It is not at all improbable that the conflict was between the two portions of the Phallic faith, the Lingam and Yoni parties. The cause of this conflict was the erection of the consecrated stones or pillars which were put up by the Hebrews as objects of Divine worship. The altar erected by Jacob at Bethel was a pillar, for according to Bernstein the word altar can only be used for the erection of a pillar. Jacob likewise set up a Matzebah, or pillar of stone, in Gilead, and finally he set one up upon the tomb of Rachel.
A great portion of the facts have been suppressed by the translators, who have given to the world histories which have glossed over the ancient rites and practices of the Jews.
An instance is given by Forlong on the important word “Rock or Stone,” a Phallic emblem to which the Jews addressed their devotions. He says, “It should not be, but I fear it is, necessary to explain to mere English readers of the Old Testament that the Stone or Rock Tsur was the real old god of all Arabs, Jews, and Phœnicians, that this would be clear to Christians were the Jewish writings translated according to the first ideas of the people and Rock used as it ought to be, instead of ‘God,’ ‘Theos,’ ‘Lord,’ etc., being written where Tsur occurs.” Numerous instances of this are given in Dr. Ort’s worship of Baal in Israel, where praises, addresses, and adorations are addressed to the Rock, instance, Deut. xxxii. 4, 18. Stone pillars were also used by the Hebrews as a memorial of a sacred covenant, for we find Jacob setting up a pillar as a witness, that he would not pass over it. Connected with this pillar worship is the ceremony of anointing by pouring oil upon the pillar, as practised by Jacob at Bethel. According to Sir W. Forbes, in his Oriental Memoirs, the “pouring of oil upon a stone is practised at this day upon many a shapeless stone throughout Hindostan.”
Toland gives a similar account of the Druids as practising the same rite, and describes many of the stones found in England as having a cavity at the top made to receive the offering. The worship of Baal like the worship of Priapus was attended with prostitution, and we find the Jews having a similar custom to the Babylonians.
Payne Knight gives the following account of it in his work: “The women of every rank and condition held it to be an indispensable duty of religion to prostitute themselves once in their lives in her temple to any stranger who came and offered money, which, whether little or much, was accepted, and applied to a sacred purpose. Women sat in the temple of Venus awaiting the selection of the stranger, who had the liberty of choosing whom he liked. A woman once seated must remain until she has been selected by a piece of silver being cast into her lap, and the rite performed outside the temple.”
Similar customs existed in Armenia, Phrygia, and even in Palestine, and were a feature of the worship of Baal Peor. The Hebrew prophets described and denounced these excesses which had the same characteristics as the rites of the Babylonian priesthood. The identical custom is referred to in 1 Sam. ii. 22, where “the sons of Eli lay with the women that assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.”
Words and history corroborate each other, or are apt to do so if contemporaneous. Thus kadesh, or kaesh, designate in Hebrew “a consecrated one,” and history tells the unworthy tale in descriptive plainness, as will be shown in the sequel.
That the religion was dominating and imperative is determined by Deut. xvii. 12, where presumptuous refusal to listen to the priest was death to the offender. To us it is inconceivable that the indulgence of passion could be associated with religion, but so it was. Much as it is covered over by altered words and substituted expressions in the Bible—an example of which see men for male organ, Ezek. xvi. 17—it yet stands out offensively bold. The words expressive of “sanctuary,” “consecrated,” and “Sodomite,” are in the Hebrew essentially the same. They indicate the passion of amatory devotion. It is among the Hindus of to-day as it was in Greece and Italy of classic times; and we find that “holy women” is a title given to those who devote their bodies to be used for hire, the price of which hire goes to the service of the temple.
As a general rule, we may assume that priests who make or expound the laws, which they declare to be from God, are men, and, consequently, through all time, have thought, and do think, of the gratification of the masculine half of humanity. The ancient and modern Orientals are not exceptions. They lay it down as a momentous fact that virginity is the most precious of all the possessions of a woman, and, being so, it ought, in some way or other, to be devoted to God.
Throughout India, and also through the densely inhabited parts of Asia, and modern Turkey there is a class of females who dedicate themselves to the service of the deity whom they adore; and the rewards accruing from their prostitution are devoted to the service of the temple and the priests officiating therein.