[209] Sad Dar, ix. 5. West’s note to Dînâ-î Maînôg-î Khirad, viii. 29 (Sacred Books of the East, xxiv. 35, n. 4.)
[210] Sad Dar, ix. 5. West’s note to Dînâ-î Maînôg-î Khirad, viii. 29 (Sacred Books of the East, xxiv. 35, n. 3).
[211] Sad Dar, ix. 5. West’s note to Dâdistân-î Dînîk, lxxii. 8 (Sacred Books of the East, xviii. 218).
[212] Vendîdâd, viii. 32.
[213] Darmesteter, in Sacred Books of the East, iv. p. li.
[214] Vendîdâd, viii. 27 sq.
So also the Hebrews abhorrence of sodomy was largely due to their hatred of a foreign cult. According to Genesis, unnatural vice was the sin of a people who were not the Lord’s people, and the Levitical legislation represents Canaanitish abominations as the chief reason why the Canaanites were exterminated.[215] Now we know that sodomy entered as an element in their religion. Besides ḳedēshōth, or female prostitutes, there were ḳedēshīm, or male prostitutes, attached to their temples.[216] The word ḳadēsh, translated “sodomite,” properly denotes a man dedicated to a deity;[217] and it appears that such men were consecrated to the mother of the gods, the famous Dea Syria, whose priests or devotees they were considered to be.[218] The male devotees of this and other goddesses were probably in a position analogous to that occupied by the female devotees of certain gods, who also, as we have seen, have developed into libertines; and the sodomitic acts committed with these temple prostitutes may, like the connections with priestesses, have had in view to transfer blessings to the worshippers.[219] In Morocco supernatural benefits are expected not only from heterosexual, but also from homosexual intercourse with a holy person.[220] The ḳedēshīm are frequently alluded to in the Old Testament, especially in the period of the monarchy, when rites of foreign origin made their way into both Israel and Judah.[221] And it is natural that the Yahveh worshipper should regard their practices with the utmost horror as forming part of an idolatrous cult.
[215] Leviticus, xx. 23.
[216] Deuteronomy, xxiii. 17. Driver, Commentary on Deuteronomy, p. 264.
[217] Driver, op. cit. p. 264 sq. Selbie, ‘Sodomite,’ in Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, iv. 559.