



Produced by David Widger






BIBLE STUDIES

ESSAYS ON PHALLIC WORSHIP AND OTHER CURIOUS RITES AND CUSTOMS

By J. M. Wheeler


     "There is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that
     esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean."
     --Paul (Romans xiv. 14).


1892.

Printed and Published By G. W. Foote




PREFACE.

My old friend Mr. Wheeler asks me to launch this little craft, and I do
so with great pleasure. She is not a thunderous ironclad, nor a gigantic
ocean liner; but she is stoutly built, well fitted, and calculated to
weather all the storms of criticism. My only fear is that she will not
encounter them.

During the sixteen years of my friend's collaboration with me in
many enterprises for the spread of Freethought and the destruction of
Superstition, he has written a vast variety of articles, all possessing
distinctive merit, and some extremely valuable. From these he and I have
made the following selection. The articles included deal with the Bible
from a special standpoint; the standpoint of an Evolutionist, who reads
the Jewish Scriptures in the light of anthropology, and finds infinite
illustrations in them of the savage origin of religion.

Literary and scientific criticism of the Old Testament have their
numerous votaries. Mr. Wheeler's mind is given to a different study
of the older half of the Bible. He is bent on showing what it really
contains; what religious ideas, rites, and customs prevailed among the
ancient Jews and find expression in their Scriptures. This is a fruitful
method, especially in _our_ country, if it be true, as Dr. Tylor
observes, that "the English mind, not readily swayed by rhetoric, moves
freely under the pressure of facts."

Careful readers of this little book will find it full of precious
information. Mr. Wheeler has a peculiarly wide acquaintance with the
literature of these subjects. He has gathered from far and wide, like
the summer bee, and what he yields is not an undigested mass of facts,
but the pure honey of truth.

Many readers will be astonished at what Mr. Wheeler tells them. We
have read the Bible, they will say, and never saw these things. That is
because they read it without knowledge, or without attention. Reading
is not done with the eyes only, but also with the brain; and the same
sentences will make various impressions, according as the brain is rich
or poor in facts and principles. Even the great, strong mind of Darwin
had to be plentifully stored with biological knowledge before he could
see the meaning of certain simple facts, and discover the wonderful law
of Natural Selection.

Those who have studied the works of Spencer, Tylor, Lubbock, Frazer, and
such authors, will _not_ be astonished at the contents of this volume.
But they will probably find some points they had overlooked; some
familiar points presented with new force; and some fresh views, whose
novelty is not their only virtue: for Mr. Wheeler is not a slavish
follower of even the greatest teachers, he thinks for himself, and shows
others what he has seen with his own eyes.

I hope this little volume will find many readers. Its doing so will
please the author, for every writer wishes to be read; why else, indeed,
should he write? Only less will be the pleasure of his friend who pens
this Preface. I am sure the book will be instructive to most of those
into whose hands it falls; to the rest, the few who really study and
reflect, it will be stimulating and suggestive. Greater praise the
author would not desire; so much praise cannot often be given with
sincerity.

G. W. Foote.




PHALLIC WORSHIP AMONG THE JEWS.

     "The hatred of indecency, which appears to us so natural as
     to be thought innate, and which is so valuable an aid to
     chastity, is a modern virtue, appertaining exclusively, as
     Sir G. Staunton remarks, to civilised life. This is shown by
     the ancient religious rites of various nations, by the
     drawings on the walls of Pompeii, and by the practices of
     many savages."--C. Darwin, "Descent of Man" pt. 1, chap.
     iv., vol. i., p. 182; 1888.

The study of religions is a department of anthropology, and nowhere is
it more important to remember the maxim of the pagan Terence, _Homo sum,
nihil humani a me alienum puto_. It is impossible to dive deep into any
ancient faiths without coming across a deal of mud. Man has often been
defined as a religious animal. He might as justly be termed a dirty and
foolish animal. His religions have been growths of earth, not gifts from
heaven, and they usually bear strong marks of their clayey origin.*

     * The Contemporary Review for June 1888, says (p. 804) "when
     Lord Dalhousie passed an Act intended to repress obscenity
     (in India), a special clause in it exempted all temples and
     religious emblems from its operation."

I am not one of those who find in phallicism the key to all the
mysteries of mythology. All the striking phenomena of nature--the
alternations of light and darkness, sun and moon, the terrors of the
thunderstorm, and of pain, disease and death, together with his
own dreams and imaginations--contributed to evoke the wonder and
superstition of early man. But investigation of early religion shows it
often nucleated around the phenomena of generation. The first and final
problem of religion concerns the production of things. Man's own body
was always nearer to him than sun, moon, and stars; and early man,
thinking not in words but in things, had to express the very idea of
creation or production in terms of his own body. It was so in Egypt,
where the symbol, from being the sign of production, became also
the sign of life, and of regeneration and resurrection. It was so in
Babylonia and Assyria, as in ancient Greece and Troy, and is so till
this day in India.

Montaigne says:

"Fifty severall deities were in times past allotted to this office. And
there hath beene a nation found which to allay and coole the lustful
concupiscence of such as came for devotion, kept wenches of purpose in
their temples to be used; for it was a point of religion to deale
with them before one went to prayers. _Nimirum propter continentiam
incontinentia neces-saria est, incendium ignibus extinguitur_: 'Belike
we must be incontinent that we may be continent, burning is quenched by
fire.' In most places of the world that part of our body was deified.
In that same province some flead it to offer, and consecrated a peece
thereof; others offered and consecrated their seed."

It is in India that this early worship maybe best studied at the present
day. The worshippers of Siva identify their great god, Maha Deva, with
the linga, and wear on their left arm a bracelet containing the linga
and yoni. The rival sect of followers of Vishnu have also a phallic
significance in their symbolism. The linga yoni (fig. 1) is indeed one
of the commonest of religious symbols in India. Its use extends from the
Himalayas to Cape Comorin. Major-General Forlong says the ordinary Maha
Deva of Northern India is the simple arrangement shown in fig. 2, in
which we see "what was I suspect the first Delphic tripod supporting a
vase of water over the Linga in Yona. Such may be counted by scores in
a day's march over Northern India, and especially at ghats or river
ferries, or crossings of any streams or roads; for are they not Hermae?"
The Linga Purana tells us that the linga was a pillar of fire in which
Siva was present. This reminds one of Jahveh appearing as a pillar of
cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

[Illustration: Fig. 1.--The Hindu Maha Deva, or Linga-Yoni]

So astounded have been many writers at the phenomena presented by
phallic worship that they have sought to explain it, not only by the
story of the fall and the belief in original sin, but by the direct
agency of devils.* Yet it may be wrong to associate the origin of
phallic worship with obscenity. Early man was rather unmoral than
immoral. Obliged to think in things, it was to him no perversion to
mentally associate with his own person the awe of the mysterious power
of production. The sense of pleasure and the desire for progeny of
course contributed. The worship was indeed both natural and inevitable
in the evolution of man from savagery. When, however, phallic worship
was established, it naturally led to practices such as those which
Herodotus, Diodorus, and Lucian tell us took place in the Egyptian,
Babylonian, and Syrian religions.

     * See Gougenot des Mousseaux's curious work Dieu et les
     Dieux, Paris, 1854. When the Luxor monument was erected in
     Rome, Pope Sixtus V. deliberately exorcised the devils out
     of possession of it.

[Illustration: Fig. 2.--Rural Hindu Lingam.]

Hume's observation that polytheism invariably preceded monotheism has
been confirmed by all subsequent investigation. The belief in one god or
supreme spirit springs out of the belief in many gods or spirits. That
this was so with the Jews there is sufficient evidence in the Bible,
despite the fact that the documents so called have been frequently
"redacted," that is corrected, and the evidence in large part erased.
An instance of this falsification may be found in Judges xviii. 30 (see
Revised Version), where "Manasseh" has been piously substituted for
Moses, in order to conceal the fact that the direct descendants of Moses
were image worshippers down till the time of the captivity. The Rabbis
gave what Milton calls "this insulse rule out of their Talmud; 'That all
words, which in the Law are written obscenely, must be changed to more
civil words.' Fools who would teach men to read more decently than God
thought good to write."* Instances of euphemisms may be traced in the
case of the "feet" (Judges iii. 24, Song v. 3, Isaiah vii* 20); "thigh"
(Num. v. 24); "heel" (Gen, iii. 15); "heels" (Jer. xiii. 22); and "hand"
(Isaiah lvii. 7). This last verse is translated by Dr. Cheyne, "and
behind the door and the post hast thou placed thy memorial, for apart
from me thou hast uncovered and gone up; thou hast enlarged thy bed, and
obtained a contract from them (?); thou hast loved their bed; thou hast
beheld the phallus." In his note Dr. Cheyne gives the view of the Targum
and Jerome "that'memorial' = idol (or rather idolatrous symbol--the
phallus)."

     * "Apology for Smectymnus," Works, p.84.

The priests, whose policy it was to keep the nation isolated, did their
best to destroy the evidence that the Jews shared in the idolatrous
beliefs and practices of the nations around