The Jews were thus led astray by the daughters of the Moabites, and both practised fornication with them and made sacrifice in their temples to the god of the country, whose priestesses, as Balaam declared, were conspicuous above other women for their beauty. The consequence of these excesses was an infectious disease, (according to Josephus it communicated itself, but, he says, only to kinsmen!), which cost many[107] their lives. The number however fell far short of 24000, for these perished mainly by the sword of their brethren, as Philo and Josephus expressly remark, and the author of the Pentateuch intimates, when he says (Numbers Ch. 26. v. 5.), “And Moses said unto the judges of Israel, Slay ye every one his men that have joined themselves unto Baal-Peor.” The narrator declares that by this slaughter the plague was stayed for the sons of Israel; but it certainly cannot have ceased altogether, as is manifest from the passages quoted from Joshua, where Phinehas asserts: that to that day the people was not yet cleansed from the misdoing of Peor.
The disease therefore cannot have been merely some passing disorder. It must evidently have been somewhat widely disseminated by the Moabitish women, and have been of very common occurrence among them; and that it was readily infectious follows from the whole course of Moses’ proceedings. The latter was angry because the woman had been suffered to live, and commanded to put to death all of them that had known men in carnal intercourse, but to keep alive the young virgins,—and their number was, according to Ch. 31. v. 35., thirty-two thousand!—who were brought into the camp as prisoners and there divided amongst their captors. So we see the executions took place not in order that opportunity for intercourse with the heathen women,—a thing which might very well on its own account have been an abomination to the Lord,—might be altogether removed, (for how in that case account for the maidens being saved alive, brought into camp, and divided as booty?)[108] but that by this means the risk of the further dissemination of the disease might be for ever prevented.
The imminence of this risk in Moses’ opinion is shown finally by the purification of the host which he had despatched for the massacre of the Moabites and their women. He made it, prisoners and all the spoil included, halt for a period of seven days outside the camp, and twice over submit to a thorough purification. The Jews had slain many thousands of men in their previous wars, nay! just before they marched against the Moabites, they had actually slaughtered 24000 of their own youth; yet they had never been ordered to leave the camp for seven days, and twice over during this time to purify themselves and all their possessions. Only after the annihilation of the Moabitish women (not of the Moabite men), from the accomplishment of which they had just returned, had this happened. All this points to some most cogent reason. Here comes into operation the same law which was enforced on occasion of purification after Leprosy and after foul discharge: and indeed also after contact with a dead person,—even where they had first caused the death of the said person! Thus no one can very well dispute the view taken by Philo,[109] when he says with regard to the purification after the annihilation of the Moabites:—
“Nam ut legitima hostium caedes sit, attamen qui hominem interfecit quamquam iure, quamquam vim propulsans, quamquam coactus, non insons esse videtur nec extra noxiam, propter summam illam et communem hominum inter ipsos cognationem. Quo nomine piacula suscipienda fuerunt interfectoribus ad luendum scelus, quod conceptum censebatur.”
(For whereas the slaying of enemies is lawful, nevertheless whosoever has killed a man, whether lawfully, or whether initiating the violent act, or whether on compulsion, seems not to be innocent or free from responsibility; and this is owing to that supreme and general relationship of all mankind with one other. Wherefore certain expiations had to be undertaken by any man who had killed another, to wipe out the guilt that was deemed to have been incurred).
What was the precise nature of the disease that the Jews had brought on themselves by their intercourse with the Moabitish women cannot indeed be determined; but that it affected the genital organs can hardly admit of a doubt. The fact, if it is a fact, that not a few lost their lives owing to it, need be no objection, since the ulceration of the genitals that prevailed at the end of the XVth. Century caused similar fatalities, and as we shall presently see, the uncircumcised Apion met his death in some such way. Now the Jews were almost without exception still uncircumcised at that time, for it was Joshua[110] who first on his arrival in Canaan, at the bidding of Jehovah, circumcised the children of Israel with stone knives on the hill Araloth. When the people adopted the worship of Baal Peor, we may be sure they ceased at the same time to observe the ancestral laws of purification,—if indeed these latter even as regards foul discharge and leprosy as well as intercourse with women during menstruation were not perhaps, as might almost be believed, first enacted in all their severity only in consequence of the plague of Baal Peor. Again it may well have been this experience that first taught the inhabitants of Palestine the necessity of circumcision, which was then laid down as an ordinance by command of Jehovah!
Brothels and Courtesans[111].
§ 10.
There is no doubt that it was in the Asiatic cult of Venus that the first elements were given for sexual excesses. It is hardly a matter of surprise therefore if these same elements came constantly, as has been shown above, into greater and greater prominence, and in this way pushed the original form of the Worship into the background. By degrees as enlightenment increased and the respect felt towards the gods diminished, Venus also soon lost her old character as goddess of procreation and sank into the patroness of sensual gratification. Her temples as well as her holy groves lost their exclusive title to bestow the blessing of fruitfulness on the embraces of the sexes, and came merely to serve as appointed trysting-places of carnal pleasures. The offerings made at her shrines were no longer to win an assurance of posterity; they became bribes paid to buy a free opportunity for the indulgence of sensuality. They degenerated into fornication-fees, as her temples did into brothels. The priestesses of Astarté or Mylitta stood at the beck and call alike of strangers and natives, and the opportunity was ever open for sexual enjoyment. Hence too it is that a special designation for the brothel will be looked for in vain in Asia. The thing existed there without the name being required; and the State found no need to establish an institution, which had long ago, without any intervention on its part, taken form under the cloak of religion.
Even amongst the Jews, who frequently enough, but always as a temporary aberration merely, adhered to the foreign cult, brothels in the strict sense seem never to have existed[112]. Although courtesans are frequently mentioned in the Old Testament, and even the dwelling of a Wanton as well as her behaviour pictured with considerable fullness of detail[113], yet all this would seem to have had more of a private than of a public character,—due heed being given to the fact that not a few passages are to be taken only in a figurative sense. Prostitution as a regular calling was strictly prohibited[114] to the daughters of Israel; and such women as practised it openly seem to have been mainly foreigners, perhaps natives of Phoenicia and Syria, who at the same time entertained with dancing and the music of stringed instruments[115]. But the attempt to draw a conclusion from this as to the pre-eminent chastity of the Jewish women, as e.g. Beer (on p. 25 loco citato) wishes to do, would be justifiable neither for earlier nor yet for later times. The passages of the Old Testament dealing with Sodom and with the dissoluteness under Mannasseh even in the very Temple at Jerusalem are sufficient by themselves to prove the contrary.