which pervades, generates and vivifies all ; and Bhavani, 
 who, as the goddess of nature is also the earth, is the uni- 
 versal mother. 
 
 Among the Assyrians, the supreme god, Bel, was styled 
 " the procreator " ; and his wife, the goddess Mylitta, re- 
 presented the productive principle of nature, and received 
 the title of the queen of fertility. Another deity, the god 
 Vul, the god of the atmosphere, is styled the beneficent 
 chief, the giver of abundance, the lord of fecundity. On 
 Assyrian cylinders he is represented as a phalhc deity. 
 With him is associated a goddess Shala, whose ordinary 
 title is " Sarrat," queen, the feminine of the word " Sar," 
 which means chief. Sir Henry Rawlinson remarks, with 
 regard to the Assyrian San, or Shamas, the sun-god, that 
 2 
 
26 Phallic Worship. 
 
 the idea of the motive influence of the sun-god in all 
 human affairs arose from the manifest agency of the 
 material sun in stimulating the functions of nature. In 
 Phoenician mythology, Ouranos (heaven) weds Ghe (the 
 earth), and by her becomes father of Oceanus, Hype- 
 ron, lapetus, Cronos, and other gods. In conformity 
 with the religious ideas of the Greeks and Romans, Virgil 
 describes the products of the earth as the result of the 
 conjugal act between Jupiter (the sky) and Juno (the 
 earth). According to St. Augustin, the sexual organ of 
 man was consecrated in the temple of Liber, that of 
 woman in the sanctuaries of Libera ; these two divinities 
 were named father and mother. 
 
 In the month of April, when the fertilizing powers of 
 nature begin to operate and its .productive powers to be 
 visibly developed, a festival in honor of Venus took place 
 at Rome ; in it the phallus wa,s carried in a cart, and led 
 in procession by the Roman ladies to the temple of Venus 
 outside the Colline gate, and then presented by them to 
 the sexual parts of the goddess. This is only symbolizing 
 the same idea as expressed by Virgil in the Georgics. We 
 find similar ideas in the religious creeds of America, and 
 of the remote islands of the Pacific Ocean. According to 
 the Indians of Central America, Famagostad and Zipal- 
 tonal, the first male and the second female, created heaven, 
 earth, man, and all things. 
 
 The Tahitians imagined that everything which exists in 
 the universe proceeds from the union of two beings : one 
 of them was named Taroataihetounou ; the other Tepapa : 
 they were supposed to produce continually and by connec- 
 tion the days and months. Those islanders supposed 
 that the sun and moon, which are gods, had begotten the 
 stars, and that the eclipses were the time of their copulation. 
 
 A New Zealand myth says we have two primeval an- 
 cestors, a father and a mother. They are rangi and papa, 
 heaven and earth. The earth, out of which all things are 
 produced, is our mother ; the protecting and overruling 
 heaven is our father. 
 
Phallic Worship. 27 
 
 It is thus evident that the doctrine of the reciprocal 
 principles of nature, or nature active and passive, male 
 and female, was recognized in nearly all the primitive 
 religious systems of the old as well as of the new world, 
 and in none more clearly than in those of Central Amer- 
 ica ; thus proving, not only the wide extent of the doc- 
 trine, but also its separate and independent origin, spring- 
 ing from those innate principles which are common to 
 human nature in all climes and races. Hence the almost 
 universal reverence paid to the images of the sexual parts, 
 as they were regarded as symbols and types of the gen- 
 erative and productive principles in nature, and of those 
 gods and goddesses who were the representatives of the 
 same principles. The Phallus and the Cteis, the Lingam 
 and the Yoni — the special parts contributing to genera- 
 tion and production, becoming thus symbols of those 
 active and passive causes, could not but become objects 
 of reverence and worship. The union of the two symbol- 
 ized the creative energy of all nature ; for almost all prim- 
 itive religion consisted in the reverence and worship 
 paid to nature and its operations. 
 
 Evidence that this worship extensively prevailed will be 
 found in many countries, both in ancient and modern 
 times. It occurs in ancient Egypt, in India, in Syria, in 
 Babylon, among the Assyrians, in Persia, Greece, Italy, 
 Spain, Germany, Scandinavia, and among the Gauls. In 
 Egypt, the phallus is frequently represented as the sym- 
 bol of generation. According to Ptolemy, the phallus 
 was the object of religious worship among the Assyrians 
 and also among the Persians. In Syria, Baal-Peor was 
 represented with a phallus in his mouth, according to St. 
 Jerome. The Jews did not escape this worship ; and we 
 see their women manufacturing phalli of gold and of sil- 
 ver, as we find in Ezekiel xvi. 17.* Among the Hindoos 
 a religious reverence was paid to the Lingam and Yoni, 
 
 * "Thou didst take also thy fair jewels of my gold, and didst make to thy- 
 self images of men, and didst commit fornication with them." — Noyes's 
 Translation of Ezekiel. 
 
28 Phallic Worship. 
 
 and among the Greeks and Romans to the Phallus and 
 Cteis. Among the Teutons and Scandinavians, the god 
 Fricco, corresponding to the Priapus of the Romans, was 
 adored under the form of a phallus ; a similar god under 
 a similar symbol was adored in Spain, whose name was 
 Hortanes. 
 
 This worship has been found in different parts of Amer- 
 ica, in Mexico, in Peru, at Hayti ; it still prevails at the 
 present day in a great part of India and Thibet. Accord- 
 ing to Mr. Stephens, the upright pillar in front of the 
 temples of Yucatan is a phallus. We read in an ancient 
 document written by one of the companions of Fernando 
 Cortez : "In certain countries, and particularly at Panu- 
 00, they adore the phallus (il membro che portano gli 
 nomini fra le gambe), and it is preserved in the temples." 
 The inhabitants of Tlascala also paid worship to the sex- 
 ual organs of a man and woman. In Peru, several repre- 
 sentations in clay of the phallus are met with. At Hayti, 
 according to Mr. Artaud, phalli have been discovered in 
 different parts of the island, and are believed to be 
 undoubtedly the manufacture of the original inhabitants 
 of the island. In one of the Marianne islands of the 
 Pacific Ocean, on festive occasions, a phallus, highly orna- 
 mented, called by the natives Tinas, is carried in procession. 
 
 Among the simple and primitive races of men, the act 
 of generation was considered as no more than one of the 
 operations of nature contributing to the reproduction of 
 the species, as in agriculture the sowing of seed for the 
 production of corn, and was consequently looked upon as 
 a solemn duty consecrated to the Deity ; as Payne Knight 
 remarks, it was considered as a solemn sacrament in 
 honor of the Creator. 
 
 In those early ages, all the operations of nature were 
 consecrated to some divinity, from whom they were sup- 
 posed to emanate ; thus the sowing of seed was presided 
 over by Ceres. 
 
 In Egypt, the act of generation was consecrated to 
 Khem ; in Assyria, to Vul ; in India, to Siva ; in Greece, 
 
Phallic Worship. 29 
 
 in the primitive pastoral age, to Pan ; and in later times, 
 to Priapus ; and in Italy, to Mutinus. Among the Mexi- 
 cans, the god of generation- was named Triazoltenti. 
 These gods became the representatives of the generative 
 or fructifying powers in man and nature. 
 
 The following curious passage, fromCook's First Voy- 
 age, will show that almost similar views were entertained 
 by a primitive race in the islands of the Pacific Ocean, 
 which must have been suggested independently, from 
 their complete disconnection with the ancient world : 
 
 " On the 14th I directed that divine service should be 
 performed at the fort : we were desirous that some of the 
 principal Indians should be present, but when the hour 
 came, most of them returned home. Mr. Banks, however, 
 crossed the river, and brought back Tubourai Tamaide 
 and his wife Tomio, hoping that it would give occasion to 
 some inquiries on their part, and some instruction on 
 ours : having seated them, he placed himself between 
 them, and during the whole service, they very attentively 
 observed his behavior, and very exactly imitated it ; 
 standing, sitting, or kneeling, as they saw him do ; they 
 were conscious that we were employed about somewhat 
 serious and important, as appeared by their calling to the 
 Indians without the fort to be silent ; yet when the service 
 was over, neither of them asked any questions, nor would 
 they attend to any attempt that was made to explain 
 what had been done. 
 
 " Such were our motives; our Indians thought fit to 
 perform vespers of a different kind. A young man, near 
 six feet high, performed the rites of Venus with a little 
 girl about eleven or twelve years of age, before several of 
 our people and a great number of the natives, without the 
 least sense of being indecent or improper ; but, as ap- 
 peared, in perfect conformity to the custom of the place. 
 Among the spectators were several women of superior 
 rank, particularly Oberea, who may properly be said to 
 have assisted at the ceremony." * 
 
 * Hawkesworth's Voyages^ vol. i. ch. 12. 
 
30 Phallic Worship. 
 
 The reverence, as well as worship, paid to the phallus 
 in the early ages had nothing in it which partook of in- 
 decency : all ideas connected with it were of a reverential 
 and religious kind. When Abraham, as mentioned in 
 Genesis, in asking his servant to take a solemn oath, 
 makes him lay his hand on his parts of generation (in 
 the common version, "under his thigh" *), it was that he 
 required as a token of his sincerity his placing his hand 
 on the most revered part of his body ; as, at the present 
 day, a man would place his hand on his heart in order to 
 evince his sincerity. Jacob, when dying, makes his son 
 Joseph perform the same act. A similar custom is still 
 retained among the Arabs at the present day. An Arab, 
 in taking a solemn oath, will place his hand on his mem- 
 brum virile in attestation of his sincerity, f 
 
 The indecent ideas attached to the phallic symbol were, 
 though it seems a paradox to say so, the result of a more 
 advanced civilization verging towards its decline, as we 
 have evidence at Rome and Pompeii. % 
 
 We may here introduce an extremely just and apposite 
 remark of Constant in his work on Roman polytheism : 
 " Indecent rites may be practised by a religious people 
 with the greatest purity of heart. But when incredulitj 
 has gained a footing among these peoples, these rites 
 become then the cause and pretext of the most revolting 
 corruption." A similar remark has been made by Vol- 
 taire. Speaking of the worship of Priapus, he says, " Our 
 ideas of propriety lead us to suppose that a ceremony 
 which appears to us so infamous could only be invented 
 by licentiousness ; but it is impossible to believe that 
 
 * The thigh had a peculiar sanctity. It was the part burned of the sacrifi- 
 cial victim as of a sweet savor to the Deity. Bacchus, it will be remembered, 
 was preserved in embryo at the thigh of Jupiter ; and Pythagoras, in his in- 
 itiations, displayed a golden thigh as the last mystery. 
 
 f Mimoires sur PEgypte, partie deuxifeme, p. 196. 
 
 X Secret Museum of Nafles; Being an account of the Erotic Paintings, 
 Bronzes, and Statues contained in that famous "Cabinet Secret." By 
 Colonel Fanin. Now first translated from the French. With sixty illustra- 
 tions. 4to, London, 1871. 
 
Phallic Worship. 31 
 
 depravity of manners would ever have led among any 
 people to the establishment of religious ceremonies. It 
 is probable, on the contrary, that this custom was first 
 introduced in times of simplicity, that the first thought 
 was to honor the deity in the symbol of life which it has 
 given us. Such a ceremony may have excited licentious- 
 ness among youths, and have appeared ridiculous to men 
 of education in more refined, more corrupt, and more 
 enlightened times." 
 
 Three phases in the representation of the phallus 
 should be distinguished ; first, when it was the object of 
 reverence and religious worship ; secondly, when it was 
 used as a protecting power against evil influences of 
 various kinds, and as a charm or amulet against envy and 
 the evil eye, as at the postern gate at Alatri and at Pom- 
 peii, and as frequently occurs in amulets of porcelain 
 found in Egypt, and of bronze in Italy ; thirdly, when it 
 was the result of mere licentiousness and dissolute morals. 
 Another cause also contributed to its reverence and fre- 
 quent representation — the natural desire of women among 
 all races, barbarous as well as civilized, to be the fruitful 
 mother of children — especially as, among some people, 
 women were esteemed according to the number of chil- 
 dren they bore, and as, among the Mohammedans of the 
 present day, it is sinful not to contribute to the popula- 
 tion ; as a symbol, therefore, of prolificacy, and as the 
 bestower of offspring, the phallus became an object of 
 reverence and especial worship among women. At Pom- 
 peii was found a gold ring, with the representation of the 
 phallus on its bezel, supposed to have been worn by a 
 barren woman. To propitiate the deity and to obtain 
 offspring, offerings of this symbol were made in Roman 
 temples by women, and this custom has been retained in 
 modern times at Isernia, near Naples. Stone offerings 
 of phalli are also made at the present day in a Buddhist 
 temple in Pekin, and for the same object Mohammedan 
 women kiss with reverence the organ of generation of an 
 idiot or saint. In India this worship has found its most 
 
32 Phallic Worship. 
 
 extensive development. There young girls who are 
 anxious for husbands, and married women who are de- 
 sirous of progeny, are ardent worshippers of Siva ; and 
 his symbol, the lingam, is sometimes exhibited in enor- 
 mous proportions. 
 
 In the sixteenth century, St. Foutin in the south of 
 France, St. Ters at Antwerp, and in the last century 
 Saints Cosmo and Damiano at Isernia, near Naples, were 
 worshipped for the same purpose by young girls and 
 barren women. 
 
 Sir Gardner Wilkinson records similar superstitious 
 practices at the present day at Ekhmim in Egypt. The 
 superstitions of the natives here ascribed the same proper- 
 ties to a stone in one of the sheikh's tombs, and likewise 
 to that of the temple of Pan, which the statues of the god 
 of generation, the pati-on deity of Panopolis (Ekhmim), 
 were formerly believed to have possessed ; and the 
 modern women of Ekhmim, with similar hopes and equal 
 credulity, offer their vows to these relics for a numerous 
 progeny. 
 
 We may conclude with the following passage from 
 Captain Burton, which exhibits similar customs among a 
 rude and barbarous people of the present day : " Among 
 all barbarians whose primal want is progeny, we observe 
 a greater or less development of the phallic worship. In 
 Dahome it is uncomfortably prominent. Every street 
 from Whydah to the capital is adorned with the symbol, 
 and the old ones are not removed. The Dahoman Pria- 
 pus is a clay figure, of any size between a giant and the 
 pigmy, crouched upon the ground, as if contemplating 
 its own attributes. The head is sometimes a wooden 
 block rudely carved, more often dried mud, and the eyes 
 and teeth are supplied by cowries. The tree of life is 
 anointed with palm-oil, which drips into a pot or a shard 
 placed below it, and the would-be mother of children 
 prays that the great god Legba will make her fertile." 
 
INFLUENCE OF THE PHALLIC IDEA 
 
 RELIGIONS OF ANTIQUITY.* 
 
 BY C. STANILAND WAKE. 
 
 It will not be necessary for me to give details of the 
 rites by which the phallic superstition is distinguished, as 
 they may be found in the works of Dulaure,t Payne 
 Knight, !j: and other writers. I shall refer to them, there- 
 fore, only so far as may be required for the due under- 
 standing of the subject to be considered — the influence of 
 the phallic idea in the religions of antiquity. The first 
 step in the inquiry is to ascertain the origin of the super- 
 stition in question. Faber ingeniously referred to a 
 primitive universal belief in a great father, the curious 
 connection seen to exist between nearly all non- Christian 
 mythologies, and he saw in phallic worship a degradation 
 of this belief. Such an explanation as this is, however, 
 not satisfactory ; since, not only does it require the as- 
 sumption of a primitive divine revelation, but proof is 
 still wanting that all peoples have, or ever had, any such 
 notion of a great parent of mankind as that supposed to 
 have been revealed. And yet there is a valuable germ of 
 
 * A paper read before the Anthropological Society of London, April 5th, 
 1870. 
 
 f Histoire Abrige de Differens Cultes.^ vol. ii. 
 
 \ A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus, and its Connection with the 
 Mystic Theology of the Ancients. By Richard Payne Knight, Esq. New 
 Edition. To which is added An Essay on the Worship of the Generative 
 Powers during the Middle Ages of Western Europe. Illustrated with 138 
 Engravings. 410, London, i86g. 
 
34 Phallism in 
 
 truth in this hypothesis. The phallic superstition is 
 founded essentially in the family idea. Captain Richard 
 Burton recognized this truth when he asserted that 
 "amongst all barbarians whose primal want is progeny, 
 we observe a greater or less development of the phallic 
 worship." * This view, however, is imperfect. There 
 must have been something more than a mere desire for 
 progeny to lead primitive man to view the generative pro- 
 cess with the peculiar feelings embodied in this supersti- 
 tion. We are, in fact, here taken to the root of all relig- 
 ions — awe at the mysterious and unknown. That which 
 the uncultured mind cannot understand is viewed with 
 dread or veneration, as it may be, and the object present- 
 ing the mysterious phenomenon may itself be worshipped 
 as a fetish, or the residence of a presiding spirit. But there 
 is nothing more mysterious than the phenomena of gen- 
 eration, and nothing more important than the final result 
 of the generative act. Reflection on this result would 
 naturally cause that which led to it to be invested with a 
 certain degree of superstitious significance. The feeling 
 generated would have a double object, as it had a double 
 origin — wonder at the phenomenon itself and a perception 
 of the value of its consequences. The former, which is 
 the most simple, would lead to a veneration for the organs 
 whose operation conduced to the phenomena — hence the 
 superstitious practices connected with the phallus and the 
 yoni among primitive peoples. In this, moreover, we 
 have the explanation of numerous curious facts observed 
 among eastern peoples. Such is the respect shown by 
 women for the generative organ of dervishes and fakirs. f 
 
 * Memoirs of the Anthropological Society of London, vol. i, p. 320. 
 
 \ The Vanaprastha were Brahminical anchorites, who inhabited the des- 
 erts, lived on vegetables, devoted themselves to contemplation, macerated 
 the body, fought with devils and giants (as a natural consequence), and were 
 insensible to heat and cold. They were caUed later, by the Greeks, Gymnoso- 
 phists ; and although they went perfectly naked, no throb or involuntary 
 movement was ever seen in any part of their bodies. Women who were bar- 
 ren oftentimes came and touched their shrivelled member, hoping thereby 
 to become fruitful. Not the slightest emotion was noticed at such times. 
 
Ancient Religions. 35 
 
 Such also is the Semitic custom referred to in the Hebrew 
 Scriptures as " the putting of the hand under the thigh," 
 which is explained by the Talmudists to be the touching 
 of that part of the body which is sealed and made holy by 
 circumcision : a custom which wa.s, up to a recent date, still 
 in use among the Arabs as the most solemn guarantee of 
 truthfulness.* 
 
 The second phase of the phallic superstition is that 
 which arises from a perception of the value of the conse- 
 quences of the act of generation. The distinction be- 
 tween this and the preceding phase is that, while the one 
 has relation to the organs engaged, the other refers more 
 particularly to the chief agent. Thus, the father of the 
 family is venerated as the generator ; this authority is 
 founded altogether on the act and consequences of gener- 
 ation. We thus see the fundamental importance, as well 
 as the phallic origin, of the family idea. From this has 
 sprung the social organization of all primitive peoples. 
 
 An instance in point may be derived from Mr. Hunter's 
 account of the Santals of Bengal. He says that the 
 classification of this interesting people among themselves 
 depends, " not upon social rank or occupation, but upon 
 the family basis." This is shown by the character of the 
 six great ceremonies in a Santal's life, which are : " ad- 
 mission into the family ; admission into the tribe ; admis- 
 sion into the race ; union of his own tribe with another 
 by marriage ; formal dismission from the living race by 
 incremation ; lastly, a reunion with the departed fathers. " \ 
 
 We may judge from this of the character of certain 
 customs which are widespread among primitive peoples, 
 and the phallic origin of which has long been lost sight 
 of. The value set on the results of the generative act 
 
 The old ascetics would have regarded with contempt the practices of Chris- 
 tian monks, who were indeed children when compared with their Eastern an- 
 cestors. — The Monks before Christ .^ by John Edgar Johnson; and Descrip- 
 tion of the Character, Manners and Customs of the People of India, by Abbe 
 J. A. Dubois. 
 
 * See Dulaure, op. cit., vol. ii., p. 219. 
 
 + Rural Bengal, p. 203. 
 
3^ Phallism in 
 
 would naturally make the arrival at the age of puberty an 
 event of peculiar significance. Hence, we find various cere- 
 monies performed among primitive, and even among civil- 
 ized, peoples at this period of life. Often when the youth 
 arrives at manhood other rites are performed to mark the 
 significance of the event. 
 
 Marriage, too, derives an importance from its conse- 
 quences which otherwise it would not possess. Thus, 
 among many peoples it is attended with certain cere- 
 monies denoting its object, or, at least, marking it as an 
 event of peculiar significance in the life of the individual, 
 or even in the history of the tribe. The marriage cere- 
 monial is especially fitted for the use of phallic rites 
 or symbolism ; the former, among semi-civilized peoples, 
 often being simply the act of consummation itself, which 
 appears to be looked on as part of the ceremony. The 
 symbolism we have ourselves retained to the present day 
 in the wedding-ring, which must have had a phallic origin, 
 if, as appears probable, it originated in the Samothracian 
 mysteries.* Nor does the influence of the phallic idea 
 end with life. The veneration entertained for the father 
 of the family as the " generator," led in time to peculiar 
 care being taken of the bodies of the dead ; and, finally, 
 to the worship of ancestors, which, under one form or 
 another, distinguished all the civilized nations of antiquity, 
 as it does even now most of the peoples of the heathen 
 world. 
 
 CIRCUMCISION. 
 
 There is one phallic rite which, from its nature and 
 wide range, is of peculiar importance. I refer to circum- 
 cision. The origin of this custom has not yet, so far as I 
 am aware, been satisfactorily explained. The idea that, 
 under certain climatic conditions, circumcision is neces- 
 sary for cleanliness and comfort, does not appear to be 
 well-founded, as the custom is not universal even within 
 the tropics. Nor is the reason given by Captain Richard 
 * See Ennemoser's History of Magic (Bohn), vol. ii, p. 33. 
 
Ancient Religions. 37 
 
 Burton, in his "Notes connected with the Dahoman," 
 for both circumcision and excision, perfectly satisfactory. 
 The real origin of these customs has been forgotten by all 
 peoples practising them ; and, therefore, they have ceased 
 to have their primitive significance. That circumcision, 
 at least, had a superstitious origin may be inferred from 
 the traditional history of the Jews. The old Hebrew 
 writers, persistent in their idea that they were a peculiar 
 people, chosen by God for a special purpose, asserted 
 that this rite was instituted by Jehovah as a sign of the 
 covenant between Him and Abraham. Although we 
 cannot doubt that this rite was practised by the Egyp- 
 tians and Phoenicians long before the birth of Abraham,* 
 yet two points connected with the Hebrew tradition are 
 noticeable. These are, the religious significance of the 
 act of circumcision — it is the sign of a covenant between 
 God and man — and its performance by the head of the 
 family. These two things are, indeed, intimately con- 
 nected ; since, in the patriarchal age, the father was 
 always the priest of the family and the offerer of the 
 sacrifices. We have it, on the authority of the Veda, that 
 this was the case also among the primitive Aryan people. f 
 Abraham, therefore, as the father and priest of the family, 
 performed the religious ceremony of circumcision on the 
 males of his household. 
 
 Circumcision, in its inception, is a purely phallic rite, 
 having for its aim the marking of that which from its 
 associations is viewed with peculiar veneration, and it 
 connects the two phases of this superstition which have 
 for their object respectively the instrument of generation 
 and the agent. We are thus brought back to the con- 
 sideration of the simplest form of phallic worship, that 
 
 * Herodotus, Euterfe, § 104. It was a practice at least 2,400 years 
 before our era, and is even then an ancient custom. Nevertheless it appears 
 to have been found only among nations cognate with the Egyptians and 
 the Phoenicians. The neglect of it by Moses and by the Israelites whom he 
 conducted to the border of the land of Canaan, is a strong presumption 
 against its previous employment by the patriarchs. — Ed. 
 
 \ See Bunsen's God in History, vol. i, p. 299. 
 
38 Phallism in 
 
 which has reference to the generative organs viewed as the 
 mysterious instruments in the realization of that keen de- 
 sire for children which distinguishes all primitive peoples. 
 This feeling is so nearly universal that it is a matter of 
 surprise to find the act by which it is expressed signalized 
 as sinful. Yet such is the case, although the incidents in 
 which the fact is embodied are so veiled in figure that 
 their true meaning has long been forgotten. Clemens 
 Alexandrinus tells us that " the Bacchanals hold their 
 orgies in honor of the frenzied Bacchus, celebrating their 
 sacred frenzy by the eating of raw flesh, and go through 
 the distribution of the parts of butchered victims, crowned 
 with snakes, shrieking out the name of that Eve, by 
 whom error came into the world." He adds that " the 
 symbol of the Bacchic orgies is a consecrated serpent," 
 and that according to the strict interpretation of the 
 Hebrew term, the name Hevia, aspirated, signifies a 
 female serpent* We have here a reference to the sup- 
 posed fall of man from pristine " innocence," Eve and 
 the serpent being very significantly introduced in close 
 conjunction, and indeed becoming in some sense identi- 
 •fied with each other. In fact the Arabic word for serpent, 
 hayyat, may be said also to mean " life," and in this sense 
 ■the legendary first human mother is called Eve or Chev- 
 vah, in Arabic Hawwa. In its relations, as an asserted 
 fact, the question of the fall has an important bearing on 
 the subject before us. Quite irrespective of the impossi- 
 bility of accepting the Mosaic cosmogony as a divinely 
 inspired account of the origin of the world and man — a 
 cosmogony which, with those of all other Semitic peoples, 
 has a purely "phallic" basis f — the whole transaction 
 said to have taken place in the Garden of Eden is fraught 
 with difficulties on the received interpretation. The very 
 idea on which it is founded — the placing by God, in the 
 way of Eve, of a temptation which He knew she could 
 
 * Ante-Nicene Christian Library, vol. IV. (Clement of Alexandria), p. 27. 
 t The Hebrew word bara^ translated "created," has also the sense of 
 "begotten." See Gesenius. 
 
t-^'re. 
 
 tyitMiui/er. 
 
 f^y'rcm lie- cJ&rait'ji. 
 
 f^i .C/i*tiAtd'Q',et/icey 'J'-i'oniyt/ie^JltcMU of eyVa/u C^mAziC'. 
 
 c 
 
 .^'rouvi/ie^^ot'ae t-Jalr//!- 
 
 SERPENT-SYMBOLS FOUND IN PERSIA, CHINA, AND EGYPT. 
 
FIRE ON THE ALTAR AND SER- 
 PENTS REPRESENTING THE 
 TRIAD. 
 
 THE TRIAD REPRESENTED BY A 
 HUMAN FIGURE AND SER- 
 PENTS. 
 
 THE TRIAD REPRESENTED BY 
 A HUMAN FIGURE, A CONCHA 
 AND SERPENT. 
 
 THE TRIAD REPRESENTED BY 
 
 THE SERPENT, THE CONCHA, 
 AND MATERNAL SYMBOL. 
 
 THE MITHIAIC FIGURE OF AZON, 
 A HUMAN FIGURE ENCIRCLED 
 WITH A ZONE COMPOUND OF 
 A SERPENT. 
 
 THE TREE OF WISDOM ENCIR- 
 CLED BY THE SERPENT, SYM- 
 BOLIZING THE MALE AND FE- 
 MALE CREATIVE PRINCIPLES. 
 
Ancient Religions. 39 
 
 not resist — is sufficient to throw discredit on the ordinary- 
 reading of the narrative. The effect, indeed, that was to 
 follow the eating of the forbidden fruit, appears to an 
 ordinary mind to furnish the most praiseworthy motive 
 for not obeying the command to abstain. That " eating 
 of the forbidden fruit " was simply a figurative mode of 
 expressing the performance of the act necessary to the 
 perpetuation of the human race — an act which in its ori- 
 gin was thought to be the source of all evil — is evident 
 from the consequences which followed, and from the curse ■ 
 it entailed.* As to the curse inflicted on Eve, it has always 
 been a stumbling-block in the way of commentators. For, 
 what connection is there between the eating of a fruit and 
 sorrow in bringing forth children ? The meaning is evi- 
 dent, however, when we know that conception and child- 
 bearing were the direct consequences of the act forbidden. 
 How far this meaning was intended by the compiler of 
 the Mosaic books we shall see further on. 
 
 SERPENT SYMBOLISM ASSOCIATED WITH PHALLIC WOR- 
 SHIP. 
 
 That we have, in the Mosaic account of the " fall," a 
 phallic legend, is evident from other considerations con- 
 nected with the narrative. The most important relate to 
 the introduction of the serpent on the scene, and the posi- 
 tion it takes as the inciting cause of the sinful act. We 
 are here reminded of the passage already quoted from 
 Clemens Alexandrinus, who tells us that the serpent was 
 the special symbol of the worship of Bacchus. Now, this 
 animal holds a very curious place in the religions of the 
 civilized peoples of antiquity. Although, in consequence 
 of the influence of later thought, it came to be treated as 
 the personification of evil, and as such appears in the 
 Hebrew legend of the fall, yet before this the serpent was 
 the symbol of wisdom and healing. In the latter capa- 
 city it appears even in connection with the exodus from 
 Egypt. It is, however, in its character as a symbol of 
 * See Jaskar, by Dr. Donaldson, 2d edition (i860), p. 45 et seq. 
 
40 Phallism in 
 
 wisdom that it more especially claims our attention, al- 
 though these ideas are intimately connected — the power 
 of healing being merely a phase of wisdom. From the 
 earliest times of which we have any historical notice, the 
 serpent has been connected with the gods of wisdom. 
 This animal was the especial symbol of Thoth or Taaut, 
 a primeval deity of Syro-Egyptian mythology,* and of 
 all those gods, such as Hermes and Seth, who can be con- 
 nected with him. This is true also of the third mernber 
 of the primitive Chaldean triad, H'ea or Hoa. According 
 to Sir Henry Rawlinson, the most important titles of this 
 deity refer ' ' to his functions as the source of all know- 
 ledge and science." Not only is he "the intelligent fish," 
 but his name may be read as signifying both "life " and 
 a " serpent," and he maybe considered as "figured by 
 the great serpent which occupies so conspicuous a place 
 among the symbols of the gods on the black stones re- 
 cording Babylonian benefactions." f The serpent was 
 also the symbol of the Egyptian Kneph, who resembled 
 the Sophia of the Gnostics-, the Divine Wisdom. This 
 animal, moreover, was the Agathodcemon of the religions of 
 antiquity — the giver of happiness and good fortune.:): It 
 was in these capacities, rather than as having a phallic 
 significance, that the serpent was associated with the sun- 
 gods, the Chaldean Bel, the Grecian Apollo, and the 
 Semitic Seth. 
 
 But whence originated the idea' of the wisdom of the 
 serpent which led to its connection with the legend of the 
 " fall " ? This may, perhaps, be explained by other facts 
 which show also the nature of the wisdom here intended. 
 Thus, in the annals of the Mexicans, the first woman, 
 whose name was translated by the old Spanish writers 
 
 * Bunsen's Egypt, vol. iv., pp. 225, 255, 288. 
 
 f History of Herodotus, vol. i. , p. 600. 
 
 % Wilkinson's ^K«>«^ Egyptians, vol. iv., pp. 412, 413 ; and King's Gnos- 
 tics, p. 31. See also Bryant's Ancient Mythology, vol. iv., p. 201. The last 
 named work contains much curious information as to the extension of ser- 
 pent-worship. 
 
Ancient Religions. 41 
 
 " the woman of our flesh," is always represented as ac- 
 companied by a great male serpent. This serpent is the 
 Sun-god Tonacatl-coatl, the principal deity of the Mexi- 
 can pantheon ; and the goddess-mother of primitive man 
 is called Cihua-Cohuatl, which signifies woman of the ser- 
 pent.''' According to this legend, which agrees with that 
 of other American tribes, a serpent must have been the 
 father of the human race. This notion can be explained 
 only on the supposition that the serpent was thought to 
 have had at one time a human form. In the Hebrew 
 legend the tempter speaks ; and " the old serpent having 
 two feet," of Persian mythology, Ts none other than the 
 evil spirit Ahriman himself, f The fact is that the ser- 
 pent was only a symbol, or at most an embodiment, of 
 the spirit which it represented, as we see from the belief 
 of certain African and American tribes, which probably 
 preserves the primitive form of this supposition. Serpents 
 are looked upon by these peoples as embodiments of their 
 departed ancestors, % and an analogous notion is enter- 
 tained by various Hindu tribes. No doubt the noiseless 
 movement and the activity of the serpent, combined with 
 its peculiar gaze and marvellous power of fascination, led 
 to its being viewed as a spirit-embodiment, and hence 
 also as the possessor of wisdom. § In the spirit-character 
 ascribed to the serpent, we have the explanation of the 
 association of its worship with human sacrifice noted by 
 Mr. Fergusson — this sacrifice being really connected with 
 the worship of ancestors. 
 
 It is evident, moreover, that we may find here the ori- 
 
 * See The Serpent Symbol in America, by E. G. Squier, M.A. (American 
 Archaeological Researches, No. i, 1851), p. 161 et seq. ; Palenquk, by M. 
 de Waldeck and M. Brasseur de Bourbourg (1866), p. 48. 
 
 f Lajard, Mim-oires de CInsiitut Royal de France (Acad, des Inscriptions 
 et Belles-Lettres), t. xiv., p. 89. 
 
 X Wood's Natural History of Man, vol, i., p. 185 ; also Squier's Serpent 
 Symbol, p. 222 et seq. 
 
 § I have a strong suspicion that, in its primitive shape, the Hebrew le- 
 gend, as that of the Mexicans, gave the serpent -form to both the father and 
 the mother of the human race. 
 
 3 
 
42 Phallism in 
 
 gin of the idea of evil sometimes associated with the ser- 
 pent-god. The Kafir and the Hindu, although he treats 
 with respect any serpent which may visit his dwelling, yet 
 entertains a suspicion of his visitant. It may, perhaps, 
 be the embodiment of an evil spirit, or for some reason or 
 other it may desire to injure him. Mr. Fergusson states 
 that " the chief characteristic of the serpents throughout 
 the east in all ages seems to have been their power over 
 the wind and rain," which they gave or withheld accord- 
 ing to their good or ill-will towards man.* This notion 
 is curiously confirmed by the title given by the Egyptians 
 to the Semitic god S'eti {Seth)-Typhon, which was the 
 name of the Phoenician evil principle, and also of a destruc- 
 tive wind, thus having a curious analogy with the " ty-, 
 phoon " of the Chinese seas.f When the notion of a 
 duality in nature was developed, there would be no diffi- 
 culty in applying it to the symbols or embodiments by 
 which the idea of wisdom was represented in the animal 
 world. Thus, there came to be, not only good, but also 
 bad, serpents, both of which are referred to in the narra- 
 tive of the Hebrew exodus, but still more clearly in the 
 struggle between the good and the bad serpents of Per- 
 sian mythology, which symbolized Ormuzd, or Mithra, 
 and the evil spirit Ahriman.:}: So far as I can discover, 
 the serpent-symbol has not a direct phallic reference, § 
 nor, after all, is its attribute of wisdom the most essential. 
 The idea most intimately associated with this animal was 
 life, not present, but future, and ultimately, no doubt, 
 eternal. \ Thus the snake Bai was figured as guardian 
 
 * Tree and Serpent Worship, p. 46. Rudi'a, the Vedic form of Siva, the 
 " King of Serpents," is called the father of the maruts (winds). See infra 
 as to identification of Siva with Saturn. 
 
 \ The idea of circularity appears to be associated with both these names. 
 See Bryant, op. cit., vol. iii., p. 164, and vol. ii., p. 191, as to derivation of 
 " Typhon." 
 
 \ Lajard, loc. cit., p. 182. See also Culte de Mithra, p. 35. 
 
 § In the Bacchanalia the serpent's head is seen at the open lid of the box. 
 See Dom. Martin's '''Explication," etc., pi. II., p. 29. 
 
 I " Wise (jipovi/ioc {phronimoi) as serpents, and harmless (or pure) as doves." 
 
Ancient Religions. 43 
 
 of the doorways of those chambers of Egyptian tombs 
 which represented the mansions of heaven.* A sacred 
 serpent appears to have been kept in all the Egyptian 
 temples, and we are told that " many of the subjects, in 
 the tombs of the kings at Thebes in particular, show the 
 importance it was thought to enjoy in a future state. " f 
 The use of crowns formed of the asp, or sacred Thermu- 
 this, given to sovereigns, and divinities, particularly to 
 Isis,.:j: the goddess of life and healing, was, doubtless, in- 
 tended to symbolize eternal life. This notion is quite con- 
 sistent with the ideas entertained by the Phoenicians as to 
 the serpent, which they supposed to have the quality " of 
 putting off its old age, and assuming a second youth." § 
 
 THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL. 
 
 Another feature of the Mosaic legend of the "fall" 
 which deserves consideration is the reference to fhe tree 
 of knowledge, or wisdom. It is now generally supposed 
 that the forbidden fruit was a kind of citrus, \ but certain 
 facts connected with arhorolatry seem to me to disprove 
 this opinion. Among peoples in the most opposite re- 
 gions various species of the fig-tree are held sacred. . Thus 
 it is, throughout nearly the whole of Africa, with the 
 banyan {Ficus indicus), the sacred tree of the Hindu Brah- 
 mins. Even in several of the Polynesian islands, as in 
 various parts of the Indian Archipelago and in Northern 
 Australia, the fig-tree is highly venerated. In ancient 
 Egypt, the banyan, or the Ficus sycamorus, was always 
 considered sacred. f So it was in Greece and Italy. Ac- 
 
 — Matthew x. 16. By serpents the masculine and by doves the feminme at- 
 tribute are represented. 
 
 * See Mimoires de Vlnstitut (Academie des Inscriptions), torn, xvii., p. 97. 
 
 f Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians^ vol. v., p. 65. 
 
 X Do., p. 243. 
 
 § Sanchoniathon (translated by C017), in The PAcenix, p. 197. 
 
 II SmitVs Dictionary of t/ie Bible. Art., " Apple-Tree. " 
 
 1[ Wilkinson, op. cit., vol. iv., pp. 260, 313. 
 
44 Phallism in 
 
 cording to Plutarch, a basket of figs forrtied one of the 
 chief objects carried in the procession in honor of Bac- 
 chus ; and the sacred phallus itself appears to have beeri 
 made of the wood of the fig-tree, as was also the statue 
 of the phallic god Priapus.* 
 
 Judging from these facts, and considering that the 
 sycamore was sacred among the Hebrews themselves — 
 its fruit having the significance of the virgin womb f — 
 there can be little difficulty in identifying the fig-tree, 
 whether the sycamore or the banyan, with the tree of 
 knowledge planted in the midst of the garden of Eden. 
 The sense intended to be conveyed by this expression , 
 would be evident enough without the introduction of the 
 "tree of life." That this is intended to represent the 
 male element is undoubted. The Chaldean god Hea, 
 who was symbolized by the serpent, was also the god of 
 life and knowledge; and Rawlinson states that "there 
 are very strong grounds indeed for connecting him with 
 the serpent of scripture, and with the Paradisiacal tradi- 
 tions of the tree of knowledge and the tree of life.":}: 
 The bo-tree ( Ficus religiosd) of the Buddhists is said to 
 derive greater sacredness from its encircling the palm — 
 the Palmyra palm being the kalpa-X.re.e, or the "tree of 
 life" of the Hindu paradise. § This connection is termed 
 by the Buddhists "the bo-tree united in marriage with 
 the palm," and we have in it the perfect idea of genera- 
 tive activity, the combination of the male and female 
 elements. Mr. Fergusson, in accordance with his special 
 theory as to the origin of serpent-worship, thinks that 
 this superstition characterized the old Turanian (by which 
 probably he means Hamitic) empire of Chaldea, while 
 
 * Horace, 8th Satire. See also Ante-Nicene Library, vol. iv., Clement of 
 Alexandria^ p. 41. 
 
 f See Inman's Ancient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names, vol. i., p. 108. 
 This seems to have been the symbolical signification of the fig throughout the 
 East from the earliest historical period ; as the pomegranate symbolized the 
 full womb. 
 
 \ History of Herodotus, Book i.. Appendix, Essay lo, § iv. 
 
 § Tennent's Ceylon, vol. ii., p. 520. 
 
Ancient Religions. 45 
 
 tree-worship was more characteristic of the later Assy- 
 rian empire.* This opinion is, no doubt, correct ; and it 
 means really that the older race had that form of faith 
 with which the serpent was always indirectly connected — 
 adoration of the male principle of generation, the primi- 
 tive phase of which was probably ancestor-worship ; while 
 the latter race adored i\\Q female principle, symbolized by 
 the saci-ed tree, the Assyrian " grove." The "^r^^of hfe," 
 however, undoubtedly had reference to the male element, 
 and we may well suppose that originally the fruit alone 
 was treated as symbolical of the opposite principle. f 
 
 There is still an important point connected with the 
 Hebrew legend which requires consideration — the nature 
 of the protecting kerub. That this was merely intended 
 as a symbol of the deity himself, there is every reason to 
 believe, and that the symbol was nothing more than the 
 sacred bull of antiquity, is evident from the description 
 of the kerub given by Ezekiel (chaps, i. and x.).:j: But 
 what was the religious significance of the bull, an animal 
 which it would be easy to prove was venerated by nearly 
 all the peoples of antiquity ? It is now well known that 
 the bull symbolized the productive force in nature, and 
 hence it was associated with the sun-gods. The symbolic 
 figure carried in procession during the festival of Osiris 
 and Isis was representative, probably, of the phallus of 
 this animal. § According to the cosmogony of the Zend- 
 Avesta, Ormuzd, after he had created the heavens and 
 the earth, formed the first being, called by Zoroaster 
 "the primeval bull." This bull was poisoned by Ahri- 
 man ; but its seed was carried, by the soul of the dying 
 animal, represented as an ized, to the moon, " where it is 
 continually purified and fecundated by the warmth and 
 light of the sun, to become the germ of all creatures." 
 
 * op. cit., p. 12. 
 
 •f As to the sacred Indian fig-tree, see Ginguiaut's Religions de I' Aniiqiiite , 
 vol. i., p. 149, note. 
 
 :|: Faber's Pagan Idolatry, vol. i., p. 422; vol. iii., p. 606. 
 § See Dulaure, oJ>. cit. , vol. ii. , p. 32. 
 
46 Phallism m 
 
 At the same time, the material prototypes of all living 
 things, including man himself, issued from the body of 
 the bull.'* This is but a developed form of the ideas 
 which anciently were almost universally associated with 
 this animal among those peoples who were addicted to 
 sun-worship. There is no doubt, however, that the 
 superstitious veneration for the bull existed, as it still ex- 
 ists, quite independently of the worship of the heavenly 
 bodies. f The bull, like the goat, must have been a 
 sacred animal in Egypt before it was declared to be an 
 embodiment of the sun-god Osiris. In some sense, in- 
 deed, the bull and the serpent, although both of them 
 became associated with the solar deities, were antago- 
 nistic. The serpent was symbolical of the personal male 
 element, or rather had especial reference to the life of 
 man, X while the bull had relation to nature as a whole, 
 and was symbolical of the general idea of fecundity. 
 This antagonism was brought to an issue in the struggle 
 between Osiris and Seti (Seth), which ended in the tri- 
 umph of the god of nature, although it was renewed even 
 during the exodus, when the golden calf of Osiris, or 
 Horus, was set up in the Hebrew camp. 
 
 The references made to the serpent, to the tree of wis- 
 dom, and to the bull in the legend of the " fall," sufficiently 
 prove its phallic character ; which was, indeed, recognized 
 in the early Christian church. § This view is confirmed, 
 moreover, by analogous legends in other mythologies. 
 The Hindu legend approaches very nearly to that pre- 
 served in the Hebrew scriptures. Thus, it is said that 
 Siva, as the Supreme Being, desired to tempt Brahma 
 (who had taken human form), and for this object he drop- 
 , ped from heaven a blossom of the sacred fig-tree. Brah- 
 
 * Lajard, Le Culte de Mithra, p. 50. 
 
 f This superstition is found among peoples — the Kafirs, for instance — who 
 do not appear to possess any trace of planetary worship. 
 
 \ This is evident from the facts mentioned above, notwithstanding the 
 use of this animal as a symbol of wisdom. 
 
 § In connection with this subject, see St. Jerome, in his letter on Virgini- 
 ty to Eustochia. 
 
Ancient Religions. ijj 
 
 mi, instigated by his wife, Satarupa, endeavors to obtain 
 this blossom, thinking its possession will render him im- 
 mortal and divine ; but when he has succeeded in doing 
 so, he is cursed by Siva, and doomed to misery and deg- 
 radation. Mr. Hardwicke, when commenting on this tra- 
 dition, adds that the sacred Indian fig is endowed by the 
 Brahmans and Buddhists with mysterious significance, as 
 the tree of knowledge or intelligence.* This legend con- 
 firms what I have said as to the nature of the Hebrew 
 tree of knowledge, and also the phallic explanation of the 
 " fall " itself, when we consider the attributes of the temp- 
 ter of the Hindu story. The Persian legend preserved in 
 the Boun-dehesch is, however, still more conclusive. Ac- 
 cording to this legend Meschia and Meschiane , the first 
 man and woman, were seduced by Ahriman, under the form 
 of a serpent, and they then first committed "in thought, 
 word, and action, the carnal sin, and thus tainted with 
 original sin all their descendants." f 
 
 SOURCE OF THE LEGEND OF THE " FALL OF MAN." 
 
 Under the circumstances I have detailed, we can hard- 
 ly doubt that the legend of the " fall " has been derived 
 from a foreign source. That it could not be original to 
 the Hebrews may, I think, be proved by several consid- 
 erations. The position occupied in the legend by the ser- 
 pent is quite inconsistent with the use of this animal sym- 
 bol by Moses.;]: Like Satan himself even, as the Rev. 
 Dunbar Heath has shown, § the serpent had not, indeed, 
 a wholly evil character among the early Hebre-\YS. In the 
 second place, the condemnation of the act of generation 
 
 * Christ and other Masters, vol. i. , p. 305. 
 
 \ Lajard, op. eit., pp. 52-60. The destruction of purity in the world by 
 the Serpent Dahaka is stated in the 9th Yajna, v. 27. We have probably 
 here the germ of the fuller legend, which may, however, have been contained 
 in the lost portion of the Zend-Avesta. 
 
 \ The turning of Aaron's rod into a serpent had, no doubt, a reference to 
 the idea of wisdom associated with that animal. 
 
 § The Fallen Angels, 1857. 
 
48 Phallism in 
 
 was directly contrary to the central idea of patriarchal 
 history. The promise to Abraham was that he should 
 have seed "numerous as the stars of heaven for multitude ; " 
 and to support this notion, the descent of Abraham is 
 traced up to the first created man, who is commanded to 
 increase and multiply. 
 
 It is very probable, however, that when the legend was 
 appropriated by the compiler of the Hebrew scriptures it 
 had a moral significance as well as a merely figurative 
 sense. The legend is divisible into two parts — the first of 
 which is a mere statement of the imparting of wisdom by 
 the serpent and by the eating of the fruit of a certain tree, 
 these ideas being synonymous, or, at least, consistent, as 
 appears by the attributes of the Chaldean Hea* The 
 nature of this wisdom may be found in the rites of the 
 Hindu Sacti Puja.\ The second part of the legend, which 
 is probably of much later date, is the condemnation of the 
 act referred to, as being in itself evil, and as leading to 
 misery and even to death itself. The origin of this latter 
 notion must be sought in the esoteric doctrine taught in 
 the mysteries of Mithra, the fundamental ideas of which 
 were the descent of the soul to earth and its re-ascent to 
 the celestial abodes after it had overcome the temptations 
 and debasing influences of the material life. :j; Lajard 
 shows that these mysteries were really taken from the se- 
 cret worship of the Chaldean Mylitta ; but the reference 
 to " the seed of the woman who shall bruise the serpent's 
 head," is too Mithraic for us to seek for an earlier origin 
 for the special form taken by the Hebrew myth. The ob- 
 ject of the myth evidently was to explain the origin of 
 death, § from which man was to be delivered by a coming 
 Saviour, and the whole idea is strictly Mithraic, the Per- 
 
 * See supra. 
 
 \ Memoirs of the Anthropological Society of London, vol. ii. , p. 264, et 
 seq. ; and compare with the Gnostic personification of " truth" ; for which 
 see King's Gnosticsand their Remains, p. 39. 
 
 X Lajard, op. cit., p. 96. 
 
 § Jehovah threatens death, but the Serpent impliedly promises life, the 
 former having relation to the individual, the latter to the race. 
 
Ancient Religions. 49 
 
 sian deity himself being a Saviour-God.* The impor- 
 tance attached to virginity by the early Christians sprang 
 from the same source. The Avesta is full of references to 
 " purity" of life ; and there is reason to beheve that, in 
 the secret initiations, the followers of Mithra were taught 
 to regard marriage itself as impure, f 
 
 The religious ideas which found expression in the le- 
 gend of the fall were undoubtedly of late development,:]; 
 although derived from still earlier phases of religious 
 thought. The simple worship in symbol of the organs of 
 generation, and of the ancestral head of the family, 
 prompted by the desire for offspring and the veneration 
 for him who produced it, was extended to the generative 
 force in nature. The bull, which, as we have seen, sym- 
 bolized this force, was not restricted to earth, but was in 
 course of time transferred to the heavens, and, as one 
 of the zodiacal signs, was thought to have a peculiar rela- 
 tion to certain of the planetary bodies. This astral phase 
 of the phallic superstition was not unknown to the Mosaic 
 religion. A still earlier form of this superstition was, 
 however, known to the Hebrews, probably forming a 
 link between the worship of the symbol of personal gener- 
 ative power and that of the heavenly phallus ; as the wor- 
 ship of the bull connected the veneration for the human 
 generator with that for the universal father. 
 
 HERM^, TERMINI, PILLARS AND " GROVES." 
 
 One of the primeval gods of antiquity was Hermes, the 
 Syro-Egyptian Thotli, and the Roman Mercury. Kir- 
 cher identifies him also with the god Termimis. This is 
 doubtless true, as Hermes was a god of boundaries, and 
 appears, as Dulaure has well shown, to have presided over 
 
 * Lajard, op. cit., p. 60, note. 
 
 f Several of the Essenes, who appear to have had some connection with 
 Mithraism, taught this doctrine. 
 
 \ It is well known to biblical critics that this legend formed no part of the 
 earlier Mosaic narrative. 
 
so Phallism in 
 
 the national frontiers. The meaning of the word Thoth, 
 erecting, associates it with this fact. The peculiar primi- 
 tive form of Mercury, or Hermes, was " a large stone, fre- 
 quently square, and without either hands or feet. Some- 
 times the triangular shape was preferred, sometimes an 
 upright pillar, and sometimes a heap of rude stones."* 
 The pillars were called by the Greeks Hermce, and the 
 heaps were known as Hermean heaps — the latter being 
 accumulated " by the custom of each passenger throwing 
 a stone to the daily increasing .mass, in honor of the 
 god." Sometimes the pillar was represented with the 
 attributes of Priapus.f 
 
 The identification of Hermes or Mercury with Priapus 
 is confirmed by the offices which the latter deity fulfilled. 
 One of the most important was that of protector of gar- 
 dens and orchards, and probably this was the original 
 office performed by Hermes in his character of a " god of 
 the country.":]; Figures set up as charms to protect 
 the produce of the ground would, in course of time, be 
 used not only for this purpose, but also to mark the 
 boundaries of the land protected, and these offices being 
 divided, two deities would finally be formed out of one. 
 The Greek Hermes was connected also with the Egyptian 
 Khem, and no less, if we may judge from the symbols 
 used in his worship, with the Hebrew Eloah. Thus, in 
 the history of the Hebrew patriarchs, we are told that 
 when Jacob entered into a covenant with his father-in- 
 law Laban, a pillar was set up, and a heap of stones 
 made, § and Laban 5aid to Jacob, "Behold this heap 
 and behold this pillar, which I have cast betwixt me and 
 thee ; this heap be witness, and this pillar be witness, that 
 I will not pass over this heap to thee, and that thou shall 
 not pass over this heap and this pillar unto me for harm." 
 
 * Faber's Pagan Idolatry. 
 
 f See Dulaure, of. cit., vol. i., as to the primeval Hermes, 
 if Smith's Diciionary of MytAology.- Art. "Hermes." 
 g Genesis xxxi. 45 to 53. Jacob called the heap or cairn of stones Galeed, 
 a circle, and the statue Mizpeh, or a pillar. 
 
Ancient Religions. S i 
 
 We have here the Hermce and Hermean heap, used by 
 the Greeks as landmarks, and placed by them on the 
 public roads. 
 
 In the linga of India we have another instance of the 
 use of the pillar-symbol. The form of this symbol is 
 sufficiently expressive of the idea which it embodies — an 
 idea which is more explicitly shown when the Linga and 
 the Yoni are, as is usually the case among the worship- 
 pers of the Hindu Siva, combined to form the Lingam. 
 The stone 'figure is not, however, itself a god, but only 
 representative of a spirit * who is thought to be able to 
 satisfy the yearning for children so characteristic of many 
 primitive peoples ; this probably having been its original 
 object, and the source of its use as an amulet for the pro- 
 tection of children against the influence of the evil eye. 
 In course of time, however, when other property came to 
 be coveted equally with offspring, the power to give this 
 property would naturally be referred to the primitive 
 phallic spirit, and hence he became, not merely the pro- 
 tector, as we have seen, of the produce of the fields and 
 the guardian of boundaries, but also the god of wealth 
 and traffic, and even the patron of thieves, as was the case 
 with the Mercury of the Romans. 
 
 The Hebrew patriarchs desired large flocks as well as 
 numerous descendants, and hence the symbolical pillar 
 was peculiarly fitted for their religious rites. It is related 
 even of Abraham, the traditional founder of the Hebrew 
 people, that he " planted a grove {eshetj^ in Beersheba, 
 and called there on the name of Jehovah, the everlasting 
 Elohim." :j: From the phallic character of the "grove" 
 {ashera) said to have been in the House of Jehovah, and 
 from the evident connection between the two words, we 
 must suppose that the eskel of Abraham also had a phallic 
 
 *. Linga means a "sign" or "token." The truth of the statement in the 
 text would seem to follow, moreover, from the fact, that the figure is sacred 
 only after it has undergone certain ceremonies at the hands of a priest. 
 
 ■j- Said also to mean a tamarisk tree. It is asserted to have been worshipped 
 in subsequent times. 
 
 \ Genesis xxi. 33. 
 
52 Phallism in 
 
 reference.* Most probably the so-called " grove " of the 
 earlier patriarch, though it may have been of wood, and 
 the stone "bethel" of Jacob, had the same form, and 
 were simply the betylus,\ the primitive symbol of deity 
 among all Semitic and many Hamitic peoples. 
 
 The participation of the Hebrew patriarchs in the rites 
 connected with the " pillar- worship " of the ancient world, 
 renders it extremely probable that they were not stran- 
 gers to the later planetary worship. Many of the old 
 phaUic symbols were associated with the new supersti- 
 tion ; and Abraham being a Chaldean, it is natural to 
 suppose that he was one of its adherents. Tradition, 
 indeed, affirms that Abraham was a great astronomer, 
 and, at one time at least, a worshipper of the heavenly 
 bodies ; and that he and the other patriarchs continued to 
 be affected by this superstition is shown by various inci- 
 dents related in the Pentateuch. Thus, in the description 
 given of the sacrificial covenant between Abraham and 
 Jehovah, it is said that, after Abraham had divided the 
 sacrificial animals, a deep sleep fell upon him as the sun 
 was going down, and Jehovah spoke with him. " Then, 
 when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a 
 smoking furnace and a burning lamp that passed between 
 those pieces." The happening of this event at the mo- 
 ment of the sun's setting reminds us of the Sabsean custom 
 of praying to the setting sun, still practiced, according to 
 Palgrave, among the nomads of Central Arabia. 
 
 THE GREAT RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT OF ARCHAIC TIME. 
 
 That some great religious movement, ascribed by tra- 
 dition to Abraham, did take place among the Semites at 
 an early date is undoubted. What the object of this 
 
 * Even if the statement of this event be an interpolation, the argument in 
 the text is not affected. The statement sufficiently shows what was the form 
 of worship traditionally assigned to Abraham. 
 
 f " The deity Uranus devised Bsetylia, stones having souls " (\Woiis e^'I'i'Xo"' 
 — lithous empsuchous). 
 
Ancient Religions. S3 
 
 movement was it is difficult to decide.* It should be 
 remembered that the Chaldeans worshipped a plurality of 
 gods, supposed to have been symbolized by the seven 
 planets. Among these deities the sun-god held a com- 
 paratively inferior position, the moon-god, Hicrki, coming 
 before him in the second triad. f It was at Ur, the special 
 seat of the worship of the moon-god,:]: that Abraham is 
 said to have lived before he quitted it for Haran ; and this 
 fact, considered in the light of the traditions relating to 
 the great patriarch, may, perhaps, justify us in inferring 
 that the reformation .he endeavored to introduce was the 
 substitution of a simple sun-worship for the planetary 
 cult of the Chaldeans, in which the worship of the moon 
 must to him have appeared to occupy a prominent place. 
 The new faith was, indeed, a return to the old phallic idea 
 of a god of personal generation, worshipped through the 
 symbolical betylus, but associated also with the adoration 
 of the sun as the especial representative of the deity. 
 That Abraham had higher notions of the relation of man 
 to the divine being than his forerunners is very probable, 
 but his sojourn in Haran proves that there was nothing 
 fundamentally different between his religious faith and 
 that of his Syrian neighbors. I am inclined, indeed, to 
 believe that to the traditional Abraham must be ascribed 
 the establishment of sun-worship throughout Phoenicia and 
 Lower Egypt, in connection with the symbols of an earlier 
 and more simple phallic deity. Tradition, in fact, declares 
 that he taught the Egyptians astronomy ; § and we shall 
 see that the religion of the Phoenicians, as, indeed, that of 
 the Hebrews themselves, was the worship of Saturn, the 
 
 * May it aot have been the " Religious War " which is recorded as having 
 talien place in the different countries of the archaic period, from India to the 
 remoter West ? — Ed. 
 
 f 'S.2m\inson's Five Ancient Monarchies, vol. i., p. 617; ii., p. 247. 
 
 :]: The later Hebrews affected the Persian religion, in which the "Sun was 
 the emblem of worship. Abraham evidently had a like preference, being a 
 reputed iconoclast. The lunar religionists employed images in their worship. 
 —£d. 
 
 § Josephus, Antiquities of the yews, Book i., chap, viii., § 2. 
 
54 , Phallism in 
 
 erect pillar-god, who, under different names, appears to 
 have been at the head of the pantheons of most of the 
 peoples of antiquity. The reference in Hebrew history to 
 the teraphim of Jacob's family recalls the fact that the 
 name assigned to Abraham's father was Terah, a " maker 
 of images." The teraphim were, doubtless, the same as 
 the seraphim, which were serpent-images,* and the house- 
 hold charms, or idols, of the Semitic worshippers of the 
 sun-god, to whom the serpent was sacred. 
 
 Little is known of the religious habits of the Hebrews 
 during their abode in Egypt. Probably they scarcely 
 differed from those of the Egyptians themselves ; and, 
 even with the religion of Moses, so-called, which we may 
 presume to have been a reformed faith, there are many 
 points of contact with the earlier cult. The use of the ark 
 of Osiris and Isis shows the influence of Egyptian ideas ; 
 and the introduction of the new name for God, Jahve, is 
 evidence of contact with late Phoenician thought, f The 
 ark was, doubtless, used to symbolize nature, + as distin- 
 guished from the serpent- and pillar-symbols which had 
 relation more particularly to man. The latter, however, 
 were by far the most important, as they were most inti- 
 mately connected with the worship of the national deity, 
 who was the divine father, as Abraham was the human 
 progenitor, of the Hebrew people. That this deity, not- 
 withstanding his change of name, retained his character 
 of a sun-god, is shown by the fact that he is repeatedly 
 said to have appeared to Moses under the figure of a 
 flame. The pillar of fire which guided the Hebrews by 
 night in the wilderness, the appearance of the cloudy pil- 
 
 * The serpent-symbol of the exodus [Numbers xxi.] is called a "seraph." 
 ■)- Moses is set forth as the son-in-law of Jethro or Hobab, the Kenite, a 
 priest ; and probably became his disciple. At Horeb he learned, by a sacred 
 vision, or initiation, the sacred name. As the Kenites were scribes or hiero- 
 phants (i Chronicles ii. 55), it is very probable that they had the knowledge 
 of this name, in common with the Phoenicians, Chaldeans, and the sacerdotal 
 orders of otlier Asiatic nations. — Ed. 
 
 X The ark was the deposilum of divine or generative power for the preser- 
 vation of the human race. The dove always accompanies it. 
 
Ancient Religions. 55 
 
 lar at the door of the tabernacle, and probably of a flame 
 over the mercy-seat to betoken the presence of Jehovah, 
 and the perpetual fire on the altar, all point to the same 
 conclusion. The notion entertained by Ewald, that the 
 idea connected with the Hebrew Jahve was that of a " De- 
 liverer " or "Healer" (Saviour),* is quite consistent 
 with the fact I have stated. Not only was the primeval 
 Phoenician deity, El, or Cronus, the preserver of the world, 
 for the benefit of which he offered a mystical sacrifice, f 
 but " Saviour" was a common title of the sun-gods of 
 antiquity. 
 
 THE HEBREW IDENTIFIED WITH ETHNIC RELIGIONS. 
 
 There is one remarkable incident which is said to have 
 happened during the wanderings of the Hebrews in the 
 Sinaitic wilderness, which appears to throw much light on 
 the character of the Mosaic cult, and to connect it with 
 other religions. I refer to the use of the brazen serpent 
 as a symbol for the healing of the people. :j: The worship 
 of the golden calf may, perhaps, be described as an idola- 
 trous act, in imitation of the rites of Egyptian Osiris-wor- 
 ship, although probably suggested by the use of the ark. 
 The other case, however, is far different ; and it is worth 
 while repeating the exact words in which the use of the 
 serpent-symbol is described. When the people were bit- 
 ten by the "fiery" serpents, § Moses prayed for them, 
 and we read that, thereupon, " Jehovah said unto Moses, 
 make thee a fiery serpent [literally, a serapli\ , and set it 
 
 * The History of Israel. (English translation), vol. i. , p. 532. 
 
 f See Sanchoniathon (Cory, op. cit.'). 
 
 X " But for the foolish devices of their wickedness, wherevi'ith being de- 
 ceived, they worshipped serpents void of reason, and vile beasts, thou didst 
 send a multitude of irrational beasts upon them for vengeance, that they 
 might know that wherewithal a man sinneth, by the same also shall he be 
 condemned." — Wisdom of Solomon.^ xi. 16. 
 
 § Much discussion has taken place as to the nature of these animals. For 
 an explanation of the epithet "fiery," see Sanchoniathon ., " Of the Serpent " 
 (Cory, op. cit.). 
 
56 Phallism in 
 
 upon a pole ; and it shall come to pass, that every one 
 that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And 
 Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, 
 and it came to pass that, if a serpent had bitten any man, 
 when he beheld the serpent of brass he lived."* It 
 would seem, from this account, that the Hebrew seraph 
 was, as before suggested, in the form of a serpent ; but 
 what was the especial significance of this healing figure ? f 
 At an earlier stage of our inquiry, I referred to the fact 
 of the serpent being, indirectly, through its attribute of 
 wisdom, a phallic symbol, but also directly an emblem of 
 life, and to the peculiar position it held in nearly all the 
 religions of antiquity. In later Egyptian mythology, the 
 contest between Osiris and the Evil Being, and afterwards 
 that between Horus and Typhon, occupy an important 
 place. Typhon, the adversary of Horus, was figured 
 under the symbol of a serpent, called Aphdphis, or the 
 Giant,:]: and it cannot be doubted that he was only a later 
 form of the god Seth. Professor Reuvens refers to an 
 invocation of Typhon-S'eth ; § and Bunsen quotes the 
 statement of Epiphanius that " the Egyptians celebrate 
 the festivals of Typhon under the form of an ass, which 
 they call Seth."| Whatever maybe the explanation of 
 the fact, it is undoubted that, notwithstanding the hatred 
 with which he was afterwards regarded, this god Seth, or 
 Set, was at one time highly venerated in Egypt. Bunsen 
 says that, up to the thirteenth century before Christ, Set 
 " was a great god universally adored throughout Egypt, 
 who confers on the sovereigns of the eighteenth and nine- 
 
 * Numbers xxi. 8, g. , 
 
 \ "Having come to the interior of the desert, the people were exposed to 
 the attacks oi Burning Serpents, as the original text reads, the bite of which 
 caused great pain ; and not a few of the sufferers died, which again produced 
 an immense excitement in the camp. Moses was ordered to resort to the 
 means of the Phoenician Ksculapius, whose symbol, the brass serpent, was 
 erected in the camp, which produced the desired effect." — History of the 
 Israelitish Nation, by Isaac M. Wise, p. I02. 
 
 \ Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, vol. iy., p. 435. § Ditto, p. 434. 
 
 II ^gypt> vol. iii., p. 426. 
 
Ancient Religions. 57 
 
 teenth dynasties the symbols of life and power. The 
 most glorious monarch of the latter dynasty, Sethos, 
 derives his name from this deity." He adds : '' But sub- 
 sequently, in the course of the twentieth dynasty, he is 
 suddenly treated as an evil demon, inasmuch that his 
 effigies and name are obliterated on all the monuments 
 and inscriptions that could be reached." Moreover, ac- 
 cording to this distinguished writer, Seth " appears gradu- 
 ally among the Semites as the background of their relig- 
 ious consciousness ; " and not merely was he " the primi- 
 tive God of Northern Egypt and Palestine," but his 
 genealogy as " the Seth of Genesis, the father of Enoch 
 (the man), must be considered as originally running paral- 
 lel with that derived from the Elohim, Adam's father."* 
 That Seth had some special connection with the Hebrews 
 is proved, among other things, by the peculiar position 
 occupied in their religious system by the ass — the first- 
 born of which alone of all animals was allowed to be 
 redeemed^ — and the red heifer — whose ashes were to be 
 reserved as a " water of separation" for purification from 
 sin. I Both of these animals were in Egypt sacred to Seth 
 (Typhon), the ass being his symbol, and red oxen being 
 at one time sacrificed to him, although at a later date 
 objects of a red color were disliked, owing to their asso- 
 ciation with the dreaded Typhon. § That we have a refer- 
 ence to this deity in the name of the Hebrew lawgiver is 
 very probable. No satisfactory derivation of this name, 
 Moses, Mosheh (Heb.), has yet been given. || Its original 
 form was probably Am-a-ses or Am-ses, which in course 
 of time would become to the Hebrews Om-ses or Mo-ses, 
 meaning only the .(god) Ses, i.e., Set or Seth.^ On this 
 
 * God in History^ vol. i., pp. 233-4. 
 
 f Exodus xxxiv. 20. % Numbers xix. i-io. 
 
 § As to the God Seth, see Pleyte, La Religion des Pre-Israelites (1862). 
 
 II The Sanscrit, Maha vuse, a great sage, seems to be a plausible etymol- 
 ogy. Musa as it is pronounced, is the Arabic name ; and it may have an 
 affinity with the Muses of Thessaly and the ancient sage MusEeus.- — Ed. 
 
 1 According to Pleyte, the Cabalists thought that the soul of Seth had 
 passed into Moses {op. cit., p. 124). It is strange that the name of the 
 
 4 
 
58 Phallism in 
 
 hypothesis, there may have been preserved in the first 
 book of Moses (so-called) some of the traditional wisdom 
 said to have been contained in the sacred books of the 
 Egyptian Thoth, and of the records engraved on the pil- 
 lars of Seth. It is somewhat remarkable that, according 
 to a statement of Diodorus, when Antiochus Epiphanes 
 entered the temple at Jerusalem, he found in the Holy of 
 Holies a stone figure of Moses, represented as a man with 
 a long beard, mounted on an ass, and having a book in 
 his hand.* The Egyptian mythus of Typhon actually 
 said that Seth fled from Egypt riding on a gray ass.f It 
 is strange, to say the least, that Moses should not have 
 been allowed to enter the promised land, and that he 
 should be so seldom referred to by later writers until long 
 after the reign of David,:}: and above all, that the name 
 given to his successor was Joshua, i.e., Saviour. It is 
 wprthy of notice that Nun, the name of the father of 
 Joshua, is the Semitic word for fish, the phallic character 
 of the fish in Chaldean mythology being undoubted. Nin, 
 the planet Saturn, was the fish- god of Berosus, and, as I 
 think can be shown, he is really the same as the Assyrian 
 national deity Asshur, whose name and office bear a 
 curious resemblance to those of the Hebrew leader, 
 jfoshua. 
 
 But what was the character of the primitive Semitic 
 deity ? Bunsen seems to think that Plutarch, in one pas- 
 sage, alludes to the identity of Typhon (Seth) and Osiris. § 
 This is a remarkable idea, and yet curiously enough Sir 
 Gardner Wilkinson says that Typhon-Seth may have been 
 
 Egyptian princess who is said to have brought up Moses is given by Jose- 
 phus as Thermuthis, this being the name of the sacred asp of Egypt (see su- 
 pra). We appear, also, to have a reference to the serpent in the name Levi, 
 one of the sons of Jacob, from whom the descent of Moses was traced. 
 
 * Fragments, Book xxxiv. See, also, in connection with this subject, 
 King's Gnostics, p. 91. 
 
 \ Bunsen's God in History, vol. i., p. 234. 
 
 % Ewald notices this fact. See op. cit., p. 454. See, also, Inman's .<4«- 
 cient Faiths Embodied in Anciint Names, vol. ii., p. 338. 
 
 § Egypt, vol. iii., p. 433. 
 
Ancient Religions. 59 
 
 derived from the pigmy Pthah-Sokari-Osiris,* who was 
 clearly only another form of Osiris himself. However 
 this may be, the phallic origin of Seth can be shown from 
 other data. Thus, it appears that the word Set means, 
 in Hebrew, as well as in Egyptian, pillar, and in a gen- 
 eral sense, the erect, elevated, high.f Moreover, in a 
 passage of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Set is called 
 Tet, a fact which, according to Bunsen, intimates that 
 Thoth inherited many of the attributes of Set.:}: They 
 were, however, in reality the same deities. Set, by 
 change of the initial letter, becomes Tet, one of the names 
 of Thoth, or rather the same name ; as Set agrees with 
 Seth.§ We have in this an explanation of the statement 
 that Tet, the Phoenician Taaut, was the snake-god Es- 
 mun-Esculapius ; | the serpent being the symbol of Tet, 
 as we have seen it to have been that of Seth also. In 
 this we have a means of identifying the Semitic deity 
 Seth, with the Saturn and related deities of other peoples. 
 Ewald says that " the common name for God, Eloah, 
 among the Hebrews, as among all the Semites, goes back 
 into the earliest times." f Bryant goes further, and de- 
 clares that El was originally the name of the supreme 
 deity among all the nations of the East.** This idea is 
 confirmed, so far as Chaldea is concerned, by later re- 
 searches, which show that II or El was at the head of the 
 Babylonian pantheon. With this deity must be identified 
 the II or Ilus of the Phoenicians, who was the same as 
 Cronus, who again was none other than the primeval 
 Saturn, whose worship appears to have been at one 
 period almost universal among European and Asiatic 
 
 * op. cit., vol. iv., p. 434. 
 
 \ Bunsen' s Egypt, vol. iv., p. 208. 
 
 % Ditto, vol. iii., p. 427. 
 
 § As Tet becomes Thoth, so Mo-j«j- becomes in the Hebrew "illo-shesh. 
 
 \ The Brazen Serpent made by Moses, it wiU be remembered, was the- sym- 
 bol of this divinity ; and it was worshipped till the time of King Hezekiah, 
 by whom it was broken in pieces. — Ed. 
 
 t Op. cit., p. 319. 
 
 ** Op. cit., vol. vi., p. 328. 
 
6o Phallism in 
 
 peoples. Saturn and El were thus the same deity, the 
 latter, like the Semitic Seth, being, as is well known, 
 symbolized by the serpent.* A direct point of con- 
 tact between Seth and Saturn is found in the Hebrew 
 idol Kiyim, mentioned by Amos, the planet Saturn 
 being still called Kivan by Eastern peoples. This idol 
 was represented in the form of a pillar, the primeval sym- 
 bol of deity, which was common undoubtedly to all the 
 gods here meirtioned.f These symbolical pillars were 
 called Betyli, or Betulia. Sometimes also the column 
 was called Abaddir, which, strangely enough, Bryant 
 identifies with the serpent-god. f There can be no doubt 
 that both the pillar and the serpent were associated with 
 many of the Sun-Gods of antiquity. 
 
 Notwithstanding what has been said, it is undoubtedly 
 true that all these deities, including the Semitic Seth, 
 became at an early date recognized as Sun-Gods, although 
 in so doing they lost nothing of their primitive character. 
 What this was is sufficiently shown by the significant 
 names and titles they bore. Thus, as we have seen, Set 
 (Seth) itself meant the erect, elevated, high, and his name 
 on the Egyptian monuments was nearly always accom- 
 panied by the representation of a stone. § Kiyun, or 
 Kivan, the name of the deity said by Amos] to have 
 been worshipped in the wilderness by the Hebrews, sig- 
 nifies God of the Pillar. The idea embodied in this title 
 is shown by the name Baal Tamar, which means " Baal 
 as a Pillar," or " Phallus," consequently " the fructifying 
 God." IF The title " erect," when given to a deity, seems 
 always to imply a phallic notion, and hence we have the 
 explanation of the name S. inou, used frequently in the 
 
 * As to the use of this symbol generally, see Pleyte, op. cit., pp. 109, 157. 
 
 f On these points, see M. Raoul-Rochette's memoir on the Assyrian and 
 Phoenician Hercules, in the MSmoires de Plnstitut National de France {Aca- 
 dkmie des Inscriptions), torn, xvii., p. 47 et seq. 
 
 \ Op. cit., vol. i., p. 60; vol. ii., p. 201. 
 
 § Pleyte, op. cit., p. 172. 
 
 I Chap. V. 26. 
 
 Tf Bunsen's ^^jC//, vol. iv., p. 249. 
 

 '/U(>7n/. 
 
 Carru^noiuwU 
 
 THE MUNDANE EGG OVERSHADOWED BY THE SACRED SERPENT OF ETERNITY. 
 COINS 'COMMEMORATXVE OF THE MOON-GOp, 
 
Ancient Religions. 6l 
 
 *<b 
 
 " Book of the Dead," in relation to Thoth, or to Set. 
 There is doubtless a reference of the same kind in the 
 Phoenician myth that " Melekh taught men the special 
 art of erecting solid walls and buildings ; " although Bun- 
 sen finds in this myth " the symbolical mode of expressing 
 the value of the use of fire in building houses."* That 
 these myths embody a phallic notion may be confirmed 
 by reference to the Phoenician Kabiri. According to 
 Bunsen, " the Kabiri and the divinities identified with 
 him are explained by the Greeks, and Romans as 'the 
 strong,' ' the great ; ' " while in the book of Job, kabbir, 
 the strong, is used as an epithet of God. Again, Sydyk, 
 the father of the Kabiri, is " the Just, or in a more original 
 sense, the Upright," and this deity^ with his sons, corre- 
 spond to the Phoenician Pataikoi, and to Ptah, their 
 father. Ptah, however, appears to be derived from a 
 root, rtns, which signifies in Hebrew, " to open," and 
 Sydyk himself, therefore, may, says Bunsen, be described 
 as " the opener" of the Cosmic Egg.f The phallic mean- 
 ing of this title is evident from its- application to Esmun- 
 Esculapius (the son of Sydyk) who, as the Snake-God, 
 was identical with Tet, the Egyptian Thoth-Hermes. 
 
 The peculiar titles given to these pillar-deities, and their 
 association with the sun, led to their original phallic char- 
 acter being somewhat overlooked, and, instead of being 
 the Father-Gods of human kind, they became Powerful 
 Gods, Lords of Heaven. This was not the special attribute 
 taken by other sun-gods. I have already stated that 
 Hermes, and his related deities, were " gods of the coun- 
 try," personifying the idea of general natural fecundity. 
 Among the chief gods of this description were the Phoe- 
 nician Sabazius, the Greek Bacchus-Dionysos, the Roman 
 Priapus, and the Egyptian Khem. All these deities agree 
 also in being sun-gods, and as such they were symbol- 
 ized by animals which were noted either for their fecun- 
 dity or for their salaciousness. The chief animals thus 
 
 * Egypt, p. 217. 
 
 f See ditto, pp. 226-99. 
 
62 Phallism in 
 
 chosen were the bull and the goat (with which the ram 
 was afterward confounded*), and this doubtless because 
 they were already sacred. The sun appears to have been 
 preceded by the moon, as an object of worship, but the 
 Moon-God was probably only representative of the 
 primeval Saturn, f who finally became the Suh-God El or 
 // of the Syrians and the Semites, and the Ra of the Baby- 
 lonians. The latter was also the title of the Sun-God of 
 Egypt, who was symbolized by the obelisk, and who, al- 
 though his name was added to that of other Egyptian Gods, 
 appears to have been the tutelary deity of the stranger-kings 
 of the 1 8th dynasty, whom Pleyte,f however, declares to 
 have been Set (Sutech).§ We are reminded here of the op- 
 position of Seth and Osiris, which I have already explained 
 as arising from the fact that these deities originally repre- 
 sented two different ideas — human fecundity and ^& fruit- 
 fulness of nature. When, however, both of these prin- 
 ciples became associated with the solar body, they were 
 expressed by the same symbols, and the distinction be- 
 tween them was in great measure lost sight of. A certain 
 difference was, nevertheless, still observable in the attri- 
 butes of the deities, depending on the peculiar properties 
 and associations of their solar representatives. Thus the 
 powerful deity of Phoenicia was naturally associated with 
 the strong, scorching summer-sun, whose heat was the 
 most prominent attribute. In countries such as Egypt, 
 where the sun, acting on the moist soil left by inunda- 
 tions, 'caused the earth to spring into renewed life, the 
 mild but energetic early sun was the chief deity. 
 
 * It has been suggested that the ram was introduced as an astrological 
 symbol. By the precession of the equinoxes, the sign Aries became the em- 
 blem of the Sun, as the genitor of the new year, and so a proper effigy 
 of the Deity. The appearance of the lamb or ram would, of course, create 
 confusion and misapprehension, as well as controversy among those who did 
 not understand astronomy. — Ed, 
 
 \ Rawlinson's History of Herodotus, Book i. ; appendix, essay x. 
 
 % Ditto, ii. ; appendix, viii. 23. 
 
 § Op. cit., p. 89 et seq. 
 
Ancient Religions. 63 
 
 THE SUN-GODS OF ANTIQUITY. 
 
 When considering the sacred bull of antiquity, the sym- 
 bol of the fecundating force in nature, I referred to Osiris, 
 the national sun-god of the Egyptians, as distinguished 
 from the Semitic Seth (Set), who was identified with the 
 detested Shepherd race. The association of Osiris with 
 Khem shows his phallic character,* and, in fact, Plutarch 
 asserts that he was everywhere represented with the 
 phallus exposed, f The phallic idea enters, moreover, 
 into the character of all the chief Egyptian deities. Bun- 
 sen says: "The mythological system obviously pro- 
 ceeded from ' the concealed god,' Ammon, to the creating 
 god. The latter appears first of all as the generative 
 power of nature in the phallic god Khem, who is after- 
 wards merged in Ammon-ra. Then sprung up the idea 
 of the creative power in Kneph. He forms the divine 
 limbs of Osiris (the primeval Soul) in contradiction to 
 Ptah, who, as the strictly demiurgic principle, forms the 
 visible world. Neith is the creative principle, as nature 
 represented under a feminine form. Finally, her son Ra, 
 Helios, appears as the last of the series, in the character of 
 father and nourisher of terrestrial things. It is he whom an 
 ancient monument represents as the demiurgic principle, 
 creating the mundane egg." % The name of Ammon has 
 led to the notion that he was the embodiment of the idea 
 of wisdom. He certainly was distinguished by having the 
 human form, but his hieroglyphical symbol of the obelisk, 
 and his connection with Khem, show his true nature. 
 He undoubtedly represented the primitive idea of a gener- 
 ative god, probably at a time when this notion of fecun- 
 dity had not yet been extended to nature as distinguished 
 from man, and thus he would form a point of contact be- 
 tween the later Egyptian sun-gods and the pillar-gods of the 
 
 * Wilkinson, op. cit., vol. iv., pp. 342, 260. 
 \ Bunsen's Egypt, vol. i. , p. 423. 
 X op. cit., vol. i., p. 388. 
 
Ancient Religions. 6$ 
 
 Brahmans were the possessors of the highest wisdom, as 
 children of the sun, and whose Apollo and Athene were 
 noble embodiments of this attribute. The Chaldean gods 
 Hea and Nelio were undoubtedly symbolized by the 
 wedge or arrow-head, which had especial reference to 
 learning. In reality, however, this symbol merely shows 
 that they were the patrons of letters or writing, and not 
 of " wisdom," in its purely intellectual aspect. If the 
 form of the Assyrian alphabetical character was of phallic 
 origin,* we have here the source of the idea of a connec- 
 tion between physical and mental knowledge embodied in 
 the legend of the " fall." In the Persian Ahurd-Mazdao 
 (the Wise Spirit) we have the purest representation of in- 
 tellectual wisdom. The book of Zoroaster, the Avesta, is 
 literally the " Word " — the word or wisdom which was re- 
 vealed in creation, and embodied in the divine Mithra, 
 who was himself the luminous sun-god. 
 
 LESLEY'S "ARKITE SYMBOLISM." 
 
 I have already referred to the similarity between the 
 symbols of the sun-gods of antiquity and the natural ob- 
 jects introduced into the Mosaic myth of the fall ; and it 
 is necessary now to consider shortly what influence the 
 phallic principle there embodied had over other portions 
 of Hebraic theology. The inquiries of Dr. Faber have 
 thrown great light on this question, although the expla- 
 nation given by him of the myth of Osiris and of the 
 kindred myths of antiquity is by no means the correct .one. 
 Finding an universal prevalence of phallic ideas and sym- 
 bolism, Dr. Faber refers it to the degradation of a primi- 
 tive revelation of the Great Father of the Universe. The 
 truth thus taught was lost sight of, and was replaced by 
 the dual notion of a great father and a great mother — 
 "the transmigrating Noah and the mundane Ark" of 
 
 * The importance ascribed to the mechanical arts may, perhaps, lead us to 
 look for the formal origin of this character in the "wedge," which was the 
 chief mechanical power the ancients possessed. 
 
66 Phallism in 
 
 the universal deluge. Noah was, however, only a re-ap- 
 pearance of Adam, and the Ark floating on the waters of 
 the deluge was an analogue of the earth swimming in the 
 ocean of space.* There is undoubtedly a parallelism be- 
 tween the Adam and Noah of the Hebrew legends, as 
 there is between the analogous personages of the other 
 phases of these legends ; yet it is evident that, if the de- 
 luge never happened, a totally different origin from the 
 one supposed by Dr. Faber must be assigned to the great 
 phallic myth of antiquity. It is absolutely necessary, 
 therefore, to any explanation (other than the phallic one) 
 of the origin of this myth, to establish the truth of the 
 Noachic deluge. f Accordingly, a late American writer 
 has formed an elaborate system of " Arkite Symbolism," 
 founded on the supposed influence of the great deluge 
 over the minds of the posterity of those who survived its 
 horrors. Mr. Lesley sees in this catastrophe the explana- 
 tion of "phallism," which, "converting all the older 
 Arkite symbols into illustrations of its own philosophical 
 conceptions of the mystery of generation, gave to the 
 various parts and members of the human body those 
 names which constitute the special vocabulary of ob- 
 scenity of the present day.":}: 
 
 But the priority of these symbols or conceptions is the 
 question at issue. Did the development of " arkism " 
 precede or follow the superstitions referred to by Mr. Les- 
 ley as Ophism, Mithraism, and Phallism, all of which I 
 have shown to embody analogous ideas ? If the question 
 of priority is to be determined by reference to the written 
 tradition which furnishes the real ground of belief in a 
 great deluge, it must clearly be given to the phallic super- 
 stition ; for I have shown, conclusively as I think, that 
 almost the first event in the life of man there narrated is 
 
 * Faber, op. cit., vol. ii., p. 20. 
 
 f Bryant, in his Ancient Mythilogy, has brought together a great mass of 
 materials bearing on this question. The facts, however, are capable of quite 
 a different interpretation from that which he has given to them. 
 
 X Man's Origin and Destiny, p. 339. 
 
Ancient Religions. 6j 
 
 purely phallic in its symbolism. Nor is the account of 
 the fall the only portion of the Mosaic history of primitive 
 man which belongs to this . category. The Garden of 
 Eden, with its tree of life, and the river which divided 
 into four streams, although it may have had a secondary 
 reference to the traditional place of Semitic origin to 
 which the Hebrews looked back with regretful longing, 
 has undoubtedly a recondite phallic meaning. It must 
 be so if the explanation I have given of the myth of the 
 fall be correct, since the two are intimately connected, 
 and the garden * is essential to the succeeding catastro- 
 phe, f 
 
 The priority of the phallic superstition over " arkism," 
 is proved, moreover, by the undoubted fact that, even in 
 the traditions of the race to whom we are indebted for the 
 precise details of the incidents accompanying the deluge, 
 the phallic deities of the Hamitico-Semites are genealogi- 
 cally placed long before the occurrence of this event. 
 The Semitic deity Seth is, according to one table, the 
 semi-divine first ancestor of the Semites. Bunsen has 
 shown clearly, also, that several of the antediluvian descen- 
 dants of the Semitic Adam were among the Phoenician 
 deities. Thus, the Carthaginians had a god Yubal, Ju- 
 bal, who would appear to have been the sun-god ^scu- 
 lapius, called " the fairest of the gods ; " and so also " we 
 read in a Phoenician inscription Ju-Baal, i.e., beauty of 
 Baal, which Movers ingeniously interprets .(Esculapius- 
 Asmun-Jubal." Here, then, adds Bunsen, " is another 
 old Semitic name attached to a descendant of Lamekh, 
 together with Adah, Zillah, and Naamah.";]; Hadah, 
 the wife of Lamekh as well as of Esau, the Phoenician 
 Usov, is identified with the goddess worshipped at Baby- 
 
 * Compare this -with the figurative description of the garden of delights of 
 " The Song of Songs." 
 
 f The Hebrew term p GN, or garden, appears to be closely related to the 
 Greek word 71/1/7), gune, or woman. Indeed, in the ancient languages the 
 former is used as a metaphor for the latter. See Inman's Ancient Faiths 
 Embodied in Ancient Names, vol. i., p. 52; vol. ii., p. 553. 
 
 % Egypt, vol. iv., p. 257. 
 
68 PhalUsm in 
 
 Ion as Hera (Juno), and, notwithstanding Sir Gardner 
 Wilkinson's dictum to the contrary, her names, Hera;, 
 Hadah, point to the connection with the Egyptian Her 
 Her, or Hathor, who was the daughter of Seb and Netpe, 
 as Hera was the daughter of Cronus and Rhea. The 
 name of the god Kiyun, or Kivan, who was worshipped 
 by the Hebrews, and who in Syria was said to devour 
 children, is connected with the root kun, to erect, and 
 therefore doubtless with the antediluvian Kain or Kevan. 
 Kon, derived from the same root, was, according to Bun- 
 sen, a Phoenician designation of Saturn.* Even the 
 great Carthaginian god Melekh, who was also held in 
 universal honor throughout all Phoenicia, appears, al- 
 though Bunsen does not thus identify him, to be no other 
 than Lamekh, the father of Noah, f Ewald, indeed, says 
 that both Lamekh and Enoch were gods or demi-gods, 
 and that Methuselah was a sort of Mars, while Mahahal-el 
 was a god of light, and Jareda a god of the lowland or of 
 the water. I 
 
 The priority of the phallic superstition over Arkism, 
 or rather the existence of that superstition before the for- 
 mation of the deluge-legend, is proved, moreover, by 
 the agreement of this legend with the myth of Osiris and 
 Isis in its primitive form, while Typhon (Seth) was hon- 
 ored by the Egyptians as a great god.§ Bunsen fixes 
 the origin of this myth in its amended form so late as the 
 thirteenth or fourteenth century B.c.|| In the face of 
 this agreement we can only suppose the myth and the 
 deluge-legend to have had the same basis — a basis which, 
 from the very circumstances of the case, must be purely 
 "phallic." This explanation is the only one which is 
 
 * Egypt, p. 209. 
 
 \ This notion furnishes an easy explanation, founded on the human sacri- 
 fices to the Phoenician deity, of the curious verse in Genesis as to the avenging 
 of Lamekh. [Tlie Lamekh here referred to was not father of Noah. Com- 
 pare Genesis iv. 18-24, with v. 25-29.] 
 
 X Op. cit., vol. i., pp. 266-7. 
 
 § For explanation of this myth, see Bunsen's Egypt, vol. iii., p. 437. 
 
 i Ditto, p. 413. 
 
Ancient Religions. 69 
 
 consistent with a peculiarity in the Hebrew legend, which 
 is an insurmountable objection to its reception as the 
 expression of a literal fact. We are told by the Mosaic 
 narrative that Jehovah directed Noah to take with him 
 into the Ark " of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after 
 their .kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his 
 kind, two of every sort." Now, according to the ordi- 
 nary acceptation of the legend, this passage expresses a 
 simple absurdity, even on the hypothesis of a partial 
 deluge. If, however, we read the narrative in a phallic 
 sense, and by the Ark understand the sacred argha of 
 Hindu mythology, the Yoni of Parvati, which, like the 
 moon in Zoroastrian teaching, carries in itself the germs 
 of all things, we see the full propriety of what otherwise 
 is incomprehensible. As ev apyjr), \en arche\ the Elohim 
 created the heavens and the earth, so in the Ark were 
 the seeds of all things preserved that they might again 
 cover the earth. Taken in this 'sense, we see the reason 
 of the curious analogy which exists in various points be- 
 tween the Hebrew legends of the creation and of the 
 deluge ; this analogy being one of the grounds on which 
 the hypothesis of the Great Father as the central idea of 
 all mythologies has been based. Thus, the primeval ship, 
 the navigation of which is ascribed to the mythological 
 being, is not the ark of Noah or Osiris, or the vessel of 
 the Phoenician Kabiri. It was the moon, the ship of the 
 sun, in which his seed is supposed to be hidden until it 
 bursts forth in new life and power. The fact that the 
 moon was in early mythologies a male deity almost neces- 
 sitates, however, that there should have been another 
 origin for the sacred vessel of Osiris. This we have in 
 the Yis.storQth-karnaim, the cow-goddess, whose horns 
 represent the lunar ark, and who, without doubt, was a 
 more primitive deity than the moon-goddess herself.* 
 The most primitive type of all, however, is that of the 
 
 * Want of space prevents me from tracing the developments vifhich the 
 primeval goddess of fecundity underwent j but to the idea embodied in her 
 may be traced nearly all the female deities of antiquity. 
 
"JO Phallism in 
 
 argha ox yoni of the Indian Iswara, which, from its name, 
 was supposed to have been turned into a dove.* Thus, 
 in Noah and the Ark, as in Osiris and the Moon, we see 
 simply the combination of the male and female elements, 
 as they are still represented in the Hindu lingam. The 
 introduction of the dove into the myth is a curious con- 
 firmation of this view. For, this bird, which, as " the 
 emblem of love and fruitfulness," was "consecrated to 
 Venus under all her different names at Babylon, in Syria, 
 Palestine, and Greecef which was the national banner- 
 sign of the Assyrians, as of the earlier Scythic empire, 
 whose founders, according to Hindu tradition, took the 
 name of lonim or Yoniyas, and which attended on Janus, 
 a diluvian " God of opening and shutting," was simply a 
 type of " the Yoni or Jonah,:]: or navicular feminine prin- 
 ciple," which was said to have assumed the form of a 
 ship and a dove.§ 
 
 PHALLISM IN THE MODERN RELIGIONS. 
 
 In bringing this paper to a close, I would refer shortly 
 to what may be called the modern religions — Brahminism, 
 Buddhism, and Christianity — seeing that these still exist 
 as the faiths of great peoples. As to the first of these, it, 
 may be thought that its real character cannot be ascer- 
 tained from the present condition of Hindu belief. It is 
 said that the religion of the Vedas is very different from 
 that of the Puranas, which have taken their place. It 
 should be remembered, however, that these books profess 
 to reproduce old doctrine, the word " Purana" itself 
 meaning old, and that Puranas are referred to in one of 
 
 * Faber, oJ> cit., vol. ii., p. 246. 
 
 \ Kenrick's Ph(enicia, p. 307. 
 
 \ The story of Jonah, the ,1^1% dove or symbol of femininity, going to 
 Joppa, a seaport v?here Dag-on the fish-god was worshipped, and having 
 entered n. ship is swallowed by a Ceto or great fish, betrays a suspicious rela- 
 tionship to the same cultus. The fish was revered at Joppa as the dove was 
 at Nineveh. Was there an esoteric meaning? — Ed. 
 
 § Faber's of. cit., and Bryant's Ancient Mythology, ii., pp. 317 et seq. 
 
Ancient Religions, Jl 
 
 the Upanishads, while the Tantras, which contain the 
 principles of the Sacti Puja, and which are, as yet, almost 
 unknown to Europeans, are considered by the Brahmans to 
 be more ancient than the Puranas themselves.* The origin 
 of the ideas contained in these books is a difficult question. 
 The germs of both Vishnu-worship and Siva-worship ap- 
 pear to be found in the Vedas,-}- and are undoubtedly re- 
 ferred to by the Mahabharata.:]; I am inclined to think 
 with Mr. Fergusson and other late writers that they are 
 only indirectly sprung from the primitive Hinduism. The 
 similarity between Sivaism and the Santal worship of the 
 Great Mountain, pointed out by Mr. Hunter, is very re- 
 markable, and this analogy is strengthened by intermix- 
 ture in both cases with river- worship, § There is no 
 doubt that the Great Mountain is simply a name for the 
 phallic emblem, which is the chief form under which Siva 
 is represented in the numerous temples at Benares dedi- 
 cated to his honor. 
 
 SERPENT-WORSHIP A VISHNAVIC CUSTOM. 
 
 Considering the position occupied by the serpent as a 
 symbol of life, and, indirectly, of the male power, we 
 should expect to find its worship connected to some ex- 
 tent with that of Siva. Mr. Fergusson, however, declares 
 that it is not so ; and, although this statement requires 
 some qualification,! yet it is certain that the serpent is 
 
 * On this question, see the Memoirs of the Anthropological Society of 
 London, vol. ii., p. 265 ; also " Sketch of the Religious Sects of the Hindus," 
 in the Asiatic Researches, vol. xvii. (1832), 216 et seq. 
 
 f This question is fully considered by Dr. Muir, in his Sanskrit Texts, part 
 iv., p. 54 et seq. 
 
 % Ditto, pp. 161, 343. 
 
 § Rural Bengal, pp. 152, 187 et seq. This association of the mountain 
 and the river is found also in the Persian Khordah-Avesta. See (5) Abun- 
 Yasht, V. 1-3. 
 
 II See Tree and Serpent Worship, p. 70 ; also Sherring's Benares, pp. 75, 
 89. Here the serpent is evidently symbolical of life. In the Mahabharata, 
 Mahadeva is described as having " a girdle of serpents, ear-rings of serpents, 
 a sacrificial cord of serpents, and an outer garment of serpent's skin." (Dr. 
 Muir, op. cit., part iv., p. 160.) 
 
73 Phallism in 
 
 also intimately associated with Vishnu. In explanation 
 of this fact, Mr. Fergusson remarks : " The Vaishnava 
 religion is derived from a group of faiths in which the ser- 
 pent always played an important part. The eldest branch 
 of the family was the Naga worship, pure and simple ; 
 out of that arose Buddhism, . . . and on its decline two 
 faiths — at first very similar to one another — rose from its 
 ashes, the Jaina and the Vaishnava." The serpent is 
 almost always found in Jaina temples as an object of wor- 
 ship, while it appears everywhere in Vaishnava tradition.* 
 But elsewhere Mr. Fergusson tells us that, although Bud- 
 dhism owed its establishment to Naga tribes, yet its sup- 
 porters repressed the worship of the serpent, elevating 
 tree-worship in its place, f 
 
 It is difficult to understand how the Vaishnavas, who 
 are worshippers of the female power, :]; and who hate t;he 
 lingam, can yet so highly esteem the serpent, which has, 
 indirectly at least, reference to the male principle. Per- 
 haps, however, we may find an explanation in Mr. Fer- 
 gusson's own remarks as to the character and development 
 of Buddhism. According to him. Buddhism was chiefly 
 influential among Naga tribes, and "was little more than 
 a revival of the coarser superstitions of the aboriginal 
 races, § purified and refined by the application of Aryan 
 morality, and elevated by doctrines borrowed from the in- 
 tellectual superiority of the Aryan races." || As to its de- 
 
 * op. cit., p. 70. 
 
 f Ditto, p. 62. 
 
 X Mr. Sellon, in the Memoirs of the Anthropological Society of London, 
 vol. ii., p. 273. 
 
 § It should not be forgotten that the Vedic religion was not that of all the 
 Aryan tribes of India. (See Muir, op. cit., part ii., p. 377, 368-383) ; and 
 it is by no means improbable that some of them retained a more primitive 
 faith, Buddhism or Rudraism ; i.e., Sivaism. See also Baldvnn's Prehistoric 
 Nations. 
 
 II Op. cit., p. 62. To come to a proper conclusion on this important point, 
 it is necessary to consider the real position occupied by Gautama in relation to 
 Brahminism. Burnouf says that he differed from his adversaries only in the 
 definition he gives of Salvation (du salut). {Introduction d rHistoire du 
 Buddhisme Indien, p. 155.) 
 
riS'i' 
 
 THE SACRED LOTdS-I'LOWliR. 
 
 NYMPHj(eA NELUMBO. 
 
 THE FEMALE SVMBOI, IN EGYPT, INDIA, AND EASTERN ASIA. 
 
Ancient Religions. 73 
 
 velopment, the sculptures on the Sanchi Topes show that 
 at about the beginning of the Christian era, ahhough the 
 dagoba, the chakra, or wheel, the tree, and other emblems, 
 were worshipped, the serpent hardly appears ; while, at 
 Amravati, three centuries later, this animal had become 
 equal in importance to Buddha himself.* Moreover, 
 there can be no doubt that the lingam was an emblem of 
 Buddha, as was also the lotus, which represents the same 
 idea — ^the conjunction of the male and female elements, 
 although in a higher sense perfect wisdom. f The asso- 
 ciation of the same ideas is seen in the noted prayer, Om 
 mani padmi hum (" Om, the Jewel in the Lotus "), which 
 refers to the birth of Padmipani from the sacred lotus- 
 flower,:]; but also, there can be little doubt, to the phallus 
 and the yoni. We may suppose, therefore, that, whatever 
 the moral doctrine taught by Gautama, he used the old 
 phallic symbols, § although, it may be, with a peculiar ap- 
 plication. If the opinion expressed by Mr. Fergusson, 
 as to the introduction into India of the Vaishnava faith 
 by an early immigrant race, be correct, it must have 
 existed in the time of Gautama ; and, indeed, the lonism 
 of Western Asia is traditionally connected with India it- 
 self at a very early date,|| although probably the early 
 centre of Ion-ism, the worship of the Dove, or Yoni, was, 
 as Bryant supposes, in Chaldea.^ We see no trace, how- 
 ever, in Buddhism proper of Sacti Puja, and I would sug- 
 gest that, instead of abolishing either, Gautama substi- 
 tuted for the separate symbols of the linga and the yoni, the 
 association of the two in the lingam. If this were so, we 
 can well understand how, on the fall of Buddhism, Siva- 
 worship** may have retained this compound symbol, with 
 
 * Fergusson, op. cit., pp. 67, 222, 223. 
 f See Guigniaut, op. cit., vol. i., pp. 293, 160 note. 
 X Schlagenweit, Buddhism in Thibet, p. 120. 
 
 § These are figured in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. xviii. 
 II Higgins's.(4«a(ro/j/^m, vol. i., p. 332 et seq. See also p. 342 et seq. 
 TT Op. cit., vol. iii., p. i et seq., 25. 
 
 ** Mr. Hunter points out a connection between Sivaism and Buddhism. 
 Op. cit., p. 194. 
 
 5 
 
74 Phallism in 
 
 many of the old Naga ideas, although with little actual 
 reference to the serpent itself other than as a symbol of 
 life and power ; while, on the other hand, the Vaishnavas 
 may have reverted to the primitive worship of the female 
 principle, retaining a remembrance of the early serpent 
 associations in the use of the sesha, the heavenly Naga 
 with seven heads,* figured on the Amravati sculptures. 
 It is possible, however, that there may be another ground 
 of opposition between the followers of .Yishnu.and Siva. 
 Mr. Fergusson points out that, notwithstanding the pecu- 
 liarly phallic symbolism of the latter deity, " the worship 
 of Siva is too severe, too stern, for the softer emotions of 
 love, and all his temples are quite free from any allusion 
 to it." It is far different with the Vaishnavas, whose 
 temples " are full of sexual feelings, generally expressed 
 in the grossest terms." \ 
 
 Siva, in fact, is especially a god of intellect, typified by 
 his being three-eyed, and, although terrible as the resist- 
 less destroyer, yet the re-creator of all things in perfect wis- 
 dom ; % while Vishnu has relation rather to the lower type 
 of wisdom which was distinctive of the Assyrians among 
 ancient peoples, and which has so curious a connection 
 with the female principle. Hence the shell, or conch, is 
 peculiar to Vishnu, while the linga belongs to Siva.§ Gau- 
 tama combined the simpler feminine phase of religion 
 with the more masculine intellectual type, symbolizing 
 this union by the lingam and other analogous emblems. 
 The followers of Siva have, however, adopted the com- 
 bined symbol in the place of the linga alone, thus ap- 
 
 * See Mr. Fergusson, op. cit., p. 70. The serpent is connected with Vish- 
 nuism as a symbol of wisdom rather than of life. 
 
 f Op. cit., p. 71. 
 
 X Hence Siva, as Sambhu, is the patron deity of the Brahmanic order ; 
 and the most intellectual Hindus of the present day are to be found among 
 his followers. (See Wilson, »/. «V. , p. 171. ShoTrm^s Sacred City of the 
 Hindus, p. 146 et seq. ) 
 
 § The biell of Siva has reference to strength and speed rather than to fe- 
 cundity ; while the Rig- Veda refers to Vishnu as the framer of the womb, al- 
 though elsewhere he is described as ihs fecundator. (See Muir, op. cit., part 
 iv., pp. 244, 292, also pp. 64, 83.) 
 
Ancient Religions. 75 
 
 preaching more nearly than the Vaishnavas to the idea 
 of the founder of modern Buddhism. Gautama himself, 
 nevertheless, was most probably only the restorer of an 
 older faith, according to which perfect wisdom was to be 
 found only in the typical combination of the male and fe- 
 male principles in nature. The real explanation of the 
 connection between Buddhism and Sivaism has perhaps, 
 however, yet to be given.* The worship of the serpent- 
 god is not unknown, even at the present day, in the very 
 stronghold of Sivaism, f reminding us of the early spread 
 of Buddhism among Naga tribes. In the " crescent sur- 
 mounted by a pinnacle, similar to the pointed end of a 
 spear," which decorates the roofs of the Tibetan monas- 
 teries,:]; we, undoubtedly, have a reproduction of the so- 
 called trident of Siva. This instrument is given also to 
 Sani, the Hindu Saturn, who is represented as encompas- 
 sed by two serpents, § and hence we may well suppose the 
 pillar-symbol of this primeval deity to be reproduced in 
 the linga of the Indian phaUic god.|| 
 
 But the pillar-symbol is not wanting to Buddhism it- 
 self The columns said to have been raised by Asoka have 
 a reference to the inscribed pillars of Seth. The remains 
 of an ancient pillar, supposed to be a Buddhist Lat, is still 
 to be seen at Benares ;'^ the word Z«^ being merely another 
 form of the name Tet, Set, or Sat, given to the Phoenician 
 or Semitic deity. In the central pillar of the so-called Dru- 
 idical circles, we have, doubtless, a reference to the same 
 primitive superstition, the idea intended to be represented 
 being the combination of the male and female principles.** 
 
 * This question has been considered by Bumouf, op. cit., p. 547 et seq. 
 But see also Hodgson' s Buddhism in Nepaul, and Paper in the Journal of 
 the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 18 (i86o), p. 395 et seq. , 
 
 f See Sherring, op. cit. , p. 89. 
 
 X Schlagenweit, op. cit., p. 181. 
 
 § Maurice's Indian Antiquities, vol. vii. , p. 566. 
 
 II As to the identity of Siva and Saturn, see Guigniaut, op. cit. , vol. i. , p. 
 167 note. Kivan, a name of Saturn, is really the same word as Siva. 
 
 1 Sherring, op. cit. , p. 305 et seq. 
 
 *"" It should be noted that many af the so-called "circles" are in reality 
 elliptical. 
 
76 Phallism in 
 
 PHALLISM IN THE CHRISTIAN SYMBOLS. 
 
 In conclusion, it must be said that Christianity itself is 
 certainly not without the phallic element. Reference may 
 be made to the important place taken in Christian dogma 
 by the " fall " — which I have shown to have had a purely 
 "phallic" foundation — and to the peculiar position as- 
 signed to Mary, as the Virgin Mother of God.* It must 
 not be forgotten, however, that, whatever may have been 
 the primitive idea on which these dogmas are based, it had 
 received a totally fresh aspect, at the hands of those from 
 whom the founders of Christianity received it. f As to sym- 
 bols, too, these were employed by the Christians in the later 
 signification given to them by the followers of the ancient 
 faiths. Thus, the fish- and the cross-symbols originally 
 embodied the idea of generation, but afterwards that of 
 life, and it was in this sense that they were applied to 
 Christ.:]: The most evidently phallic representation used 
 by the Christian iconographers is undoubtedly the aureole 
 or vessica. This was generally elliptical in form, and con- 
 tained the figure of Christ ; Mary herself, however, being 
 sometimes represented in the aureole, glorified as Jesus 
 Christ. § Probably the nimbus, also, is of phallic signifi- 
 cance ; for, altho'ugh generally circular, it was sometimes 
 triangular, square, etc.|| The name of Jehovah is in- 
 scribed within a radiating triangle.^ pidron gives a 
 representation of St. John the Evangelist with a circular 
 nimbus, surmounted by two sunflowers, emblems of the 
 sun, an idea which, says Didron, " reminds us of the 
 Egyptian figures, from the heads of which two lotus- 
 
 * On this subject, see IXig'^^^ Ancualypsis, vol. i., p. 315 et seq. 
 
 f We must look to the esoteric teaching of Mithraism for the origin and 
 explanation of much of primitive Christian dogma. 
 
 \ The serpent elevated in the Wilderness is said to be typical of Christ. 
 (John iii. 14, 15). A Gnostic sect taught that Christ was Seth. 
 
 § Didron's Christian Iconography (Bohn), pp. 272, 286. 
 
 11 It is a curious fact tliat Buddhist deities are often represented in the 
 Vtssica and with the nimbus.' (See Hodgson's figures, plates v. and vi. in the 
 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 18.) 
 
 1[ Didron, pp. 27, 231. 
 
Ancient Religions. 77 
 
 flowers rise in a similar manner."* There is. also a curi- 
 ous representation, in this work, of the divine hand, with 
 the thumb and two forefingers outstretched, resting on a 
 cruciform nimbus (p. 215). In Egypt, the hand having 
 the fingers thus placed was a symbol of Isis, and from its 
 accompaniments, there can be little doubt, notwithstand- 
 ing the mesmeric character ascribed to it by Ennemoser,-}- 
 that it had an essentially phallic origin, although it may 
 ultimately have been used to signify life. 
 
 There can be no question, however, that, whatever may 
 be thought of its symbols,:]: the fundamental basis of Chris- 
 
 * Didron, p. 29. 
 
 f History of Magic (Bohn), vol. i., p. 253etseq. 
 
 \ The "Black Virgins" of the French cathedrals prove, when exammed 
 critically, to be basalt figures of the goddess Isis. The Virgin Mary succeeded 
 to her form, titles, symbols, rites, and ceremonies. Thus the devotees of Isis 
 carried into the new priesthood the former badges of their profession, the ob- 
 ligation to celibacy, the tonsure, and the surplice. The sacred image still 
 moves in procession as when Juvenal laughed at it — vi. 530 — " grcge linigero 
 circumdatus etgrege calvo" — ^escorted by the tonsured, surpliced train. Her 
 proper title, Domina, the exact translation of the Sanscrit Isi, survives, with 
 a slight change in the modern Madonna. By a singular permutation, the 
 flower borne by each, the lotus, ancient emblem of fecundity, now renamed 
 the lily, is interpreted as significant of the opposite quality. The tinkling sis- 
 trum, a sound so well pleasing to the Egyptian goddess, is replaced by that 
 most hideous of noises, the clattering bell. The latter instrument, however, 
 came directly from the Buddhist religious usages, where it forms as essential an 
 element as of yore in early Celtic Christianity, when the holy bell was the 
 actual type of the Godhead to the new converts. The bell in its present form 
 was unknown to the ancients ; its normal shape is Indian, and the first real 
 bell-founders were the Buddhist Chinese. Again, relic-worship seems from the 
 third century to have been virtually the present form of Christianity in the 
 East. A fragment of the bone of a Buddha is indispensable in the founding 
 of a temple of that faith. 
 
 It is astonishing how much of the Egyptian and the second-hand Indian 
 symbolism passed over into the usages of the follovring times. The high cap 
 and hooked staff of the god became the bishop's mitre and crosier ; the term 
 nan is purely Egyptian, and bore its present meaning ; the erect oval, symbol 
 of the Female Principle of Nature, became the Vesica Piscis, and a frame for 
 divine things ; the Crux Ansata, testifying the union of the Male and Female 
 Principle in the most obvious manner, and denoting fecundity and abundance, 
 is transformed, by a simple inversion, into the Orb surmounted by the Cross, 
 and the ensign of royalty. ( Gnostics and their Remains, by C. W. King, 
 pp. 71, 72.) 
 
78 Phallism in Ancient Religions. 
 
 tianity is more purely " phallic" than that of any other 
 religion now existing. I have referred to the presence in 
 Hebraic theology of an idea of God — that of a Father — 
 antagonistic to the Phoenician notion of the " Lord of 
 Heaven." We have the same idea repeated in Christ's 
 teaching, its distinctive characteristic being the recognition 
 of God as the Universal Father, the Great Parent of Man- 
 kind, who had sent His son into the vVorld that he might 
 reconcile it unto Himself It is in the character of a for- 
 giving parent that Christians are taught to view God, when 
 He is not lost sight of in the presence of Christ. The 
 emotional nature of Christian faith, indeed, shows how 
 intimately it was related to the older faiths which had a 
 phallic basis. In Christianity, we see the final expression 
 of the primitive worship of the father as the head of the 
 family, the generator, as the result of an instinctive rea- 
 soning process leading up from the particular to the uni- 
 versal, with which, however, the dogma of the " fall " and 
 its consequences — deduced so strangely from a phallic le- 
 gend — have been incorporated. The " phallic " is, indeed, 
 the only foundation on which an emotional religion can be 
 based. As a religion of the emotions, therefore, the po- 
 sition of Christianity is perfectly unassailable. As a sys- 
 tem of rational faith, however, it is far different ; and the 
 tendency of the present age is just the reverse of that 
 which took place among the Hebrews— the substitution of 
 a Heavenly King for a Divine Father. In fact, modern 
 science is doing its best to effect for primitive fetishism, 
 or demon-worship, what Christianity has done for phallic 
 worship — generalize the powers of nature and make of 
 God a Great Unknowable Being, who, like the Elo- 
 him of the Mosaic cosmogony, in some mysterious man- 
 ner, causes all things to appear at a word. This cannot 
 be, however, the real religion of the future. If God is to 
 be worshipped at all, the Heavenly King and Divine 
 Father njust be combined in a single term ; and he must 
 be viewed, not as the unknowable cause of being, but as 
 the Great Source of all being, who may be known in na- 
 ture — the expression of his life and energy. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 To many persons, doubtless, the foregoing- statements 
 of Messrs. Wake and Westropp appear to be grossly- 
 exaggerated if not absolutely preposterous. It seems to 
 them almost incredible that such ideas and customs should 
 obtain ascendancy among any people, and especially in 
 the character of religious mysteries. Even classical 
 readers participate in this skepticism. They are unwilling 
 to believe that, except in places notoriously immoral, like 
 Pompeii or Lampsacus, the use of sexual representations 
 in common life would be countenanced. Nevertheless, a 
 careful review of the evidence will assure us of their mis- 
 take. We must not always expect shameless manners to 
 attend immorality. Prudery and pruriency are frequently 
 companions, equally impure and cowardly ; and in all 
 scientific investigation they should be disregarded rather 
 than conciliated. 
 
 The careful student of the Old Testament is amazed at 
 the antagonism apparent between the examples of the 
 Hebrew patriarchs and the -teachings of the prophets, in 
 regard to the erection of monolithic pillars and other 
 structures, for votive memorials and other religious pur- 
 poses. It is likewise hard to distinguish a difference be- 
 tween the customs of the early Israelites and those of the 
 nations around them. The similarity is observable in 
 their religious as well as their political institutions. Their 
 rulers were at first patriarchs or sheiks, as among the 
 Arabs ; then they had princes of tribes, like the lords of 
 the Philistines; and after that suffetes, or judges, like the 
 Carthaginians ; concluding finally with kings, " like all the 
 nations." They had the same language and alphabet as 
 the Phoenicians from the days of Moses. As, despite the 
 
8o Appendix. 
 
 tenth chapter of Genesis, the ethnographers persist in 
 classing the latter in the Semitic group, there is little rea- 
 son given for not including both peoples under one ethnic 
 head. . 
 
 The Phoenicians and Pelasgians or lonians of Asia Minor 
 were the most adventurous nations of the time. They 
 colonized Greece, Italy, Spain, and Africa, and the former 
 extended their enterprises to the countries on the Atlantic 
 Ocean. Their gods Baal or Hercules, and Astarte or 
 Venus, were worshipped wherever they went. So uni- 
 form were the religious emblems and customs, that a de- 
 scription of the usages of one people very nearly describes 
 them all. The Pelasgians of Ionia had different deity- 
 names, like Dionysus or Bacchus, Hermes, Aphrodite ; 
 but they had like customs, and the Cabeirian Mysteries, 
 which fixed the institutions of religion, were common to 
 both. 
 
 The Hermaic statue, consisting of a human head placed 
 upon an inverted obelisk, with a phallus, was the recog- 
 nized simulacrum of Baal in the Bible. Associated with 
 it was the Venus or Aphrodite, a female draped figure 
 terminating below in the same square form. This was 
 generally of wood, the palm being preferred. The name 
 Aspasia is often inscribed upon these female images. The 
 Hermaic and Aphroditic statue were sometimes included 
 in one, like the Hindoo Siva and Bhavani, giving rise to 
 the androgynous representations. 
 
 The mode of constructing the Hermaic statues was 
 derived by the Greeks from the Pelasgians of Asia Minor. 
 Herodotus says: "Whoever has been initiated into the 
 Mysteries of the Cabeiri will understand what I mean. 
 The Samothracians received these Mysteries from the 
 Pelasgi, who, before they went to live in Attica, were 
 dwellers in Samothrace, and imparted their religious 
 ceremonies to the inhabitants. The Athenians, then, who 
 were the first of all the Greeks to make their statues of 
 Mercury in this way, learnt the practice from the Pelas- 
 gians ; and by this people a religious account of the 
 
Appendix. 8i 
 
 matter is given, which is explained in the Samothracian 
 Mysteries."* 
 
 The Cabeiri, we presume, represented the divinities of 
 the planets ; Esmun or the Phoenician Esculapius being 
 the eighth. The serpent was his symbol. Kadmiel or Cad- 
 mus was the same as Taut or Thoth, the god of the steles 
 or pillar-emblems, and was the reputed founder of the 
 city of Thebes. It was to the worship of these divinities 
 that reference was made by the author of The Wisdom of 
 Solomon : " They slew their children in sacrifices, or used 
 secret Mysteries, or celebrated frantic komuses of strange 
 
 rites, "t 
 
 But the institution of the Orphic rites and the Eleusi- 
 nian Mysteries is ascribed by Herodotus to Egyptian in- 
 fluences. " The rites called Orphic and Bacchic are in 
 reality Egyptian and Pythagorean ; and no one initiated 
 in these Mysteries can be buried in a woollen shroud, a 
 religious reason being assigned for the observance.";]: 
 Melampus introduced into Greece the name of Dionysus 
 or Bacchus, the ceremonial of his worship, and the pro- 
 cession of the phallus. " I can by no means admit," says 
 Herodotus, " that it is by mere coincidence that the 
 Bacchic ceremonies in Greece are so nearly the same as 
 the Egyptian — they would have been more Greek in their 
 character and less recent in their origin. Much less can 
 I admit that the Egyptians borrowed these customs, or 
 any other, from the Greeks. My behef is that Melampus 
 got his knowledge of them from Cadmus the Tyrian, and 
 the followers whom he brought from Phoenicia into the 
 country which is now called Boeotia." " The Egyptians 
 were also the first to introduce solemn assemblies, proces- 
 sions, and litanies to the gods ; of all which the Greeks 
 
 * Rawlinson's Herodotus, book ii. 51. " The phallus formed an essential 
 part of the symbol, probably because the divinity represented by it was in the 
 earliest times, before the worship of Dionysus was imported firom the East, 
 the personification of the reproductive powers of nature." — Smith's Diction- 
 ary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, Hermai. 
 
 f Wisdom, xiv. 23. 
 
 X Book ii. 81. 
 
82 Appendix. 
 
 were taught the use by them." * In the Dionysiac festival 
 of Egypt, instead of phalli they used images a cubit high, 
 pulled by strings, which the women carried round to the 
 villages. A piper headed the company, and the women 
 followed, singing hymns in honor of the god. As in the 
 Cabeirian Mysteries of Phoenicia and Samothrace, a "re- 
 ligious reason " accounted for the peculiarities of the 
 image. The identity of Bacchus with the Moloch or Her- 
 cules of the Phoenicians, and with the Dionysus of Arabia 
 and the Mysteries, is apparent. 
 
 Both the Greeks and Romans, however, for a long time 
 had no images. Numa, who is said to have been a Py- 
 thagorean, allowed only the " eternal fire " of Vesta as a 
 symbol of the Deity. The earlier temples were temenoi, 
 or consecrated areas, marked out by erect pillars of stone. 
 In them were altars, " great stones," or conical statues. 
 Mounds, or artificial eminences, were also common, as 
 representative of the " holy hill," or mount of assembly 
 where the Deity dwelt. ■ These were denominated, by 
 both Greeks and Phoenicians, bemas, or " high places. "f 
 ' The stele or pillar came early to be used as the emblem 
 of the god ; and, in like manner, a conical stone, signify- 
 ing the omphalos, navel, or rounded abdomen, became 
 the symbol of the great Mother-Goddess. The service 
 of Hercules, with Omphale, queen or goddess of Lydia, 
 he receiving from her the distaff, and she taking his club 
 and lion-skin, expresses the association of the two in the 
 Mysteries. At the temple of Aihun, in Libya, the emblem 
 of the 'god is described as an umbriculum of immense 
 size, which was borne in a boat or ark, requiring eighty 
 men for the purpose. :{: The boat is a feminine symbol. 
 At the temple of Delphi, the omphalos, or navel-stone, is 
 described as obtuse in form, ahd having nothing obscene in 
 appearance. It was of white marble, and was kept in the 
 sanctuary, carefully wrapped in a white cloth. § The nab hi, 
 
 * Book ii. 49, 58. % Quintus Curtius. 
 
 f Ezekiel xx. 29. § Stralio, book ix. 420, 
 
Appendix. 83 
 
 or navel of Vishnu, the Brahmin god, explained in like 
 manner as expressive of the female organs, is similarly re- 
 presented. M; Creuzer found among the ruins of Carthage 
 a large conical stone, which he immediately recognized as 
 the representation of Astart^. Lajard also mentions many 
 smaller cones in Greece, some of them bearing the name 
 of Aphrodite. " In all Cyprian coins," he remarks," may 
 be seen, in the place where we would anticipate to find a 
 statue of the goddess, the form of a conical stone. The 
 same is found placed between two cypresses under the 
 portico of the temple of Astart6, in a temple of ^iia 
 Capitolina ; but in this instance the cone is crowned. In 
 another medal, struck by the elder Philip, Venus is repre- 
 sented between two genii, each of whom stands upon a 
 cone or pillar with a rounded top. There is reason to 
 believe that at Paphos images of the conical stone * were 
 made and sold as largely as were effigies of Diana of the 
 Ephesians." f % 
 
 The ancient Arabians, in ,lik'e manner, venerated cer- 
 tain conical stones as symbols of the goddess Al Uza, or 
 Alitta. The famous Caaba, or black stone of Mecca, now 
 revered by the Moslems, was of this character. The cres- 
 cent, also the emblem of the goddess, is the Mohammedan 
 monogram, contrasting with the cross, or masculine em- 
 blem of the Christians, and almost implies that the Mus- 
 sulmans are votaries of the female divinity. The Scandi- 
 navians also represented the goddess Disa or Isa by a 
 conical stone, surmounted by a head, analogous to the 
 busts of Astarte. 
 
 The erect pillar was common over all the East. It 
 stood at the intersection of roads as a sign of consecra- 
 
 * " The statue of the goddess bears no resemblance to the human form. It 
 is round throughout, broad at one end, and gradually tapering to a narrow span 
 at the other, like a goal. The reason is stated by Philostratus to be symboli- 
 cal." — TacztoJ, book ii. , ch. 3. 
 
 \ Acts xix. 24, 25. Venus and Diana, instead of representing the oppos- 
 ing ideas of virginity and sexual love, vifere deities of like mould, and per- 
 sonified the great maternal principle. 
 
 \ Recherches sur la Culte de Venus, page 36. 
 
84 Appendix. 
 
 tion, on the boundaries of estates, in and before temples, 
 over graves, and wherever the deities were venerated. 
 At Athens was a " pillar of the Amazon " or androgynous 
 Venus ; and Apollonius mentions a lithos hieros or sacred 
 stone in the temple of Arez in Pontus, where the Ama- 
 zons worshipped. Like columns were common in Thes- 
 saly, Ionia, and Mauritania ; and, indeed, in all countries 
 washed by the sea. The Round Towers of Ireland, the 
 great stones found in the principal point of cities in Eng- 
 land, the stones of memorial in all parts of the British 
 Isles, including "Jacob's pillar" transported from Scot- 
 land by Edward I., and now preserved in the seat of the 
 Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey, pertain to the 
 same cultus. The Maypoles, common alike to Britons 
 and Hindus, are of one pattern. The Buddhists of 
 Ceylon, the Sivaists and Lingayats of Hindustan, and the 
 Zoroastrians of Persia, have these emblems like their 
 fellow-religionists of the West. 
 
 NoV was ancient America any exception to these cus- 
 toms. A plain cylindrical stone was to be found by 
 every Mexican temple. At Copan are monoliths, some 
 of them in a rough state and others sculptured. At Hon- 
 duras is an "idol of round stone" with two faces, repre- 
 senting the Lord of Life, which the Indians adore, offering 
 blood procured from the prepuce. In Panuco was found 
 in the temples a phallus, and on bas-reliefs in public 
 places were depicted the sacred membra conjimcta in coitu. 
 There were also similar symbols in Tlascala. On one of 
 the phallic pillars at Copan were also the emblems relative 
 to uterine existence, parturition, etc. Juan de Batanzos, 
 in his History of the Incas, an unpublished manuscript in 
 the Library of the Escurial, says that " in the centre of the 
 great square or court of the Temple of the Sun at Cuzco, 
 was a column or pillar of stone, of the shape of a loaf of 
 sugar, pointed at the top and covered with gold-leaf." * 
 
 It is probable that the mound-builders of North America 
 were votaries of the same worship. Professor Troost has 
 • Squiet's Serpent Symbol, p. 50. 
 
Appendix. 85 
 
 procured several images in Smith county, Tennessee, one 
 of which was endowed disproportionately, hke a Pan or 
 Hermes, or the idol at Lampsacus. The phallus had been 
 broken off, while in the ground, by a plough. Dr. Ram- 
 say, of Knoxville, also describes two phalHc similacra in 
 his possession, twelve and fifteen inches in length. The 
 shorter one was of amphibolic rock, and so very hard that 
 steel could make no impression upon it. The Abb6 de 
 Bourbourg, who made careful explorations in Mexico and 
 Central America, confirms the statements in regard to the 
 phallic symbolism, and apparently supposes that it was 
 introduced from America into Europe. 
 
 The Cross was also found among the ruins of the Ameri- 
 can temples. In Mexico it was the Egyptian symbol, 
 the crux ansata, and was denominated " the tree of life." 
 Its frequency over the Eastern continent, pertaining alike 
 to the worship of Osiris, Baal-Adonis, Mithra, and Maha- 
 deva, is well known. The Buddhists of Tibet employ it 
 in worship, and place it, like the Hermaic pillars, at the 
 corners of the street. It was sculptured beside the lingam 
 or phallus, in the cave of Elephanta. The Hindoo cross 
 resembles the " hammer of Thor." In the tombs of 
 Etruria were found crosses composed of four phalli. Simi- 
 lar to this was the cross of Malta; till it was changed to its 
 present shape. 
 
 The use of votive amulets in that phallic form was also 
 common. They were found in the tombs and houses. 
 Similar articles are now manufactured in India. The 
 Hindoo women carry the lingam in procession between 
 two serpents ; and it will be remembered that in the 
 sacred ark or coffer which held the egg and phallus in the 
 mystic processions of the Greeks, was also a serpent. 
 In Greece and Western Asia the favorite wood for the 
 " stocks" and phallic pillars, according to St. Clement of 
 Alexandria, was the fig. The leaves of this tree, it will 
 be remembered, were used in the garden of Eden ; and 
 the fruit has had a peculiar symbolical meaning for thou- 
 sands of years. 
 
86 Appendix. 
 
 That the ancient patriarchs, like the patriarchs and 
 chiefs of other nations, erected pillars and altars, and wor- 
 shipped in mountains and high places, is matter of record. 
 The pillars at Bethel and Mizpeh, set up by Jacob, were 
 revered by his descendants. Mizpeh was a holy place, 
 during the days of the Judges ; Jephthah made it his seat 
 of government, and after him Samuel was inaugurated 
 there. The Israelites met there to put away Baalim and 
 Ashtaroth, as enjoined by the prophet ; who, after that, 
 made a yearly circuit to Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpeh, and 
 had his residence at Ramah, where was a " high place." 
 
 The dances, or komuses, were also celebrated, as in the 
 festivals of Bacchus.* King David himself, in his joy at 
 the bringing of the ark to 'Jerusalem, " danced before the 
 Lord," and being rebuked by his wife, Michal, for his 
 wanton deportment, declared that was in the presence of 
 Jehovah, adding that he would "play" and be yet 
 " more vile." Whether phalli were carried by the He- 
 brew women at their dances and festivals, as among the 
 Greeks and Asiatics, is not stated, but it is not improb- 
 able. The prophets denounce the festivals and solemn 
 assemblies as attended with idolatrous and obscene rites. 
 
 The worship of the Phoenician deities continued among 
 the Israelites throughout the whole period of the rule of 
 the Judges, t The Philistines also had the same divini- 
 ties. When the body of King Saul fell into their hands, 
 they dedicated his armor as a trophy in the temple of 
 Astarte ; and according to one author, placed his head 
 in the temple of Dagon the Fish-god, and according 
 to another, his body on the wall of the temple of San.:]: 
 After the establishment of the monarchy, the idolatrous 
 rites took a more objectionable form. King Solomon is 
 recorded to have built mounds or high places for Chemosh, 
 the god of generation, and for Hercules or Moloch, the 
 god of fire, and to have worshipped Venus-Astart^. 
 
 * Judges xxi. 19-23. 
 
 t Judges ii. 10-19 J "'• 6, 7 ; v. 8 ; vi. 10, 25, 30 ; viii. 33 ; x. 6. 
 
 X I Samuel xxxi. g, 10, and i Chronicles x. 9, lo. 
 
Appendix. 87 
 
 These shrines remained throughout the Hebrew mon- 
 archy, till Josiah profaned them, broke down the pillars, 
 and took away the omphalic symbols, filling their places 
 with the bones of men. So general had been the pre- 
 valence of idolatry, and especially of the Tyrian wor- 
 ship, that these "high places" existed all over the 
 country, with the phallic statues and omphalic emblems, 
 " on every high hill, and under every green tree." * That 
 they became places of prostitution, if they were not such 
 at the first, seems to be the concurrent testimony of the 
 prophets and profane writers. Whether the sacrifice of 
 virginity was made at these places, as at the temples of 
 Mylitta, and other divinities, is not expressly affirmed ; 
 but the presence of the kadeshim is suspicious, f 
 
 The Hebrew prophets are outspoken in associating Baal- 
 worship with lewdness. Hosea, using the customary par- 
 allelism of expression, identifies the priapic cultus with 
 that of Peor. " They went to Baal-Peor, and consecrated 
 
 * I , Kings xiv. 23. See also xv. 14 ; xxii. 43 ; 2 Kings xii. 3 ; xiv. 4 ; 
 XV. 4 and 35 ; xvi. 4 ; xvii. 9, 10. 
 
 f See I Kings xiv. 23, 24; xv. 12 and xxii. 46 ; 2 Kings xxxiii. 7 ; Ho- 
 sea iv. 10-19 ^""^ '^- 4- The Kings Asa and Jelioshaphat drove these per- 
 sons from the country. They appear to have been of foreign blood ; the book 
 of Deuteronomy prescribing that they should not be Israelites. " There shall 
 be no kadeshah of the daughters of Israel, nor a kadesh of the sons of Israel," 
 — xxiii. 17. It is evident, however, that the Israelites imputed no merit, but 
 rather opprobrium, to the virgin state. When Jephthah announced to his 
 daughter that he had made an irrevocable vovif to offer her in sacrifice, she only 
 pleaded for a respite of two months to "go up and dovra upon the mountains, 
 and bewail her virginity. '' This is apparently in accord with the statement 
 of Mindes-Pinto, that the young Indian maids believe it impossible for a vir- 
 gin to enter Paradise. The readiness of the Israelites to adopt the rites of 
 Venus and Baal-Peor (Exodus xxxii. 6,25, and Numbers xxv. ) would seem to 
 te thus explained. The worship of the goddess Diana or Venus- Anaitis in 
 Armenia was attended by the defloration of nubile women. The Babylonian 
 colonists of Samaria brought with them the worship of the Succoth-Be- 
 noth, or the Venuses of the tents ; and it is certain that almas or consecrated 
 women, as in Egypt, and nautch-girls or women of the temple, were a pecu- 
 liarity of Phoenician, as they are of Hindoo sanctuaries. Justin relates that 
 Dido or Elissa transported twenty-four of these females to Carthage. The 
 name Elissa or Alitta being a title of the goddess, shows that her expedition 
 is but an allegory to explain the introduction of her worship into the countries 
 
88 Appendix. 
 
 themselves to Bosketh." * Jeremiah also is unmistakable.' 
 "According to the number of thy cities were thy gods, 
 Oh Judah ! and according to the number of the streets 
 of Jerusalem [as in Tyre and Athens] have ye set up altars 
 to Bosheth, even altars to burn incense to Baal." f These 
 were " the iniquities of their forefathers." 
 
 The worship of the Queen of Heaven, Mylitta or the 
 Syrian goddess, " the children gathering wood, the fathers 
 kindling the fire, and the women kneading the dough to 
 make cakes," is instanced several times by Jeremiah ; 
 and was an old custom, observed alike by kings, nobles, 
 and the common people.:}: The cake was made of 
 flour and honey, and was shaped like a lozenge or phal- 
 lus. The cunim or bouns were offered to Astarte and 
 Aphrodite wherever they were worshipped, at the open- 
 ing of spring. 
 
 The sacrifice of children, common among the Phoeni- 
 cians and their colonies, was also a practice of the Jews. 
 Sometimes it was only a passing through the fire, as at 
 the Bal-tines of Scotland and Ireland ; at others, it wasi 
 
 of the West. The island of Melita was named from this divinity. Ovid 
 describes her festival : 
 
 " On the Ides is the genial feast of Anna perenna, 
 Not far, traveller Tiber, from thy banks. 
 
 The people come, and scattered everywhere among the green stallcs. 
 Imbibe, and each reclines with his female consort. 
 Part remain in the open air, a few set up tents ; 
 Some out of branches have made a leafy hut." — Fasti, iv. 
 
 The Indian Anna-puma, and the Babylonian Daughter of the Tent, are 
 easily recognized. In Virgil's .iEneid, Anna is made the sister of Elissa. 
 
 * Hoseaix. lo. The "high place" ofBaal where Balak and Balaam met to 
 invoke curses upon Israel (Numbers xxii. 41). The term nti'3, bosheth, here 
 used as the synonyme for Baal, signifies the phallus. It is also translated 
 shame — Jeremiah iii. 24, and Micah i. 11 — but doubtless means Baal- wor- 
 ship in both instances. The two words were compounded interchangeably in 
 proper names. Jerub-baal or Gideon was also styled Jerub-besheth ; Ish- 
 Bosheth, the son of Saul, and Mephi-Bosheth, the son of Jonathan, were 
 transcribed by the synonymes Esh-Baal and Merib-Baal in the first Book of 
 Chronicles. 
 
 f Jeremiah xi. 13. 
 
 X Jeremiah vii. 17-31 and xliv. 8, 15-23. 
 
Appendix. 89 
 
 "the shedding of innocent blood."* The sacrifices 
 were made to the fire-god Moloch, or Baal-Hercules. In 
 Isaiah, however, we find mention made of " slaying the 
 children in the valleys under the clefts of the rocks, "f 
 This must have been an offering to Astart^. These were 
 the cunni diaboli, or emblems of maternity, closely re- 
 lated to the omphalic stones. The one at Delphi emitted 
 a gas which the priestess inhaled before delivering her 
 oracles. They are abundant in India at the present day, 
 and were formerly in England before the introduction of 
 Christianity. Miss EUwood, in her Journey to the East, 
 mentions one which she saw : " There is a sacred perfo- 
 rated stone at Malabar, through which penitents squeezed 
 themselves in order to obtain a remission of their sins.:]; 
 
 The custom of burning the thigh in sacrifices, which 
 was universal, is of the same character. The golden 
 thigh of Pythagoras was doubtless the thing last revealed 
 to the initiate. It was the meros in which the foetal 
 Bacchus was preserved ; and, like the phallus shown to the 
 epopt at Eleusis, prefigured the great mystery of life. 
 
 It is noticeable that all these sensual peculiarities per- 
 tained to the worship of the female divinities. The priests 
 of Hercules, as of the lingam in India, were monks. The 
 Hellenic Jew explains it like the more orthodox prophets, 
 that " the devising of images was the beginning of lewd- 
 ness, and the invention of them the corruption of life." § 
 
 Nevertheless we also are not prepared to accept unquali- 
 fiedly the sentiment that " Human nature is the same in 
 all climes, and the workings of this same human nature 
 are almost identical in their different stages of growth." 
 If Mr. Westropp means from this that we should infer that 
 the employment of the sexual symbolism in worship is 
 characteristic of all mankind at a peculiar stage of devel- 
 
 * 2 Kings xvi. 3 ; xxi. 6, i6 and xxiv. 4 ; 2 Chronicks xxviii. 3 ; Jere- 
 miah ii. 34, 35 and xix. 4 ; Psalm cvi. 34-39. 
 \ Isaiah Ivii. 5. 
 
 % Our British Ancestors, p. 160. 
 § Wisdom of Solomon, xiv. 12. 
 
 6 
 
90 Appendix. 
 
 opment, we dissent. Besides, there are tribes that we must 
 acknowledge as human beings, having no customs entitled 
 to be regarded as a cultus. Races of men are mate- 
 lually diverse in structure, type, and psychical character, 
 and probably had their origins in climates and periods of 
 time widely apart from each other. " Human nature is 
 manifestly very unlike, as exhibited respectively by the 
 European populations, the Chinese, the African negroes, 
 and the Australians." 
 
 Our evidence as to the antiquity of this peculiar symbol- 
 ism is necessarily very incomplete. There have been en- 
 deavors to solve the question by an ingenious calculation. 
 The Maypole festival, common to all ancient countries 
 east and west, and well known to have a phallic origin, 
 should be dated from the vernal equinox, when that was 
 the period of the entering of the sun into the zodiacal 
 sign Taurus. Counting seventy-two years for the pre- 
 cession of the sun a single degree, the precise period of 
 that occurrence was about four thousand years before the 
 Christian era.* The Maypole celebration, if we adopt the 
 popular chronology, must have therefore taken its incep- 
 tion from sorne event connected with the occurrences 
 recorded as happening in the Garden of Eden. f 
 
 The principal Aryan nations appear to have displayed 
 a determined hostility to the entire phallic symbolism. 
 In the Rig-Veda, the sisna-devas or priests of the lingam 
 are debarred from access to the sacred rites,:]: and con- 
 
 * The Round Towers of Ireland, pp. 233, 234 ; also Maurice's Indian 
 Antiquities. 
 
 \ Nevertheless, there may be reason, instead, to assign a date some time in 
 the pre- Adamite period. In the Moniteur of January, 1865, it is stated that 
 in the province of Venetia, in Italy, excavations in a, bone-cave brought to 
 light, beneath ten feet of stalagmite, bones of animals, mostly post-tertiary, 
 of the usual description found in such places, flint implements, with a needle 
 of bone having an eye and point, and a plate of an argillaceous compound, 
 on vfhich was scratched a rude drawing of a phallus. 
 
 % A similar prohibition appears also in the last stages of the Hebrew mon- 
 archy. When Josiah abolished the worship at the " high places," he refused 
 to admit the priests that had officiated at them, to the service of the Temple. 
 The prophet Ezekiel also promulgated the following ordinance against them : 
 
Appendix. 91 
 
 signed to destruction at the hands of Indra. The invaders 
 of India could find no milder language for the lascivious 
 religionists whom they encountered than demons, devil- 
 worshippers, and persons who observe no sacred rites. 
 The Brahmin system was adopted afterward, unwillingly, 
 as a compromise. 
 
 The ancient Persians exhibited a like detestation of the 
 icon- worshippers. " They had no images of the gods, no 
 temples, nor altars, and considered the use of them a 
 sign of folly," * The Achsemenian kings were worshippers 
 of Ormazd, and displayed a similar antagonism to that 
 of their Vedic brethren to the current idolatrous practices 
 of their time. Eventually the magian system of Media 
 and Babylonia was engrafted upon the popular worship 
 of Persia, although the kings and nobler classes adhered to 
 the Zoroastrian doctrines. 
 
 These doctrines appear to be so closely allied to those 
 imputed to Moses, that it is not difficult to imagine that 
 they had once been identical. The exiles who returned 
 from beyond the Euphrates are described very differently 
 from those who were transported by Nebuchadnezzar. t 
 
 " They shall not come near unto me to do the ofBce of a priest unto me, nor 
 come near to any of my holy things in the most holy place ; but they shall 
 bear their shame, and their abominations which they have committed." 
 xliv. 6-14. 
 
 * Herodotus, i. 131. 
 
 \ The colonization of the Jews in Palestine under Cyrus and his successors 
 appears very like a new occupation, rather than a return. It is evident that 
 there were more of them beyond the Euphrates than ever made their homes 
 in Judea. Their leading class bore the title of Pharisees, perhaps from their 
 Persian affiliations. They, according to Spinoza, made the selection of the 
 books which are now accepted as the Sacred Scriptures, adopting only those 
 which had been composed in the Hebrew language. The text of this was 
 revised and pruned, and occasionally changed. It seems to have been their 
 purpose to keep the knowledge of it in the limits of their own order. Never- 
 theless, it betrays the indications of an Ionian influence,and also of a Hindoo 
 antecedent. The patriarchal names are very similar to those of the Brahmin 
 divinities : Brahma and his consort Sara-Iswati, his son Ikshwaka, and great- 
 grandson Yadu. The ruins of the temple of Peace, or Tukht Solumi, have 
 been found in Cashmere, and many names of the Bible and Western Asia, 
 like Yudia, Dawid, Arabi, Cush, Yavan, are also indigenous to the region of 
 the Indus. 
 
92 Appendix. 
 
 They no more filled their land with idolatry and phallic 
 emblems, but simply placed the sacred fire in the temple 
 at Jerusalem and watched against its extinction. The 
 precept of the law of Moses forbidding the fabricating and 
 adoration of pesels or graven images, was rigidly kept. 
 Synagogues for religious instruction took the place! of 
 high places, pillars, and enclosures of a circular form. 
 Whatever may have been the characteristics of their an- 
 cestors before the captivity, they were true afterward to 
 the lessons learned in exile. In the reign of Antiochus 
 they resisted the introduction of the mysteries of Dionysus, 
 and underwent tortures and crucifixion rather than taste 
 the flesh of swine and participate in the foreign worship. 
 
 The transition from the old Roman and ethnic religions 
 to Christianity could not possibly be effected sO com- 
 pletely as to change entirely the real sentiments of the 
 people. We must not be surprised, therefore, when we 
 are told that the ancient worship, after it had been ex- 
 cluded from its former temples and from the metropolitan 
 towns, was maintained for a long time by the inhabitants 
 of humbler localities. Indeed, from this very fact it ob- 
 tained its subsequent designation. From being kept up 
 in the villages (or pagi), its votaries were denominated 
 pagans, pagani, or villagers. 
 
 The prevalence of Mithraic or magian ideas and prac- 
 tices led also to the confounding of the proscribed wor- 
 ship with the practice of witchcraft and sorcery ; and to 
 this fact we are indebted for the numerous legends and ac- 
 counts of secret colleges of magicians, as well as of assem- 
 blies of witches in remote places, decorated with the sym- 
 bols of the old religion, of kings or devils having the goat- 
 form of the ancient Pan or Bacchus with the priapic 
 appendages, of distinguished persons in attendance in the 
 habit of satyrs, of sham sacraments like those of the Per- 
 sian god Mithras, and especially of the orgies or enthu- 
 siastic furors, together with general debauchery. There 
 is little reason to doubt that these "witches' sabbaths" 
 were formerly celebrated, and that they were, in some 
 
Appendix. 93 
 
 modified form, a continuation of the outlawed worship of 
 the Roman Empire.* 
 
 Whether the alarm experienced in this country two cen- 
 turies ago, of an invasion of Satan and his associated pow- 
 ers, was a delusion, f or had some relation to the possible 
 introduction of the old Asiatic and Roman religion into 
 America, is a question admitting of ingenious discussion. 
 In Europe, however, its maintenance, after many centuries 
 had elapsed of proscription and persecution, finally became 
 impossible. The ignorance of the common people ren- 
 dered them ill-adapted to continue a worship so full of 
 recondite mystery, and the orgies or " sabbaths " fell into 
 neglect. But in certain practices and superstitions not 
 yet outgrown, the old phallism and pagan ideas still 
 crop out. Good and ill fortune are supposed to result 
 from the wholesome or obnoxious influence of the moon. 
 Goethe has commemorated the potency of the pentacle as 
 a protector against evil spirits. The mystic horse-shoe, a 
 uterine symbol, is still employed. :j: Lucky and unlucky 
 days are regarded. Even at the gaming-table, the cards 
 are indicated by the phallic symbols, the spade and triadic 
 club, and the omphalic distaff" and eminence disguised as 
 the heart and diamond. Certain peculiarities of architec- 
 ture and decoration are inspired from the same source, and 
 whoever is intelligent is not slow to recognize the fact. 
 
 * The heretical sects, as they sprung up, were denounced in the same 
 manner. Even to this day, Vauderie, or Vaudois worship, is the French 
 designation for witchcraft ; and the name of Bulgarians \Bulgres\, who were 
 once Albigenses or Paulicians, is now applied to men practising unnatural 
 vice. 
 
 f The apprehension of this invasion was entertained in all the British North 
 American Colonies, and the severest penal laws were enacted in consequence. 
 The executions in Massachusetts, in 1692, operated to overthrow the prevail- 
 ing sentiment in that region ; but in New York and the other provinces, 'the 
 laws were enforced till the Revolution. Indeed, in South Carolina witchcraft 
 was a capital offence in the Code till the reorganization of the State govern- 
 ment after the recent civil war ; and less than a century ago offenders were 
 executed. 
 
 :]: In a church in Paris is said to be a relic of special virtue, the pudenda 
 muliebria Sancta Virginis. See Inman's Ancient Faiths Embodied in An- 
 cient Names, vol. i, , p. 144. 
 
94 Appendix. 
 
 In popular customs, and even in religious institutions, 
 these things are as plainly to be perceived to-day as when 
 Adonis and Astart^ were the gods of the former world. 
 The sanctities, the powers, the symbols, and even the 
 utensils of the ancient Faith, have been assumed, if not 
 usurped or legitimately inherited, by its successors. The 
 two holies of the Gnostics and Neo-Platonists, Sophia and 
 Eirene, wisdom and peace, were adopted as saints into the 
 calendarof Constantinople. Dionysus, the god of the Mys- 
 teries, reappears as St. Denys in France, St. Liberius, St. 
 Eleutherius, and St. Bacchus ; there is also a St. Mithra ; 
 and even Satan, prince of shadows, is revered as St. Satur 
 and St. Swithin. Their relics are in keeping. The Holy 
 Virgin Astraea or Astarte, whose return was announced 
 by Virgil in the days of Augustus, as introducing a new 
 Golden Age, now under her old designation of Blessed 
 Virgin and Queen of Heaven, receives homage as " the 
 one whose sole divinity the whole orb of the earth vene- 
 rates." The Mother and Child, the latter adorned with 
 the nimbus or aureole of the ancient sun-gods, are now 
 the object qf veneration as much as were Ceres and 
 Bacchus, or Isis and Horus in the Mysteries. Nuns 
 abound alike in Christian and in Buddhist countries, as 
 they did formerly in Isis- worshipping Egypt ; and if their 
 maidenhood is not sacrificed at the shrine of Baal-Peor, 
 or any of his cognate divinities, yet it is done in a figure : 
 they are all "brides of the Saviour." Galli sing in the 
 churches, and consecrated women are as numerous as of 
 old. The priestly vestments are like those formerly used in 
 the worship of Saturn and Cybele ; the Phrygian cap, the 
 pallium, the stole, and the alb. The whole pantheon has 
 been exhausted from the Indus, Euphrates, and the Nile, 
 to supply symbolic adornment for the apostles' successors. 
 Hercules holds the distaff of Omphale. The Lily has 
 superseded the Lotus, and celibacy is exalted above the 
 first recorded mandate of God to mankind. 
 
 In ancient times the Carians and other votaries used to 
 wound themselves and offer their blood to Bacchus in 
 
Appendix. 95 
 
 commemoration of his dismemberment by the Titans. 
 The former worshippers in Yucatan and Central America 
 had an analogous custom. The prophets of Baal in Syria 
 and Phoenicia also inflicted wounds on themselves.* The 
 Jews were prohibited from this by their law,t but at the 
 period of mourning for the dead one, Adonis, slain by the 
 boar, they flogged themselves and wept. This animal, 
 which was sacred to Mars or Ares, the god of destruction, 
 became their abomination. The Egyptians had a like 
 custom. At the assemblies of Isis, composed of many 
 thousands of pilgrims, those who participated in the 
 solemnities scourged themselves in memory of the slaugh- 
 tered Oseiris.it Sailors were whipped around the altar of 
 Apollo at Delos, and children at the temple of Diana 
 in Sparta. In Rome, at the Lupercalia, about the 14th 
 of February, young men used to lay aside their gar- 
 ments, and taking whips, run through the streets, flogging 
 everybody whdm they met. § Even now, during Holy 
 Week in Rome, many devotees lash themselves till the 
 blood gushes in streams ; and the same practice exists in 
 other places. The Flagellants of the Middle Ages appear 
 to have been actuated by a similar enthusiasm. 
 
 The pretension to universal supremacy by leading 
 Bishops of the earlier centuries is familiar to all who are 
 conversant with church history. The Grand Lama of the 
 Buddhists, and the Zeus or Archiej'eus of old Hellas, fur- 
 nished antetypes which were speedily imitated at the 
 
 * I Kings xviii. 28. 
 
 \ Leviticus xix. 28 and xxi. 5. 
 
 \ Herodotus, ii. 61. 
 
 § There seems to be a voluptuous sense excited in this way. Women, 
 especially those who were married, eagerly placed themselves in the way of 
 these flagellators, partly on account of the exquisite delight received from the 
 infliction, and partly because of the idea that it promoted the aptitude to con- 
 ceive. The late Henry Buckle, author of the History of Civilization, printed 
 privately a series of curious tracts on this subject, illustrating how a practice 
 beginning in religious zeal can be made a source of sensuous delight. — 
 Rare Tracts on Flagellation. Reprinted from the original editions collected 
 by the late Henry Thomas Buckle. 7 vols, post 8vo. London. Printed by 
 G. Peacock, 1777. 
 
g6 Appendix. 
 
 focal points of the Empire. The Bishop of Rome, how- 
 ever, was the most successful. In his person the Pontifex 
 MaxiMus exists- as in the days of the Republic and the 
 Caesars.. Asia and Italy alike minister to his elevation. 
 He has "the power of the keys," the key of Janus of 
 archaic Rome, and the key of Cybele, the Virgin-Mother 
 of Asia. The former was patulciiis and clusius, the opener 
 ' and shutter ; and with the authority of Cybel^ he was 
 empowered also, as the vesica piscis indicates, to superin- 
 tend the gateway of physical existence. But let there be 
 no sneer at this. In the Catacombs of Rome, where the 
 early Christians used to congregate, are numerous pictures 
 and carvings indicating close resemblances to the pagan 
 usages. Enough exists to show that the pontiff does not 
 take all by assumption. The utensils and other furniture 
 of the Mysteries appear to have been there ; and one 
 drawing shows a woman standing before an altar offering 
 bunns to the Serpent-divinity. It is true, doubtless, that 
 there is not a fast or festival, procession or sacrament, 
 social custom or religious symbol, that did not come 
 " bodily " from the previous paganism. But the Pope did 
 not import them on his own account ; they had already 
 been transferred into the ecclesiastical structure, and he 
 only accepted and perhaps took advantage of the fact. 
 Many of those who protest because of these "corruptions," 
 are prone to imitate them, more or less, displaying an en- 
 grafting from the same stock. 
 
 Much dispute has been had in regard to the presence of 
 St. Peter at Rome. The statue of the apostle, it has been 
 asserted with great plausibility, was originally the bust of 
 the Jupiter of the Capitol. We presume that the " apostle 
 of the circumcision," as Paul, his great rival, styles him, 
 was never at the Imperial City, nor had a successor there, 
 not even in the Ghetto. The " Chair of Peter," * therefore, 
 
 * There appear to have been two chairs of the titular apostle. In the year 
 1^62 the workmen engaged in cleaning one of them for exhibition to the people, 
 on the i8th of January, "the Twelve Labors of Hercules unluckily appeared 
 
Appendix. 97 
 
 is sacred rather than apostolical. Its sanctity proceeded, 
 however, from the esoteric religion of the former times of 
 Rome. The hierophant of the Mysteries probably occu- 
 pied it on the day of initiations, when exhibiting to the 
 candidates the petroma* 
 
 The end crowned the work. "In the Church of St. 
 Peter's at Rome," Godfrey Higgins asserts, f " is kept in 
 secret a large stone emblem of the creative power, of a very 
 peculiar shape, on which are the words, Zev<i Scorrjp, Zeus 
 Soter (or Jove the Saviour) ; only persons who have great 
 interest can get a sight of it." 
 
 Thus the cycle seems to return upon itself. Archaic 
 Rome seems to live again in the Rome Mediaeval, old 
 Egypt and Babylonia to be resuscitated in our modern 
 Europe. Yet this is not altogether true. Let us take 
 heed how we hear. 
 
 Those capable of understanding, will recognize in this 
 symbolism the revelation of the first creation and the re- 
 engraved on it. " (Bower's History of the Popes, vol. ii. , p. 7 . ) This chair was 
 removed and another substituted. In 1795 the French under Bonaparte occu- 
 pied Rome, and again the chair was investigated. This time tliere was found 
 the Mohammedan Confession of Faith, in Arabic letters : " There is no deity 
 but Allah, and Mohammed is his Apostle.'' Zodiacs, or Labors of Hercules, 
 evidently of an astrological character, have been found in the churches of York 
 and Lyons, and a wine-cask at the shrine of St. Denys. On the hypothesis 
 of having been heir-looms from the pagan religion, these facts are duly 
 accounted for, except the French discovery. It may have been that Islam 
 and the Papacy once contemplated an alliance, o\ some crusader brought the 
 chair from the East. 
 
 * If this supposition is correct, the ecclesiastical legends of Peter's sojourn 
 at Rome are easily comprehended. The fetroma, or stone tablet, contained 
 or constituted the last revelation made by the hierophant to the candidate for 
 initiation. What it was might never be divulged on pain of death. All the 
 work of the Creator was now unfolded, and the profane might not know the 
 solemn secret. As the Mysteries came to Rome from the East, it is easy to 
 perceive that the hierophant or revelator would have an oriental title. Peter, 
 from the Phoenician word ")ns> peter, is applied in the Book of Genesis (xl. 8) 
 to an expounder of dreams, and was probably the designation of the interpreter 
 of the petroma. The Roman Bishop succeeding to his chair, would be, it is 
 apparent, pontiff over the whole world, 
 f Celtic Druids, pp. 195-196. 
 
98 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 naissance, as refined in sentiment or as gross in sense as 
 is the mind of the person witnessing the vision. Whether 
 he has learned supernal mysteries is to be ascertained ; 
 certainly he is revealed to himself, humbled if not 
 humble. 
 
RARE AND VALUABLE BOOKS 
 
 ON 
 
 ANCIENT RELIGIONS, TREE, SERPENT, 
 AND PHALLIC WORSHIP, DRUIDISM, 
 MYSTERIES OF THE CABIRI, ROS- 
 ICRUCIANS, AND OTHER SE- 
 CRET AND SACERDOTAL 
 ORDERS, PARSEE AND 
 PAGAN SACRED 
 BOOKS, Etc. 
 
 For Sale by 
 J. W. BOUTON, 706 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. 
 
 TREE AND SERPENT WORSHIP ; 
 
 OR, ILLUSTRATIONS OF MYTHOLOGY AND ART IN IN- 
 DIA, in the First and Fourth Centuries after Christ. From the 
 Sculptures of the Buddhist Topes at Sanchi and Amravati, prepared under 
 the Authority of the Secretary of State for India, With Introductory 
 Essays and Descriptions of the Plates, by James Fergusson, Esq., F.R.S., 
 etc., autlior of " History of Architecture," etc. Illustrated with 99 
 Full-page Photographic and Lithographic Plates, and numerous Wood- 
 cuts throughout the Text. One thick royal 4to volume, beautifully 
 printed on heavy paper, and substantially bound in half morocco, gilt 
 top. $45.00. London, Printed for the India Office, 1873. 
 
 *' There are few things which at first sight appear to us at the present day so strange, or less 
 easy to account for, than that worship which was once so generally offered to the Serpent- 
 God. If not the oldest, it ranks at least among the earliest forms through which the human 
 intellect sought to propitiate the unknown powers. 
 
 " In so far as such glimmerings as we possess enable us to guess the locality of its origin, I 
 would feel inclined to say that it came from the mud of the Lower Euphrates, among a people 
 of Turanian origin, and spread thence as from a centre to every country or land of the Old 
 World in which a Turanian people settled. Apparently no Semitic, or no people of Aryan 
 race, ever adopted it as a form of faith. It is true, we find it in Judea, but almost certainly it 
 was there an outcrop from the older underlying strata of the population. We find it also in 
 Greece and in Scandinavia, among people whom we know principally as Aryan, but there, 
 too, it is like the tares of a previous crop springing up among the stems of a badly cultivated 
 field of wheat. .The essence of Serpent- Worship is as diametrically opposed to the spirit of the 
 Veda, or of the Bible, as is possible to conceive two faiths to be ; and, with varying degrees of 
 dilution, the spirit of these two works pervades in a greater or less extent all the forms of the 
 religions of the Aryan or Semitic races. On the other hand, any form of Animal worship is 
 perfectly consistent with the lower intellectual status of the Turanian races; and all history 
 tells us that it is among them, and essentially among them only, that Serpent-Worship is really 
 found to prevail." — Kxtract from Introdiiction. 
 
 FABER'S ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY 
 
 Ascertained from Historical Testimony and Circumstantial Evidence. 
 Map and plates. 3 vols. 4to, lialf calf, neat. $55.00. Very SCARCE. 
 
 London, 1816. 
 This important, and now scarce work, represents all the Religious Systems of Antiquity. 
 
Rare and Valuable Books. 
 ANCIENT FAITHS 
 
 EMBODIED IN ANCIENT NAMES; or. An Attempt to trace the 
 Religious Belief, Sacred Rites, and Holy Emblems of certain Nations, 
 by an Interpretation of the Names given to Children by Priestly Au- 
 thority, or assumed by Prophets, Kings, and Hierarchs. By Thomas 
 Inman, M.D. 2 thick volumes, upward of i,ooo pp. each. Profusely 
 illustrated with Engravings on Wood. $20.00. 
 
 London, Printed for the Author, 1868-.70. 
 Only 500 copies printed. 
 
 Dr. Inman' s present attempt to trace the religious belief, sacred rites, and holy emblems of 
 certain nations, has opened up to him many hitherto unexplore4 fields of research, or, at least, 
 fields that have not been over-cultivated, and the result is a most curious and miscellaneous har- 
 vest of facts. The ideas on priapism developed in a former volume receive further extension in 
 this. Dr. Inman, as will be seen, does not fear to touch subjects usually considered sacred, in an 
 independent manner, and some of the results at which he has arrived are such as will undoubted- 
 ly starde, if not shock, the orthodox. But this is what the author expects, and for this he has thor- 
 oughly prepared himself. In illustration of his peculiar views, he has ransacked a vast variety of 
 historical storehouses, and with great trouble and at considerable cost he places the conclusions 
 at which he has arrived before the world. With the arguments employed, the majority of readers 
 wilL we expect, disagree ; even when the facts adduced will remain undisputed, their appli- 
 cation is frequently inconsequent. In showing the absurdity of a narrative or an event in 
 which he disbelieves, die Doctor is powerful ; but when he himself ventures upon a chain of 
 arguments or propounds doctrines, positive or negative, he usually appears to disadvantage. 
 No expense has been spared on the volume, which, like the previous one, is well and fully 
 illustrated, and contains a good index." — Bookseller. 
 
 A most Important Contribution to Arch^ological Science, 
 
 A DISCOURSE ON THE WORSHIP OF PRIAPUS, 
 
 and its connection with the Mystic Theology of the Ancients. By 
 Richard Payne Knight, Esq. A New Edition. To which is added 
 AN ESSAY ON THE WORSHIP OF THE GENERATIVE 
 POWERS DURING THE MIDDLE AGES OF WESTERN 
 EUROPE. Illustrated with 138 Engravings (many of which are full- 
 page), from Ancient Gems, Coins, Medals, Bronzes, Sculpture, Egyptian 
 Figures, Ornaments, Monuments, etc. Printed, on heavy toned paper, 
 at the Chiswick Press, i vol. 4to, half Roxburghe morocco, gilt top. 
 $35.00. London, 1871. 
 
 "This is a very extraordinary volume upon a subject that is now attracting the almost 
 universal attention of the learned and curious in Europe. 
 
 " Ever since the revival of learning, strange objects have from time to time been discovered 
 — objects which, although they may amaze or amuse the weak-minded, have induced earnest 
 students to inquire into their origin and true meaning. Various matters and discoveries 
 assisted in clearing up the mystery ; the emblems and symbols gradually explained their full 
 meaning, and the outlines of an extraordinary creed unfolded itself. It was the DIVINITE 
 GENERATRICE— the worship or adoration of the God PRIAPUS— the ancient symbol 
 of generation and fertility. The Round Towers in Ireland ; similar buildings in India; the 
 Maypole in England, and even the spires of our churches^ are noiv shoivti to be nothing 
 more nor less than existing symbols of this pagan and stratige worship. Almost all the 
 great relics of antiquity' bear traces of this impious adoration — the rock caves of Elephanta, 
 near Bombay, the earth and stone mounds of Europe, Asia, and America, the Druidical piles 
 and the remains of the so-called Fire-worshippers in every part of the world. Even existing 
 popular customs and beliefs are full of remnants of this extravagant devotion. 
 
 "R. P. Knight, the writer of the first ' Essay,' was a Fellow of the Royal Society, a Member 
 of the British Parliament, and one of the most learned antiquaries of his time. His Museum 
 of Phallic objects is now most carefully preserved in the London British Museum. The 
 second ' Essay,' bringing our knowledge of the worship of Priapus down to the present time, 
 so as to include the more recent discoveries throwing any light upon the matter, is said to 
 be by one of the most distinguished English antiquaries — the author of numerous works which 
 are held in high esteem. He was assisted, it is understood, by two prominent Fellows of the 
 Royal Society, one of whom has recendy presented a wonderful collection of Phallic objects lo 
 the British Museum authorities." 
 
Rare and Valuable Books. 
 THE ROSICRUCIANS ; 
 
 THEIR RITES AND MYSTERIES. With Chapters on the Ancient 
 Fire- and Serpent-Worshippers, and Explanations of the Mystic Sym- 
 bols represented in the Monuments and Talismans of the primeval Philo- 
 sophers. By Hargrave Jennings. Crown 8vo, 316 wood-engrav- 
 ings. $2.00. London, 1870. 
 A volume of startling facts and opinions upon this very mysterious subject. 
 
 HIGGINS'S ANACALYPSIS ; 
 
 An atlempt to draw aside the veil of the Saitic Isis, or an Inquiry into 
 
 the Origin of Languages, Nations, and Religions. 3 vols, in i. 4to, 
 
 morocco, gilt. Plates. Very scarce. London, 1833-36. 
 
 On page vii. of the Preface this passage occurs : " I have printed only 200 copies of this 
 work; of these 200 only a few got at first into circulation. The tendency of the work is to 
 overturn all the established systems of religion, to destroy received notions upon subjects 
 generally considered sacred, and to substitute a simple unsacerdotal worship. Names hither- 
 to looked upon with veneration by the world are stripped of their honors, and others are lifted 
 from opprobrium to a position of reverence." 
 
 HIGGINS'S CELTIC DRUIDS ; 
 
 An attempt to show that the Druids were the Priests of Oriental Colo- 
 nies, who emigrated from India, i^t, fine plates of Druidical Retiiains, 
 on India Paper, and numerous vignettes. 410, half calf. $22.50. 
 
 London, 1829, 
 
 BHAGVAT GEeTA ; 
 
 or, Dialogues of Kreeshna and Arjoon ; in i8 Lectures, with Notes, 
 translated from the Original Sanskreet by Charles Wilkins. 8vo, 
 handsomely printed on fine paper. $2.50. 
 
 London, 1785, reprinted New York, 1867. 
 Only 161 copies. 
 
 Contains curious details of the Manners, Customs, Mythology, Worship, &c., of the 
 Hindoos. 
 
 The principal design of these dialogues seems to have been to unite all the prevailing modes 
 of worship of those days : the Bramins esteem it to contain all the grand mysteries of their , 
 religion, and have exercised particular care to conceal it from the knowledge of those of a dif- 
 ferent persuasion." 
 
 AVESTA: THE RELIGIOUS BOOKS OF THE 
 PARSEES. 
 
 From Professor Spiegel's German Translation of the Original Manu- 
 scripts, by A. H. Bleeck. 3 vols, in i. 8vo, cloth. $7.50. 
 
 London, 1864, 
 
 English scholars, who wish to become acquainted with the " Bible of the Parsees," now for 
 the first time published in English, should secure this work. 
 
 To thinkers the " Avesta" will be a most valuable work ; they will now have an opportunity 
 to compare its Truths with those of the Bible, the Koran, and the Veds. 
 
 COLEMAN'S MYTHOLOGY OF THE HINDUS, 
 
 with Notices of various Mountain and Island. Tribes inhabiting the 
 
 two Peninsulas of India. Numerous engravings of Hindoo Deities. 
 
 4to, half calf, neat. Scarce. $ii.oo. London, 1832. 
 
 The Appendix in this valuable work comprises the Minor Avatars and the terms used in the 
 Worship and Ceremonies of the Hindus. 
 
Rare and Valuable Books. 
 BRYANT'S SYSTEM OF ANTIENT MYTHOLOGY, 
 
 3d Edition ; witli Life of the Author, Index, &c. Portrait and Plates. 
 
 6 vols. 8vo, cf. gilt. $15.00. London, 1807. 
 
 DA VIES' MYTHOLOGY AND RITES OF THE 
 BRITISH DRUIDS, 
 
 Ascertained by National Documents, with Appendix, &c., &c. Royal 
 
 8vo, half calf. $6.00. London, 1809. 
 
 " Davies of Olverton, whose Celtic Researches and Mythology of the Druids are full of that 
 curious information which is preserved nowhere but in Welsh remains." — Southev. 
 
 FABER'S DISSERTATION ON THE MYSTERIES 
 OF THE CABIRI : 
 
 Or, The great Gods of Phoenicia, Egypt, Troas, Greece, &c. , &c. Front. 
 
 2 vols. 8vo, calf, neat, fg.oo. Printed for the Author, Oxford, 1803. 
 
 " This work estabHshes the justice of the remark made on the author's profound acquaint- 
 ance with Antiquity. In this respect, it is second only to the Ancient Mythology of Bryant." 
 —BiU. Bih. 
 
 THORPE'S NORTHERN MYTHOLOGY; 
 
 The Popular Traditions and Superstitions of Scandinavia, North Ger- 
 many, and the Netherlands ; a View of German Mythology, or Popular 
 Belief, from the North of Norway to Belgium, and from the Earliest 
 Times down to the Present. Selected and Translated. 3 vols, small 
 8vo, half morocco. $6.00. London, 1852. 
 
 MOOR'S HINDU PANTHEON. 
 
 451 pages of text, and upwards of loa fine plates of Hindoo Deities. 
 Thick royal 4to, full Russia, neat. $37.50. London, 1810. 
 
 A valuable work, noiu quite scarce, 
 
 HERCULANUM ET POMPEII : 
 
 Recueil General des Peintures, Bronzes, Mosaiques, &c., de- 
 
 couverts jusqu'i ce jour et reproduits d'apris tons les ouvrages publics 
 
 jusqu'^ present, avec un Texte explicatif de M. Barre, with 700 fine 
 
 engravings, 8 vols, imperial 8vo (including the MusEE Secrete). French 
 
 bds., lettered. $45.00. Paris, Didot, 1863. 
 
 This is the most complete work on the discoveries at Herculaneum and Pompeii, ex- 
 hibiting all the paintings, bronzes, miniatures, &c., hitherto published in rare or expensive 
 works, with the addition of many others which have not previously appeared. 
 
 MAURICE'S INDIAN ANTIQUITIES. 
 
 Numerous plates, chiefly illustrative of the Ancient Worships of India, 
 
 7 vols. 8vo, half morocco, gilt top. $20.00. London, 1800. 
 
 A very curious work, containing Dissertations relative to the ancient geographical divisions, 
 the pure system of primeval theology, the grand code of civil laws, the original form of govern- 
 ment, the widely extended commerce, and the various and profound literature, of Hindostan ; 
 compared throughout with the religion, laws, government, and literature of Persia, Egypt, 
 and Greece, the whole intended as introductory to the history of Hindostan, upon a compre- 
 hensive scale. 
 
Rare and Valuable Books. 
 
 A SUPPLEMENT TO PA YNE KNIGHTS " WORSHIP OF PXIAPUS." 
 
 APHRODISIACS AND ANTI-APHRODISIACS. 
 
 Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction ; with some account of 
 the Judicial *' Congress" as practised in France during the Seventeenth 
 Century. By John Davenport. With eight full-page illustrations. 
 
 Printed on toned paper, and only One Hundred Copies for private 
 distribution. Small 4to, half morocco, gilt top. $20.00. London, 1870. 
 
 Before the Aryan and the Semitic races had made a record in history, ahoriginal peoples 
 occupied India, Arabia, and the countries of the Mediterranean. They were not barbarous, 
 for their monumental remains show that their knowledge of architecture, the mechanic arts 
 and astronomy, has not been exceeded in subsequent time. Their civilization, however, was 
 peculiar ; for the religious comprehended the political system, and worship made science and 
 art its ministers. Unconscious of harm or immodesty, they adored the Supreme Being as the 
 Essential Principle of Life; and expressed their veneration by symbols which, in their simple 
 ai^prehension, best expressed the Divine Functions. The Sun, possessing and diffusing the 
 triune potencies of Heat, Light, and Actinism, was a universal emblem of God ; as was the 
 Bull, the zodiacal sign which indicated the vernal equinox and the resuscitation of Time. With 
 equal aptness and propriety the human organs of sex, as representing Divine Love and the 
 Perpetuation of Animated Existence, were also adopted as symbols of the Deity, and models 
 of them employed at all religious festivals. 
 
 Those symbols were adopted by the Aryan conquerors of India, and incorporated into the 
 Brahmin worship ; and we find remains of the prehistorical religion in modern creeds, super- 
 stitions, and architecture. The Monumental Shaft, the Cross, the Church-Spire, appear to 
 have been derived from the archaic worship just noted, and mean alike the virile symbol and 
 the life everlasting. 
 
 Mr. Davenport has given these matters a due explanation, and his work is a rare as well as 
 a valuable contribution to literature. 
 
 THE DABISTAN, OR SCHOOL OF MANNERS. 
 
 Translated from the Original Persian, with Notes and Illustrations by 
 
 David Shea and Anthony Troyer. 3 vols. 8vo, new cloth. $7.50. 
 
 Oriental Society, London, 1843. 
 
 An interesting account of the Religions of the world, written by an unknown writer, of the 
 greatest interest to Oriental scholars and comparative mythologists. 
 
 PETRIE'S ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE 
 OF IRELAND, 
 
 Anterior to the Anglo-Norman Invasion. Numerous engravings of the 
 Round Towers and other Architecture. 4to, cloth. $20.00. 
 
 London, 1845. 
 Large paper, scarce. 
 
 This work comprises the Prize Essay on tiie Origin and Uses of the Round Towers of Ire- 
 land, greatly enlarged ; and distinct Essays on ancient Stone Churches, Stc, of contempora- 
 neous ages. 
 
 WILKINSON'S ANCIENT EGYPTIANS, 
 
 The Manners and Customs of. Both Series, with numerous engrav- 
 ings, many of which are colored. 6 vols. 8vo, tree calf extra, gilt top, 
 edges uncut, scarce. $90.00. London, 1837-41. 
 
 A Beautiful Copy. Best Edition. 
 
 ZEND-AVESTA, 
 
 Ouvrage de Zoro.\STRE, contenant ses ideas theologiques, physiques, at 
 morales, le culte religieux qu'il a etabli, et plusieurs trait^s sur I'ancienne 
 histoire des Perses; traduit en Franfais, avec des remarques, &c., par 
 Anquetil du Perron. 2 vols, in 3, 4to, plates, old French calf gilt. 
 $35.00. Paris, 1771. 
 
Rare and Valuable Books. 
 UPHAM'S BUDDHISM, 
 
 History and Doctrine of, popularly illustrated with Notices of 
 THE Kappooism OF Demon-Worship, and of the Bali or Planetary 
 Incantations of Ceylon. 43 plates from Singalese Designs. Folio, 
 half calf neat. $19.00. London, 1829. 
 
 Scarce. 
 
 SECRET MUSEUM OF NAPLES. 
 
 Being an account of the Erotic Paintings, Bronzes, and Statues con- 
 tained in that famous "Cabinet Secret." By Colonel Fanin. Now 
 first translated from the French. With sixty full-page illustrations, 
 mostly colored. i vol., medium 4to, half polished morocco, gilt top, 
 $40.00. London, 1872. 
 
 These relics, in which science takes so lively an interest, have survived the lapse of cen- 
 turies. They have been preserved in the womb of the earth to transmit to future generations 
 the lessons of history. Those which we have chosen to form the subject of this book were 
 discovered in some of those towns situated on the side of Vesuvius which had been buried 
 under its volcanic ashes : — we allude to Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Stabia. 
 
 During more than sixteen hundred years even the sites of these destroyed cities were un- 
 known ; learned men were still at controversy on the subject at the beginning of the eighteenth 
 century, when chance led to the discovery in a country-seat of the Duke of Lorraine, at Por- 
 tici, of a fruitful mine of objects of Art and Antiquities of all kinds. The King of the Two 
 Sicilies caused excavations to be made, and in the month of pecember, 1^738, the Theatre of 
 Herculaneum was found. The excavations made at this fieriod, and continued down to our 
 days, have furnished the Neapolitan government with the richest^ most instructive, and most 
 interesting collection of antiquities. 
 
 This work was originally published by the Italian government, and given to men of science 
 and learned institutions only. It is now for the first time priesented in an English translation, 
 with all of the illustrations of the original edition. 
 
 ASIATIC RESEARCHES ; 
 
 or, Transactions of the Society for inquiring into the History, Antiquities, 
 
 Arts, Literature, etc. of Asia, by the most eminent Oriental Scholars. 
 
 12 vols. 8vo, russia gilt. $20.00. London, 1801-6. 
 
 Contains the learned Essays by Colebrooke, Sir WiUiam Jones, Carey, Strachey, Dr. Wal- 
 lich, Roxburgh, &c. 
 
 KING (C. W.) THE GNOSTICS. 
 
 And their Remains, Ancient and Medieval. Profusely illustrated. 
 8vo, new cloth gilt. $6.00. London, 1864. 
 
 #*# The only English work on the subject. Out of print and scarce, 
 
 VISHNU PURANA, 
 
 A system of Hindu Mythology and Tradition, translated from the origi- 
 nal Sanscrit, and illustrated by Notes derived chiefly from other Puranas, 
 by H. H. Wilson. Thick 4to, cloth. $25. ob. London, 1840. 
 
 The "Vishnu Purana" embodies'the real doctrine of the Indian Scripture, the "Unity of the 
 Deity.'* This edition was published by the Oriental Translation Society, but is quite out of 
 print, and rare. 
 
f- . *^