there is nothing remarkable, but it is surprising that persons of the highest rank in the nation consecrate their virgin daughters to the goddess. It is customary for these women, after being prostituted a long period at the temple of Anaites, to be disposed of in marriage, no one disdaining a connection with such persons. Herodotus mentions something similar respecting the Lydian women, all of whom prostitute themselves." Of the temple of Venus at Corinth, Strabo says "it had more than a thousand women consecrated to the service of the goddess, courtesans, whom men and women had dedicated as offerings to the goddess"; and of Comana, in Cappadocia, he has a similar relation (bk. xii., c. iii., 36).

Dr. Kalisch also says Baal Peor "was probably the principle of generation par excellence, and at his festivals virgins were accustomed to yield themselves in his honor. To this disgraceful idolatry the Hebrews were addicted from very early times; they are related to have already been smitten on account of it by a fearful plague which destroyed 24,000 worshippers, and they seem to have clung to its shameful practices in later periods."* Jerome says plainly that Baal-Peor was Priapus, which some derive from Peor Apis. Hosea says (ix. 10, Revised Version) "they came to Baal-Peor and consecrated themselves unto the shameful thing, and became abominable like that which they loved"; see, too, Num. xxvi. 1, 3. Amos (ii. 7,8) says a son and a father go in unto the same maid in the house of God to profane Jahveh's holy name, so that it appears this "maid" was regarded as in the service of Jahveh. Maimonides says it was known that the worship of Baal-Peor was by uncovering of the nakedness; and this he makes the reason why God commanded the priests to make themselves breeches to wear at the time of service, and why they might not go up to the altar by steps that their nakedness might not be discovered.** Jules Soury says*** "The tents of the sacred prostitutes were generally erected on the high places."

In the temple at Jerusalem the women wove hangings for the Asherah (2 Kings xxiii. 7), that is for concealment in the worship of the genetrix, and in the same precincts were the houses of prostitute priests (see also 1 Kings xiv. 24; xv. 12; xxii. 46. Luther translates "Hurer"). Although Josiah destroyed these, B.C. 624, Kalisch says "The image of Ashtarte was probably erected again in the inner court (Jer. xxxii. 34; Ezek. viii. 6)." Ezekiel says (xvi. 16), "And of thy garments thou didst take, and deckedst thy high places with divers colors and playedst the harlot thereupon," and (v. 24) "Thou hast also built unto thee an eminent place, and hast made thee a high place in every street," which is plainly translated in the Roman Catholic Douay version "Thou didst also build thee a common stew and madest thee a brothel house in every street." The "strange woman," against whom the Proverbs warns, practised her profession under cover of religion (see Prov. vii. 14). The "peace offerings" there alluded to were religious sacrifices.

Together with their other functions the Kadeshah, like the eastern nautch girls and bayaderes, devoted themselves to dancing and music (see Isaiah xxiii. 16). Dancing was an important part of ancient religious worship, as may be noticed in the case of King David, who danced before the ark, clad only in a linen ephod, probably a symbolic emblem (see Judges viii. 27), to the scandal of his wife, whom he had purchased by a trophy of two hundred foreskins from the uncircumcised Philistines (1 Sam. xviii. 27; 2 Sam. vi. 14-16). When the Israelites worshipped the golden calf they danced naked (Exodus xxxii. 19, 25). They sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play, the word being the same as that used in Gen. xxvi. 8. The word chag is frequently translated "feast," and means "dance." In the wide prevalence of sacred prostitution Sir John Lubbock sees a corroboration of his hypothesis of communal marriage. Mr. Wake, however, refers it to the custom of sexual hospitality, a practice widely spread among all savage races, the rite like that of blood covenanting being associated with ideas of kinship and friendliness.

We have seen that the early Jews shared in the phallic worship of the nations around them. Despite the war against Baal and Asherah worship by the prophets of Jahveh, it was common in the time of the Judges (iii. 7). Solomon himself was a worshipper of Ashtoreth, a faith doubtless after the heart of the sensual sultan (1 Kings xi. 5). The people of Judah "built them high places and phalli and ashera on every high hill and under every green tree. And there were also Sodomites in the land" (1 Kings xiv. 23, 24). The mother of Asa made "an abominable image for an Asherah" (1 Kings xv. 13).* The images of Asherah were kept in the house of Jahveh till the time of Josiah (2 Kings xxiii. 6). Dr. Kuenen says (Religion of Israel, vol. i., p. 80), "the images, pillars and asheras were not considered by those who worshipped them as antagonistic to the acknowledgment of Jahveh as the God of Israel." The same writer contends that Jeroboam exhibiting the calves or young bulls could truly say "These be thy gods, O Israel." Remembering, too, that every Jew bears in his own body the mark of a special covenant with the Lord, the reader may take up his Bible and find much over which pious preachers and commentators have woven a pretty close veil. I will briefly notice a few particulars.

Without going into the question of the translation of Genesis i. 2, it is evident from v. 27 that God is hermaphrodite. "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female (zakar and nekaba) created he them."

It is not difficult to find traces of phallicism in the allegory of the Garden of Eden. This has been noticed from the earliest times. The rabbis classed the first chapters of Genesis with the Song of Solomon and certain portions of Ezekiel as not to be read by anyone under thirty. The Manichæans and other early Christians held the phallic view. Clement of Alexandria (Strom iii.) admits the sin of Adam consists in a premature indulgence of the sexual appetite. This view explains why knowledge was prohibited and why the first effect of the fall was the perception of nakedness. Basilides contended that we should reverence the serpent because it induced Eve to share the caresses of Adam, without which the human race would never have existed. Many modern writers, notably Beverland and Dr. Donaldson, have sustained the phallic interpretation. Archbishop Whately is also said to have advocated a similar opinion in an anonymous Latin work published in Germany. Dr. Donaldson, who was renowned as a scholar, makes some curious versions of the Hebrew. His translation of the alleged "Messianic promise" in Genesis iii. 15, his adversary, Dr. Perowne, the present Dean of Peterborough, says, is "so gross that it will not bear rendering into English." A good Hebraist, a Jew by birth, who had never heard of Dr. Donaldson's Jashar, gave me an exactly similar rendering of this verse—which makes it a representation of coition—and instanced the phrase "the serpent was more subtle than the other beasts of the field," as an illustration of early Jewish humor.

The French physician, Parise, eloquently says: "This sublime gift of transmitting