193.2We might perhaps infer their recognition from the occasional use of the word δεισιδαίμων in a partly good sense,e.g.Aristot.Pol., 5, 11, 25; Xen.Ages., 11, 8; but its bad sense is more emphasised by Theophrastos in his “Characters.”
193.3Nebukadnezar (of all people) calls himself more than once “the humble, the submissive,”e.g.Keilinschr. Bibl., iii. p. 63.
193.4We find the phrase δοῦλος ὑμέτερος also in the Greek magic papyri, but these are charged with the Oriental spirit; Kenyon,Greek Pap., i. p. 108, ll. 745-6.
194.1C. I. Sem., 1, No. 122.
194.2These facts are collected and exposed in a valuable article by Perdrizet inArchiv. für Relig. Wissensch., 1911, pp. 54-129; cf.Revue des Études anciennes, 1910, pp. 236-237;Hell. Journ., 1888, pl. vi.
195.1VideO. Weber,Arabien vor dem Islam, p. 21.
196.1Dittenberg,Orient. Graec. Inscr., 619 (= Lebas-Waddington,Inscr., iii. 2393); the reading here is Θεὸν Αὐμόν, probably a mistake for Αὐμοῦ; cf. Lebas-Wadd., 2395 and 2455.
196.2VideRoscher’sLexikon, ii. p. 2752.
196.3Vide ib., iii. p. 1496.
196.4Cults, vol. i., “Athena,” R. 96b(Paus., 1, 42, 4); as regards “Apollo Sarpedonios” we are uncertain whether the title was not merely local-geographical.
197.1Langdon,op. cit., pp. 309, 321; cf. the lines in the hymn, p. 335: “I am the child who upon the flood was cast out—Damu, who on the flood was cast out, the anointed one who on the flood was cast out.”
197.2Bergk’sLyr. Graec., iii. p. 654.
199.1Pp. 222-223.
199.2Vide supra,p. 42.
199.3Keilinschr. Bibl., ii. p. 191.
200.1Keil. Bibl., ii. p. 11.
200.2Ib., p. 69.
200.3Ib., p. 257.
201.1Keil. Bibl., ii. pp. 133-134.
201.2Ib., pp. 203, 207.
201.3Ib., p. 205.
202.1We note the indication of a cruel human sacrifice—consecration of a child to a god or goddess by fire—as a legal punishment for reopening adjudicated causes (Johns,Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, etc., p. 95).
205.1VideDr. Langdon’s paper on “Babylonian Eschatology;” inEssays in Modern Theology(papers offered to Professor Briggs, 1911), p. 139.
205.2VideJeremias,Hölle und Paradies, p. 30; cf. King,Bab. Rel., p. 46—formula for laying a troubled and dangerous ghost—“let him depart into the west; to Nedu, the Chief Porter of the Underworld, I consign him.” The west was suggested to the Hellene because of the natural associations of the setting sun; to the Babylonian, perhaps, according to Jeremias,op. cit., p. 19, because the desert west of Babylon was associated with death and demons.
205.3The “waters of death” figure in the Epic of Gilgamesh,e.g.King,op. cit., p. 169.
205.4Videinscr. of Sargon II. inKeil. Bibl., ii. 2, pp. 75-77, 79: “Ea, Sin, Shamash, Nabu, Ramman, Ninib, and their benign spouses, who were rightfully born on Iharsaggalkurkurra, the Mountain of the Underworld.”
206.1Passage in “The Descent of Ishtar,” Jeremias,op. cit., p. 20.
206.2King,op. cit., pp. 45-46.
208.1VideLangdon,op. cit.
209.1Cook,Religion of Ancient Palestine, p. 36.
209.2VideLangdon,op. cit.
209.3VideProf. Margoliouth’s article on “Ancestor-worship” in Hastings’Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics.
210.1King’s translation inBabyl. Relig., pp. 48-49. Cf. Jeremias,Hölle u. Paradies, p. 12.
211.1Cook,The Religion of Ancient Palestine, p. 35.
211.2E.g.Eur.Troad., 1085, σὺ μὲν φθίμενος ἀλαίνεις ἄθαπτος, ἄνυδρος.
212.1Langdon,op. cit.
212.2King,op. cit., p. 176.
212.3Thureau-Dangin,Les cylindres de Goudéa, p. 57: Les héros morts leur bouche auprès d’une fontaine il plaça.
212.4Winckler,op. cit., p. 41.
212.5Jeremias,op. cit., p. 15.
213.1E.g.Peiser,Sketch of Babylonian Society, in the Smithsonian Institute, 1898, p. 586, speaks as if it was ancestor-worship that held the Babylonian family together.
213.2Videmy article on “Hero-worship” inHibbert Journal, 1909, p. 417.
214.1V. Landau,Phönizische Inschr., p. 15.
214.2Jeremias,Hölle u. Paradies, p. 37.
215.1It would be idle for my purpose to distinguish between the so-called “Achaean” and “Pelasgian” elements in the Homeric Νέκυια; even if the latter ethnic term was of any present value for Greek religion.
215.2Hesiod, Ἔργ. 110-170 (the men of the golden and the silver ages and the heroes).
216.1VideZimmern inK.A.T.3, pp. 636-639; Jeremias,Hölle u. Paradies, p. 25; cf. hisDie Babyl. Assyr. Vorstellungen rom. Leben nach dem Tode.
216.2Vide supra,p. 160.
216.3Zimmern,op. cit., p. 520; King,op. cit., p. 188.
217.1King,op. cit., p. 138.
217.2Lagrange,Études sur les religions sémitiques, p. 493.
218.1Cf.Keil. Bibl., ii. 109; Jeremias,Hölle u. Paradies, pp. 13-14.
219.1Jastrow,op. cit., pp. 472-473.
219.2Ib., p. 473.
219.3Ib., p. 472.
219.4Zimmern inSitzungsber. d. Kön. Sächs. Gesell. Wiss.1907, “Sumerisch-Babylonische Tanzlieder,” p. 220.
219.5VideJeremias in his article on “Nergal” in Roscher’sLexikon, iii. p. 251.
219.6It is doubtful if any argument can be based on the name Ningzu, occasionally found as the name of the consort of Ereshkigal (Zimmern,K.A.T.3, p. 637) and said to mean “Lord of Healing,” in reference, probably, to the waters of life.
219.7Only in the story of Adapa he appears as one of the warders of the gates of heaven (Zimmern,K.A.T.3, p. 521).
220.1The story of Aphrodite descending into Hades to seek Adonis is much later than the period with which we are dealing. Nergal’s descent to satisfy the wrath of Allatu and his subsequent marriage with her (Jeremias,Hölle und Paradies, p. 22) is a story of entirely different motive to the Rape of Kore.
223.1Cook,The Religion of Ancient Palestine, p. 17.
223.2Researches in Sinai, p. 72, etc., 186: he would carry back the foundation to the fourth millennium B.C.
223.3VideArch. Anzeig., 1909, p. 498.
223.4VideCults, iii. p. 299.
224.1VideHogarth’s evidence for the date of the earliest Artemision,Excavations at Ephesus, p. 244.
224.2Il., i. 38.
224.3Ib., vi. 269, 299-300.
224.4Ib., ii. 550.
224.5Ib., ix. 405.
224.6VideStengel,Griechische Sacral-Altertümer, p. 17.
224.7VideAthen. Mittheil., 1911, pp. 27, 192.
225.1VideJeremias in Roscher,Lexikon, ii. p. 2347,s.v.“Marduk.”
225.2Something near to it would be found in the cult-phrase Ζεὺς Νᾶος of Dodona, which is a form commoner in the inscriptions than Ζεὺς Νάϊος, if, with M. Reinach (Rev. Archéol., 1905, p. 97), we regarded this as the original title and interpreted it as “Zeus-Temple.” But the interpretation is hazardous.
225.3A disk on the top of a pole,videJastrow,Rel. Bab. Assyr., vol. i. p. 203.
226.1Cook,op. cit., p. 28.
226.2Religion of the Semites, pp. 185-195; “Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult,”Hell. Journ., 1901. It is interesting to note that Baitylos, a name derived from the Semitic description of the sacred stone as the “House of God,” is given as the name of a divine king in the cosmogony of Philo Byblius, Müller,Frag. Hist. Graec., iii. p. 567; cf. the baitylos with human head found at Tegea inscribed Διὸς Στορπάω (fifth century B.C.), “Zeus of the lightning” (Eph. Arch., 1906, p. 64).
227.1VideEvans,op. cit., andAnnual of British School, 1908, 1909.
227.2VidemyCults, i. pp. 13-18, 102; ii. pp. 520, 670; iv. pp. 4, 149, 307; v. pp. 7, 240, 444.
227.3For the evidence of a pillar-cult of Apollo Agyieus and Karneios coming from the north, videCults, vol. iv. pp. 307-308.
227.4The pillars known as “Kudurru,” with emblems of the various divinities upon them, served merely as boundary-stones (videJastrow,op. cit., i. p. 191; Hilprecht inBabylonian Expedition of University of Pennsylvania, vol. iv.).
228.16, 269.
228.2Cults, ii. 445.
228.3Op. cit., vol. v. p. 8.
229.1Arnob.Adv. Gent., 5, 19 (in the mysteries of the Cyprian Venus), “referunt phallos propitii numinis signa donatos.”
229.2Cook,Religion of Ancient Palestine, p. 28; cf.Corp. Inscr. Sem., i. 11. 6, inscription found in cave, dedicated perhaps by the hierodulai, “pudenda muliebria” carved on the wall.
229.3Rel. of Sem., pp. 437-438.
229.4De Dea Syria, c. 16 and c. 28.
229.5Histoire de l’Art, iv. pl. viii, D.
230.1Jeremias, in his articles on “Izdubar” and “Nebo” in Roscher’sLexikon, ii. p. 792 and iii. p. 65, concludes that a phallic emblem was employed in the ritual of Ishtar; but he bases his view on the translation of the wordibattuin the Gilgamesh Epic, which is differently rendered by King,Babylonian Religion, p. 163, and Zimmern,K.A.T.3, p. 572.
230.2Thureau-Dangin,Les Cylindres de Goudéa, p. 69.
231.1This may explain the double phrase, used concerning the institution and endowment of temple-rites in an inscription of the time of Tiglath-Pileser III., which Zimmern translates by “Opfer-Mahlzeiten,”Keil. Bibl., iv. p. 103; cf. especiallyK.B., iii. p. 179 (inscr. of ninth century); Zimmern,Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Babyl. Relig., ii. p. 99 (sacred loaves offered before consultation of divinity).
231.2VideRobertson Smith,op. cit., p. 200.
231.3VideCults, i. p. 88; v. p. 199.
232.1Judges ix. 13; cf. Robertson Smith,op. cit., p. 203.
232.2Lagrange,Études sur les religions sémitiques, p. 506. This seems to agree with the statement in Diodorus (19, 94) that the Nabataeans tabooed wine; yet Dusares, the Arabian counterpart of Dionysos, was a Nabataean god.
232.3Gray,Shamash Religious Texts, p. 21.
232.4Dhorme,Choix, etc., p. 41, l. 136.
232.5VideCults, iii. p. 390, R. 57h.
232.6Ib., ii. p. 646.
234.1Robertson Smith,op. cit., pp. 272-273.
234.2Athenae. 376a(Cults, i. p. 141).
234.3Cults, ii. pp. 646-647.
234.4O. Weber,Dämonenbeschwörung, p. 29; his note on the passage “that the unclean beast is offered as a substitute for an unclean man” is not supported by any evidence.
234.5Zimmern,K.A.T.3, pp. 409-410.
235.1Robertson Smith’s theory that the gift-sacrifice was a later degeneracy from the communion-type is unconvincing;videspecially an article by Ada Thomsen, “Der Trug von Prometheus,”Arch. Relig. Wissensch., 1909, p. 460.
236.1“Sacrificial Communion in Greek Religion,” inHibbert Journal, 1904.
236.2E.g.Il., 1, 457-474;Od., 3, 1-41; 14, 426.
236.3Cf. Schol.Od., 3, 441 (who defines οὐλοχύται as barley and salt mixed with water or wine… καὶ ἔθυον αὐτὰ πρὸ τοῦ ἱερείου… κριθὰς δὲ ἐνέβαλον τοῖς θύμασι χάριν εὐφορίας); Schol.Arist. Equ., 1167, τοῖς θύμασιν ἐπιβαλλόμεναι [κριφαί].VideFritz.Hermes, 32, 235; for another theory,videStoll, “Alte Taufgebraüche,” inArch. Relig. Wissensch., 1905, Beiheft, p. 33.
237.1VideEvans, “Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult,”Hell. Journ., 1901, pp. 114-115.
237.2Od., 14, 426; cf. the custom reported from Arabia of mingling hair from the head of a worshipper with the paste from which an idol is made.
237.3Aristoph.Pax., 956.
237.4Athenae, p. 419, B.
237.5VideArch. Rel. Wiss., 1909, p. 467; Thomsen there explains it wholly from the idea of tabu.
237.6The common meal of the thiasotaï is often represented on later reliefs,videPerdriyet, “Reliefs Mysiens,”Bull. Corr. Hell., 1899, p. 592.
238.1VideCults, i. pp. 56-58, 88-92.
239.1In my article on “Sacrificial Communion in Greek Religion,”Hibbert Journal, 1904, p. 320, I have been myself guilty of this, in quoting the story told by Polynaenus (Strategem.8, 43), about the devouring of the mad bull with golden horns by the Erythraean host, as containing an example of a true sacrament.
239.2VideCults, vol. i. p. 145.
239.3See Crusius’ article in Roscher’sLexikon,s.v.“Harpalyke.”
240.1VideCults, v. pp. 161-172.
240.2Ib., v. p. 165.
241.1K.A.T.3, p. 596.
241.2Jeremias,Die Cultus-Tafel von Sippar, p. 26.
241.3Zimmern,Beiträge zur Kennt. Bab. Rel., p. 15.
242.1VideFrazer,Adonis-Attis-Osiris, p. 189; cf. “Communion in Greek Religion,”Hibbert Journ., 1904, p. 317.
242.2Jeremias,Die Cultus-Tafel von Sippar, p. 28.
243.1Weber,Dämonenbeschwörung, etc., p. 29.
243.2iv. R2, pl. 26, No. 6; this is the inscription quoted by Prof. Sayce (vide infra,p. 182, n.) as a document proving human sacrifice. I owe the above translation to the kindness of Dr. Langdon; it differs very slightly from Zimmern’s inK.A.T.3, p. 597.
243.3Jeremias,op. cit., p. 29.
243.4Renan’s thesis (C. I. Sem., i. p. 229) that the idea of sin, so dominant in the Hebrew and Phoenician sacrifice, was entirely lacking in the Hellenic, cannot be maintained; he quotes Porph.De Abstin., 1, 2, 24, a passage which contains an incomplete theory of Greek sacrifice. The sin-offering is indicated by Homer, and is recognised frequently in Greek literature and legend; only no technical term was invented to distinguish it from the ordinary cheerful sacrifice.
244.1Cults, ii. p. 441.
244.2VideK.A.T.3, pp. 434, 599, where Zimmern refers to the monuments published by Ménant,Pierres gravées, i. figs. 94, 95, 97, as possibly showing a scene of human sacrifice. But Ménant’s interpretation of them is wrong;videLangdon,Babyloniaca, Tome iii. p. 236, “two Babylonian seals”; the kneeling figure is the owner of the seal; the personage behind him is no executioner, but Ramman or Teschub holding, not a knife, but his usual club. The inscriptions published by Prof. Sayce (Trans. Soc. Bibl. Arch., iv. pp. 25-29) are translated differently by Dr. Langdon, so that the first one (iv. R2, pl. 26, No. 6) refers to the sacrifice of a kid, not of an infant. The misinterpretation of the inscription has misled Trumbull (Blood Covenant, p. 166). The statement in 2 Kings xvii. 31 about the Sepharvites in Samaria does not necessarily point to a genuine Babylonian ritual, even if we are sure that the Sepharvites were Babylonians.
245.1Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, p. 95.
245.2The excavations at Gezer have revealed almost certain evidence of the early practice of human sacrifice; a number of skeletons, one of a girl sawn in half, were found buried under the foundation of houses (videCook,op. cit., pp. 38-39).
246.1Stengel,Die griechischen Kultusaltertümer, p. 89.
246.2K.A.T.3, p. 599.
246.3Jastrow,op. cit., i. p. 500.
246.4Might this be the meaning of a line in a hymn translated by Jastrow,op. cit., p. 549, “I turn myself to thee (O Goddess Gula), I have grasped thy cord as the cord of my god and goddess” (videKing,Babyl. Magic, No. 6, No. 71-94); or of the phrase in the Apocrypha (Epist. Jerem., 43), “The women also with cords about them sit in the ways”?
246.5Zimmern’sBeiträge, etc., p. 99.
247.1On the famous bronze plaque of the Louvre (Jeremias,Hölle und Paradies, p. 28, Abb. 6) we see two representatives of Ea in the fish-skin of the god; and on a frieze of Assur-nasir-pal in the British Museum (Hell. Journ., 1894, p. 115, fig. 10; Layard,Monuments of Nineveh, 1, pl. 30), two men in lions’ skins; but these are not skins of animals of sacrifice.
247.2VidemyEvolution of Religion, pp. 118-120.
248.1K.A.T.3, p. 49.
248.23, 300; 19, 265-267.
248.3Polybius, 3, 25, ἐγὼ μόνος ἐκπέσοιμι οὕτως ὡς ὅδε λίθος νῦν.
248.4Op. cit., ii. p. 217.
250.1According to Dr. Langdon (op. cit., p. xvi.), the wailing for Tammuz was developed in the early Sumerian period of the fourth millennium.
251.1Langdon,op. cit., 300-341; cf. Zimmern, “Sumerisch-Babylonische Tamuzlieder,” inSitzungsber. König. Sächs. Gesell. Wissen., 1907, pp. 201-252, and his discussion, “Der Babylonische Gott Tamuz,” inAbhandl. König. Sächs. Gesell. Wissen., 1909.
251.2Vide supra,p. 105.
251.3VideLangdon,op. cit., p. 501.
251.4Antiqu., 8, 5, 3; cf. Clem.Recogn., 10, 24; Baudissin in hisEschmun-Asklepios(Oriental. Stud. zu Nöldeke gewidmet, p. 752) thinks that the Healer-god, Marduk Asclepios Eschmun, is himself one who died and rose again in Assyrian and Phoenician theology. For Asklepios of Berytos we have the almost useless story of Damascius in Phot.Bibl., 573 H.; the uncritical legend in Ktesias (c. 21) and Ael.Var. Hist., 13, 3, about the grave of Belitana at Babylon (to which Strabo also alludes, p. 740), does not justify the view that the death of Marduk was ever a Babylonian dogma.
252.1Perrot-Chipiez,Histoire de l’Art, iv. pl. viii.
253.1Rev. de Philol., 1893, p. 195.
253.2VideFrazer,op. cit., pp. 98-99.
253.3K. O. Müller,Kleine Schriften, vol. ii. pp. 102-103.
253.4Journ. Roy. Asiat. Soc., 1909, pp. 966, 971; the information about the true meaning of the ideogram I owe to Dr. Langdon.
254.1Vide supra, p. 91; cf.Cults, ii. pp. 644-649; iii. pp.300-305.
254.2The Babylonian myths of Etana and Adapa, and their ascent to heaven, may have given the cue to the Phrygian stories of Ganymede and Tantalos.
256.1Dr. Frazer, inMagic Art and the Evolution of Kings(G. B., vol. ii. p. 45), quotes from N. Tsackni (La Russie Sectaire, p. 74) an example of a fanatic Christian sect in modern Russia practising castration. I have not been able to find this treatise.
257.1VideCults, iii. pp. 300-301. Dr. Frazer’s theory is that the act of castration was performed in order to maintain the fruitfulness of the earth (op. cit., pp. 224-237). But this is against the countless examples which he himself has adduced of the character and function of the priest or priest-king as one whose virile strength maintains the strength of the earth; the sexual act performed in the field by the owner increases the fruitfulness of the field (Frazer,GB2, ii. p. 205). Why should the priest make himself impotent so as to improve the crops? The only grounds of his belief appear to be that the priest’s testicles were committed to the earth or to an underground shrine of Kybele (Arnob.Adv. Gent., v. 14, and Schol. Nikand.Alexipharm., 7; videCults, 3; Kybele Ref. 54a); but such consecration of them to Kybele would be natural on any hypothesis, and Arnobius’ words do not prove that they were buried in the bare earth.
259.1VideCults, i. pp. 36-38.
259.2VideEvolution of Religion, p. 62.
260.1Porph.Vit. Pyth., 17; cf. Callim.H. ad. Jov., 8; Diod. Sic., 3, 61; videCults, i. pp. 36-37.
260.2VideA. Evans inHell. Journ., xvii. 350.
261.1VideCults, vol. ii. p. 651; cf. Clem.Recogn., 10, 24, “sepulcrum Cypriae Veneris apud Cyprum.”
261.2Ib., pp. 651-652.
261.3VideCults, vol. ii. pp. 447, n.c., 478, 638, n.a.
261.4Aristot.Rhet., 2, 23.
262.1Athenae, p. 620 A (ζητεῖν αὐτὸν τοὺς ἀπὸ τῆς χώρας μετά τινος μεμελῳδημένου θρήνου καὶ ἀνακλήσεως); Pollux., 4, 54.
262.2Frazer,GB2, vol. ii. p. 106.
263.1VideThureau-Dangin,Vorderasiatische Bibliothek, i. p. 77.
263.2Weber,Arabien vor dem Islam, p. 19.
264.1VideEvans inHell. Journ., 1901, p. 176.
264.2Cults, i. pp. 184-191.
264.3Ib., iii. pp. 123-124.
264.4Ib., iii. p. 176; cf. vol. iv. p. 34 n.b.
264.5Ib., i. pp. 189-190.
265.11, 181.
265.2Vide, for instance, Dr. Langdon in theExpositor, 1909, p. 143.
265.3Winckler,Die Gesetze Hammurabi, p. 182.
266.1VideDieterich,Mithras-Liturgie, pp. 126-127; Reizenstein,Die hellenistischen Mysterien-religionen.
266.2VideHerzog’sReal-Encyclop.,s.v.“Montanismus.”
266.3Jourdanet et Siméon transl. of Sahagun, pp. 147-148.
266.4Golther,Handbuch der Germanischen Mythologie, p. 229; cf. Mannhardt,Baumkultus, p. 589.
267.1Pausan., 2, 33, 3; 9, 27, 6; cf. my article inArchiv. für Religionswiss., 1904, p. 74; E. Fehrle,Die Kultische Keuschheit im Alterthum, p. 223, gives other examples which appear to me more doubtful.
267.2Paus., 3, 16, 1.
267.3Cults, v. pp. 217-219.
268.1VideCults, v. p. 109.
268.2Winckler,op. cit., p. 110; Johns,op. cit., p. 54.
269.1Code, § 182.
269.2Jastrow,op. cit., ii. 157.
269.3VideWinckler’s interpretation of §§ 178, 180, 181; cf. also Zimmern inK.A.T.3, 423.
269.41, 199.
270.1E.g.Zimmern inK.A.T.3, p. 423.
270.2Verse 43.
271.1The first to insist emphatically on the necessity of their distinction was Mr. Hartland, inAnthropological Essays presented to E. B. Tylor, pp. 190-191; but he has there, I think, wrongly classified—through a misunderstanding of a phrase in Aelian—the Lydian custom that Herodotus (1, 93) and Aelian (Var. Hist., iv. 1) refer to; both these writers mention the custom of the women of Lydia practising prostitution before marriage. Aelian does not mention the motive that Herodotus assigns, the collection of a dowry; neither associates it with religion. Aelian merely adds that when once married the Lydian women were virtuous; this need have nothing to do with the Mylitta-rite.
272.1E.g.Hosea iv. 13; Deut. xxiii. 18; 1 Kings xiv. 24.
272.2Weber,Arabien vor dem Islam, p. 18.
272.3C. I. Sem., 1, 263.
272.4Strab., 272.
272.5Strab., 559.
272.6Pind.Frag., 87; Strab., 378; (Cults, ii. p. 746, R. 99g).
273.1Cities and Bishoprics, i. 94. In his comment he rightly points out that the woman is Lydian, as her name is not genuine Roman; but he is wrong in speaking of her service as performed to a god (Frazer,Adonis, etc., p. 34, follows him). This would be a unique fact, for the service in Asia Minor is always to a goddess; but the inscription neither mentions nor implies a god. The bride of Zeus at Egyptian Thebes was also a temple-harlot, if we could believe Strabo, p. 816; but on this point he contradicts Herodotus, 1, 182.
273.2Et. Mag., s.v. Ἱκόνιον.
274.1De Dea Syr., 6; cf. Aug.De Civ. Dei, 4, 10: “cui (Veneri) etiam Phoenices donum dabant de prostitutione filiarum, antequam eas jungerent viris”: religious prostitution before marriage prevailed among the Carthaginians in the worship of Astarte (Valer. Max., 2, ch. 1, sub. fin.: these vague statements may refer either to defloration of virgins or prolonged service in the temple).
274.2See Frazer,op. cit., p. 33, n. 1, quoting Sozomen.Hist. Eccles., 5, 10, 7; Sokrates,Hist. Eccles., 1, 18, 7-9; Euseb.Vita Constantin., 3, 58. Eusebius only vaguely alludes to it. Sokrates merely says that the wives were in common, and that the people had the habit of giving over the virgins to strangers to violate. Sozomenos is the only voucher for the religious aspect of the practice; from Sokrates we gather that the rule about strangers was observed in the rite.
274.318, 5.
274.4This is confirmed by the legend given by Apollodoros (Bibl., 3, 14, 3) that the daughters of Kinyras, owing to the wrath of Aphrodite, had sexual intercourse with strangers.
275.1Justin, 21, 3; Athenaeus, 516 A, speaks vaguely, as if the women of the Lokri Epizephyrii were promiscuous prostitutes.
275.2Pp. 532-533.
275.3The lovers, Melanippos and Komaitho, sin in the temple of Artemis Triklaria of the Ionians in Achaia; the whole community is visited with the divine wrath, and the sinners are offered up as a piacular sacrifice (Paus., 7, 19, 3); according to Euphorion, Laokoon’s fate was due to a similar trespass committed with his wife before the statue of Apollo (Serv.Aen., 2, 201). It may be that such legends faintly reflect a very early ἱερὸς γάμος once performed in temples by the priest and priestess: if so, they also express the repugnance of the later Hellene to the idea of it; and in any case this is not the institution that is being discussed.
276.1Antike Wald u. Feld Kulte, p. 285, etc.
277.1Why should not the priestess rather play the part of the goddess, and why, if we trust Plutarch (Vit. Artaxerx., 27), was the priestess of Anaitis at Ekbatana, to whose temple harlots were attached, obliged to observe chastity after election?
277.2Vol. i. pp. 94-96.
277.3Op. cit., p. 35, etc.
277.4Op. cit., p. 44.
278.1I pointed out this objection in an article in theArchiv. f. Relig. Wissensch., 1904, p. 81; Mr. S. Hartland has also, independently, developed it (op. cit., p. 191).
278.2Vol. ii. p. 446.
278.3Origin of Civilisation, pp. 535-537.
279.1VideWestermarck,History of Human Marriage, p. 76.
279.2Mr. Hartland objects (loc. cit., p. 200) to this explanation on the ground that the stranger would dislike the danger as much as any one else; but the rite may have arisen among a Semitic tribe who were peculiarly sensitive to that feeling of peril, while they found that the usual stranger was sceptical and more venturesome: when once the rule was established, it could become a stereotyped convention. His own suggestion (p. 201) that a stranger was alone privileged, lest the solemn act should become a mere love-affair with a native lover, does not seem to me so reasonable; to prevent that, the act might as well have been performed by a priest. Dr. Frazer in his new edition ofAdonis, etc. (pp. 50-54), criticises my explanation, which I first put forth—but with insufficient clearness—in theArchiv. für Religionswissenschaft(1904, p. 88), mainly on the ground that it does not naturally apply to general temple-prostitution nor to the prostitution of married women. But it was never meant to apply to these, but only to the defloration of virgins before marriage. Dr. Frazer also argues that the account of Herodotus does not show that the Babylonian rite was limited to virgins. Explicitly it does not, but implicitly it does; for Herodotus declares that it was an isolated act, and therefore to be distinguished from temple-prostitution of indefinite duration; and he adds that the same rite was performed in Cyprus, which, as the other record clearly attests, was the defloration of virgins by strangers. Sozomenos and Sokrates attest the same of the Baalbec rite, and Eusebius’s vague words are not sufficient to contradict them. One rite might easily pass into the other; but our theories as to the original meaning of different rites should observe the difference.
280.1ButvideGennep,Les Rites de passage, p. 100.
280.2Cf. Arnob.Adv. Gent., 5, 19, with Firmic. Matern.De Error., 10, and Clemens,Protrept., c. 2, p. 12, Pott.
281.11, 199.
281.2The lady who there boasts of her prostitute-ancestresses describes them also as “of unwashed feet”; and this is a point of asceticism and holiness.
282.1Op. cit., p. 199.
282.2K.A.T.3, p. 423.
283.1Vide supra,p. 163. The writer of the late apocryphal document, “The Epistle of Jeremy,” makes it a reproach to the Babylonian cult that “women set meat before the gods” (v. 30), and “the menstruous woman and the woman in child-bed touch their sacrifices” (v. 29), meaning, perhaps, that there was nothing to prevent the Babylonian priestess being in that condition. But we cannot trust him for exact knowledge of these matters. Being a Jew, he objects to the ministration of women. The Babylonian and Hellene were wiser, and admitted them to the higher functions of religion.
283.2VideCults, iv. p. 301.
283.3VideInscription of Sippar in British Museum, concerning the re-establishment of cult of Shamash by King Nabupaladdin, 884-860 B.C. (Jeremias,Die Cultus-Tafel von Sippar).
284.1Sumerian and Babylonian Psalms, p. 75.
284.2VideLangdon inTransactions of Congress for the History of Religions(1908), vol. i. p. 250.
284.3VideZeitung für Assyriologie, 1910, p. 157.
284.4Formula for driving out the demon of sickness, “Bread at his head place, rain-water at his feet place” (Langdon,ib.p. 252).
284.5Delitsch,Wörterbuch, i. 79-80.
284.6Zeit. für Assyr., 1910, p. 157.
284.7VideHippocrates (Littré), vi. 362; Stengel,Griechischer Kultusaltertümer(Iwan Müller’s Handbuch, p. 110).
285.1Referred to in the comedy of Eupolis called the “Baptai.”
285.2Jastrow,op. cit., p. 500.
285.3Op. cit., p. 297, 487; the priest-exorciser, the Ashipu, uses a brazier in the expulsion of demons.
285.4VideGolther,Handbuch der Germanischen Mythologie, p. 580; cf. myCults, v. p. 196.
285.5Cults, vol. v. pp. 383-384; cf. iv. p. 301.
286.1Cults, v. p. 356; cf. p. 363 (the purifying animal carried round the hearth).
286.2Eur.Herc. Fur., 928.
286.3Dio Chrys.Or., 48 (Dind., vol. ii. p. 144), περικαθήραντες τὴν πόλιν μὴ σκίλλῃ μηδὲ δαδί, πολὺ δὲ καθαρωτέρῳ χρήματι τῷ λόγῳ (cf. Lucian,Menipp., c. 7, use of squills and torches in “katharsis,” (?) Babylonian or Hellenic); Serv.ad Aen., 6, 741, “in sacris omnibus tres sunt istae purgationes, nam aut taeda purgant aut sulphure aut aqua abluunt aut aere ventilant.”
286.4“To take fire and swear by God” is a formula that occurs in the third tablet of Surpu;videZimmern,Beiträge zur Kenntniss Babyl. Relig., p. 13; cf. Soph.Antig., 264.
286.5Salt used as a means of exorcism in Babylonia as early as the third millennium (videLangdon,Transactions of Congress Hist. Relig., 1908, vol. i. p. 251); the fell “of the great ox” used to purify the palace of the king (videZimmern,Beiträge, p. 123; compare the Διὸς κῴδιον in Greek ritual).
287.1VideThureau-Dangin,Cylindres de Goudéa, pp. 29, 93.
287.2VideEvolution of Religion, pp. 113, 114, 117;Cults, v. p. 322 (Schol. Demosth., 22, p. 68).
287.35, 13, 6.
287.4VideCults, iii. pp. 303-304;Evolution of Religion, p. 121.
288.1Vide supra,p. 146.
288.2VideCults, iii. p. 167.
288.3Published in Zimmern’sBeiträge, p. 123; cf. Weber,Dämonenbeschwörung, pp. 17-19.
289.1Il., xvi. 228.
289.2Od., ii. 261.
289.3Il., i. 313.
290.1Od., xxii. 481: In the passage referred to above, Achilles uses sulphur to purify the cups.
290.2Od., xiii. 256-281: This is rightly pointed out by Stengel in hisGriechische Kultusaltertümer, p. 107.
290.3Evolution of Religion, pp. 139-152;Cults, iv. pp. 295-306.
291.1VideCults, iv. pp. 144-147, 300: To suppose that Hellas learnt its cathartic rites from Lydia, because Herodotus (i. 35) tells us that in his time the Lydians had the Hellenic system of purification from homicide, is less natural. Lydia may well have learnt it from Delphi in the time of Alyattes or Croesus. Or it may have survived in Lydia as a tradition of the early “Minoan” period; and, similarly, it may have survived in Crete.
291.2Vide supra, pp.176-178.
292.1VideCults, iv. pp. 268-284.