A popular history of priestcraft in all ages and nations

Front matter

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POPULAR HISTORY

CHAPTER I. Page

The two Evil Principles, Kingcraft and Priestcraft, co-eval in their origin — Innumerable Historians of the one, but none singly and entirely of the other — The real and monstrous Character of Priestcraft — Evil Systems attacked in this work without mercy, but not Men -------1

Chapter II

Paganism distinguished universally by the same great leading Principles — supposed to originate in the corruption of the Patriarchal Worship soon after the Flood — Probable diffusion of Original Population — Origin of the Doctrine of Three Gods, in Greece, Egypt, Persia, Syria, among the Tartars, Chinese, Goths, Americans, etc. — Of the Preservation of the Ark in the Religious Ceremonies of all Pagan Nations— Of the Doctrine of a Succession of Worlds, and of a Deluge — Ancient Mysteries celebrated, especially by the Greeks, Egyptians, Hindoos, and Druids — Advantage taken by Priests of this great system of Superstition ----- 5

Chapter III

Mythology of the Assyrians and Syrians — the horrors of Moloch — Chemosh — Baal and Baal- Fires — Bryant's Theory of the Cuthic Tribes agrees with the existence of Castes in all Pagan Nations — Spirit of the Syrian Priests as shewn in the Jewish History — Vile Deceptions of Priests — The Wife of the God — Priestly Arts exposed by Daniel - - - 12

Vlll CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IV. Page

The same system of Superstition and Priestcraft which prevailed in Asia, existing also among the Celts and Goths of ancient Europe — Every where the Priests the dominant Caste — In Britain, Gaul, and Germany their state shewn by Caesar and Tacitus — The Notions, . Sacrifices, and Superstitions of Scandinavia. - - 20

Chapter V

The same system discovered, to the surprise of the learned, in America — The Gods, Doctrines, and Practices of the Northern Indians, Mexicans, and Peruvians — Dominance of the Priests and Nobles, and Slavery of the People — their bloody Sacrifices and fearful Orgies, similar to those of the Asiatics — The amazing number of their Human Sacrifices recorded by the Spanish writers — Striking Picture of Priestcraft in Southey's Madoc. ------ 31

Chapter VI

The Priest-ridden condition of Egypt notorious — involved in the same system of Priestcraft already noticed — Dr. Robertson's Theory of the Uniformity of Pagan Creeds insufficient, and why — Egyptian Superstitions — Excessive Veneration of Animals, and consequent singular Rites and Facts — Horrid and licentious Customs — Policy of their Priests to conceal Knowledge from the People — place themselves above the Nobles and even the Kings^regulate all the daily actions of the Kings — Striking Illustrations of the verity of the Greek accounts in the History of Joseph — Priests supposed to have been sole Kings in Egypt for ages. -- -----45

Chapter VII

The popular Theology of the Greeks — Another and more Occult Theology — Effect of the Poetry of Homer on the spirits of his countrymen — his noble Maxims — Priestcraft compelled to adopt a nice policy by the free spirit of the Greeks ; yet bloody and licentious Rites introduced, and the people effectually enslaved by means of Festivals, Games, Sacrifices, Oracles, Augury, and Mysteries — The immense influence of

CONTENTS. IX

Page

Oracles — Description of the Mysteries — Description of the Egyptian darkness with respect to them — Taliesin's allusions to them — Priestly Avarice - 54

Chapter VIII

India — Priestcraft in its boldest aspect — Doctrines, Sacrifices, and licentious Rites — Women of the Temple— Immense Wealth accumulated by the Brahmins — seized by the Arabians — Mahmoud of Gazna — his Feast at Canaugha — his Adventure at the Temple of Sumnaut — Eternal Slavery stamped by the Brahmins on the Hindoos by the institution of Castes — Inviolable Sanctity and Immunities of the Brahmins— The Sooders— The Chandelahs— Remarks 74

Chapter IX

The Hebrews — Comparison of the Old Man of the Sea, and the Old Man of the Church— The Hebrew Priesthood the only one ever divinely ordained, yet evil in its tendency, and fatal to the Nation — began in Aaron in dastardly equivocation — shewed itself in the Sons of Eli, in avarice and lewdness — and finally crucified Christ - - - 94

Chapter X

Popery — Christ and Christianity — the latter speedily corrupted — Acts by which the Papal Church seized on power „..-.-. 100

Chapter XI

Popery continued : Struggles of the Popes for power — The Emperors favour them on account of their influence with the People — Scandalous transactions between them and the French monarchs — Pepin and Charlemagne — Gregory VII., the notorious Hildebrand, asserts absolute power over Kings — his intercourse with the Countess Matilda — claims the right of installing Bishops — Further enormities of the Popes — This example followed by the Bishops and Clergy, who become Dukes and Nobles — Evil influence of Councils - - - - - -110

Xll CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Page

Evils of the system of Church Patronage — Simony, and almost all the Abuses in the Church flow from it — Strange Defence of the Church by a Clergyman — Proofs of the beneficial effects of moderate Clerical Incomes — Scotch and German Clergy — False notions of Gentility held by our Clergy — Decker's Declaration that Christ was a true Gentleman — What Clergymen might be — Instances of what they are under the private Patronage system — Milton and Spelman's opinions of Surplice Fees ----- 245

CHAPTER XIX.

Confirmation in the Country — its Picturesque and Poetical Appearance — its Licentious Consequences, arising from the Apathy of the Clergy - - - - 261

CHAPTER XX.

Retrospective View of the Effects of Priestcraft — The great Moral and Political Lesson it teaches — Concluding Remarks __---- 270

PRIESTCRAFT IN ALL AGES.

Chapter I. General View Of Priestcraft

This unfortunate world has been blasted in all ages by two evil principles — Kingcraft and Priestcraft — that, taking advantage of human necessities, in themselves not hard — salutary, and even beneficial in their natural operation — the necessity of civil government, and that of spiritual instruction, have warped them cruelly from their own pure direction, and converted them into the most odious, the most terrible and disastrous scourges of our race. These malign powers have ever begun, as it were, at the wrong end of things. Kingcraft, seizing upon the office of civil government, not as the gift of popular choice, and to be filled for the good of nations, but with the desperate hand of physical violence, has proclaimed that it was not made for man, but man for it — that it possessed an inherent and divine right to rule, to trample upon mens' hearts, to violate their dearest rights, to scatter their limbs and their blood at its pleasure upon the earth ; and, in return for its atrocities, to be worshipped on bended knee, and hailed as a god. Its horrors are on the face of every nation ; its annals are written in gore in all civilized

B made it a prey to all the restless and savage passions of an uncultured and daily irritated soul ; robbed it of the highest joys of earth or heaven — those of the exercise of a perfected intellect and a benevolent spirit; and finally, by its tyrannies, its childish puerilities, its inane pomps and most ludicrous dogmas, overwhelmed the middle ages with the horrors of an iron bigotry, and the modern world with the tenfold horrors of infidel heartlessness and the wars of atheism.

This is a mighty and an awful charge. Alas ! the annals of all people are but too affluent in proofs of its justice. I shall prove this through the most popular histories, that the general reader may, if he please, easily refer to them, and be satisfied of the correctness of my statements. While I proceed, however, to draw these proofs from the most accessible works, I shall carefully war alone with the principle, not with individual men. The very worst systems have often involved in their blind intricacies the best of men : and in some of those which it will be my duty, as a man, to denounce, there have been, and there are at the present moment, numbers of sincere and excellent beings, who are an honour and a blessing to their race.

IN ALL AGES.

Chapter II. Origin Of Paganism

Priestcraft and kingcraft began at pretty much the same time, and that at an early age of the world, to exercise their baneful influence over it. Whether they existed, and if so, what they did, in the antediluvian world, we know not, and it concerns us little : but immediately after the flood, they became conspicuous. Nimrod is usually supposed to be the first monarch; the first man who, not satisfied with the mild patriarchal rule over his brethren, is believed to have collected armies, dispossessed the peaceful children of Shem of part of their territories by violence, and swayed all whom he could by the terrors of overwhelming force. Priestcraft, it is evident by many indubitable signs, was busily at work at the same moment. Certain common principles running through idolatrous worship in every known part of the globe, have convinced the most acute and industrious antiquarians, that every pagan worship in the world has the same origin; and that origin could have coincided only with some early period, when the whole human family was together in one place. This fact, now that countries, their habits and opinions, have been so extensively examined, would have led learned men of the present day, had not the Bible been in our possession, to the confident conclusion that mankind had, at first, but one source, and one place of abode : that their religious opinions had been at that time uniform : and that, dispersing from that point of original residence, they had carried these opinions into all regions of the earth, where, through the progress of ages, they had received many modifications, been variously darkened and disfigured, but not to such an extent as to extinguish those great leading features which mark them as the offspring of one primeval parent. But the Bible not only shews that such was the origin of the various human families, not only shews the time when they dwelt in one place, when and how they were thence dispersed, but also furnishes us with a certain key to the whole theory of universal paganism.

We see at once that every system of heathen mythology had its origin in the corruption of patriarchal worship before the dispersion at Babel. There the whole family of man was collected in the descendants of Noah's three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japhat ; and thence, at that time, they were scattered abroad by the hand of God over the world. Japhat colonized the whole of Europe ; all those northern regions called Tartary and Siberia ; and, in process of time, by the easy passage of Behring's Straits, the entire continent of America. His son Gomer seems clearly to have been the father of those who were originally called Gomerians ; and by slight variations, were afterwards termed Comarians, Cimmerians, Cymbri, Cumbri, Cambri, and Umbri ; and, in later years, Celts, Gauls, and Gaels. These extended themselves over the regions north of Armenia and Bactriana ; thence over nearly all Europe, and first planted Britain and Ireland. Magog, Tubal, and Mesech, as we learn from Ezekiel, dwelt far to the north of Judea, and became the ancestors of the great Sclavonic or Sarmatian families ; the name of Magog still existing in the appellations of Mogli, Monguls, and

Mongolians ; those of Tubal and Mesech, in Tobolsk], Moschici, and Moscow and Moscovites : Madai was father of the Medes, and Javan of the original inhabitants of Greece, where we may trace the names of his sons Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim, in Elis, Tarsus, Cittium, and Dodona.

The posterity of Shem were confined to southern Asia; founding by his sons Elam, or Persia, Ashur, or Assyria, a province of Iran, or Great Assyrian empire of Nimrod, whose son Cush appears to have subdued these descendants of Shem. Arphaxad became the father of the Hebrews and other kindred nations ; his descendant Peleg founded Babylonia ; and Joktan, stretching far towards the east, probably became the father of the Hindoos. Ophir, one of the sons of Joktan, is often mentioned in Scripture as dwelling in a land of gold, to which voyages were made by ships issuing from the Red Sea, and sailing eastward; but Elam and Cush occupied the whole sea-coast of Persia, as far as the Indus. This, therefore, brings us to the great peninsular of Hindostan for the seat of Ophir. Lud, the fourth son of Shem, is presumed to be the founder of Lydia ; and Aram, the fifth, the father of Mesopotamia and Syria.

Ham was at first mixed with Shem throughout southern Asia, and became the sole occupant of Africa. Of his sons, Cush became the founder of Iran, or Central Asia, the great Assyrian empire, and the progenitor of all those called Cushim, Cushas, Cuths, Goths, Scuths, Scyths, Scots, or Gauls. Mizraim peopled Egypt ; Phut, the western frontier of Egypt, and thence passing west and south, spread over the greater part of Africa: and Canaan, it is well known, peopled the tract afterwards inhabited by the Israelites.

Thus, it is said, was the world peopled ; and that it was thus peopled, we learn not only from Moses? but from profane writers; and find both accounts confirmed by abundant evidence in the manners, traditions, language, and occupance of the different races at the present day. Sir William Jones found only three great original languages to exist — Arabic, Sclavonic, and Sanscrit: and these three all issue from one point, central Asia, whence, by consent of the most ancient records and traditions of the great primeval nations, their original ancestors spread.

But before they were thus scattered, they had corrupted the religious doctrines they had received from their great progenitor, Noah ; or rather, had set them aside, in order to deify Noah and his three sons, whom they had come to regard as a re-appearance of Adam and his three sons, Cain, Abel, and Seth. The singular coincidence of circumstances between Adam and Noah, forced this upon their imaginations. Adam, the first man, and father of the1 first world, — and Noah, the first man, and father of the second world, had each three sons conspicuous in history ; and of these three, one in each case was a bad one — Cain and Ham. Led by this, to consider the second family but an avater of the first, they regarded them as immortal, and worshipped them. Hence we have in all pagan mythologies a triad of principal gods. In the Greek — Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto; in the Hindoo — Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva ; in the Egyptian— Osiris, Horus, and Typhon; one of whom, in each case, is a deity of a dark nature, like Cain and Ham. The Persians had their Ormuzd, Mithras, and Ahriman; the Syrians, their Monimus, Aziz, and Ares ; the Canaanites, their Baal-Shalisha, or self- triplicated Baal ; the Goths, their Odin, Vile, and Ve, who are described as the three sons of the mysterious cow, a symbol of the ark ; the Jakuthi

Tartars, their Artugon, Schugo-teugon, and Tangara, the last, even in name, the Tanga-tanga of the Peruvians: for this singular fact stops not with the great primitive nations ; it extends itself to all others, even to those discovered in modern times. Like China and Japan, the Peruvians were found, on the discovery of America, to have their triads, Apomti, Churunti, and Intiquoaqui; or the father-sun, the brother-sun, and the son-sun. The Mexicans had also their Mexitli, Tlaloc, andTezcallipuca; the last, the god of repentance. The Virginians, Iroquois, and various nations of North- American Indians, held similar notions. The New Zealanders believe that three gods made the first man, and the first woman from the man's rib ; and their general term for bone is Eve. The Otaheitans had a similar idea.

Thus, far and wide, to the very hidden ends of the earth, spread this notion of a triad; and hence, in the second century, it found its way, through Justin Martyr, into the Christian church.

The post-diluvians likewise held the Ark in the most sacred veneration. It was that into which their great father and all living things had entered and floated away safely over the destroying waters. It was the type of the earth into which Adam had entered by death ; and, as they supposed, re-appeared in Noah. Hence, an ark is to be found in nearly every system of pagan worship. After it were fashioned the most ancient temples. It was borne in the most religious processions of Osiris, Adonis, Bacchus, Ceres, and amongst the Druids ; and has been found, to the astonishment of discoverers and missionaries, amongst the Mexicans, the North- American Indians, and the South-sea Islanders.

Hence, also, the doctrine of a succession of worlds, from the supposed re-appearance of Adam and his three sons, in Noah and his three sons, which has expanded itself into the great system of transmigrations and avaters of the Hindoos. Hence, also, the traditions of a universal deluge to be found amongst all the ancient nations; amongst the wild tribes of America; amongst the Hindoos in the east, and the Celts in the west. Hence, the close connexion of lakes with heathen temples; and hence, lastly, the ancient mysteries, which were but a symbolical representation of entering the ark, or great cave of death and life ; which, as the old world was purified by the flood, was supposed to purify and confer a new life on those who passed through those mysteries, which were celebrated, with striking similarity in Greece, India, Egypt, and amongst the Druids in these islands. These, and many other general features of paganism — for abundant illustration of which, I refer my reader to the learned works of Calmet, Bryant, Faber, and Spencer, De Legibus Ritualibus Hebraeorum — sufficiently testify to the common origin of all heathen systems of worship ; and we shall presently find how amply the priests of all ages and all the Gentile nations, have laid hold on these rich materials, and converted them into exuberant sources of wealth, and power, and honour to themselves, and of terror, deception, and degradation to their victims — the people. It may, perhaps, be said that they themselves were but the slaves of superstition, in common with those they taught ; and that it would be unfair to charge them with the wilful misleading of their auditors, when they themselves were blinded by the common delusions of their times and countries. But we must recollect, that though the people were taught by them to believe, and could not, in dark times, easily escape the influence of. their doctrines and practices, studiously adapted to dazzle and deceive the senses, yet it was impossible for the priests to enter upon their office, without discovering that those terrors were fictitious, — without rinding that they were called upon to maintain a series of utter fallacies. The people might listen to oracles, uttered amid a multitude of imposing pageants, and awful solemnities ; in the sacred gloom of temples and groves ; and might really believe that a god spoke. But where were the priests? Behind these scenes ! — and must soon have found that, instead of the inspiration of a present god, they themselves were the actors of the vilest impositions ; which, through the temptations of power, and fame, and wealth, they became the willing means of fixing on their countrymen.

When did any one, in any nation, on discovering that he had entered an order of impostors, renounce their connexion, and abandon his base calling? Never! — the spirit of priestcraft was too subtly potent for him. He either acquiesced readily in measures, which were to him, pregnant with honour, ease, and abundance ; or saw that instant destruction awaited him, from the wily and merciless spirit of priestcraft, if he gave but a symptom of abjuring, or disclosing its arcana of gainful deceit. As the entrance of the Adytus of the mysteries, so the vestibule of the priestly office was probably guarded by naked swords, and oaths full of destruction to the backslider. Be that as it may, there is not a fact on the face of history more conspicuous than this — that no order of men has ever clung to the service of its caste, or has fulfilled its purposes, however desperate, or infamously cruel they might be, with the same fiery and unflinching zeal as priests.

Chapter III. Mythology Of The Assyrians And Syrians

We have now seen how idolatry was diffused over the globe, forming a field of no less amplitude than the world itself for priestcraft to exercise itself in ; full of ignorance, and full of systems prolific in all the wild creation of superstition so auspicious to priestly desires ; and we shall soon see that such advantages were not neglected by that evil power, but were eagerly laid hold on, and by its indefatigable activity the earth was speedily overrun by every curse, and horror, and pollution, that can fix itself on unfortunate humanity.

We shall take a hasty survey of its progress in the most ancient nations, Syria and Assyria ; we shall then pass rapidly into Scandinavia and the British Isles, following the course of Druidism ; and, without regard to the order of time, glance at the confirmation of this ancient state of things, by that which was found to exist at the time of their discovery in America and the isles of the Indian Ocean. By this plan we shall leave our course clear in a direct progress through ancient Egypt, Greece, and Hindostan ; where we shall leave the review of priestcraft as it existed in Paganism, and contemplate its aspect in Judea, under the direct ordinances of God ; then, under Christianity, in the Romish church ; and, finally, in the ecclesiastical establishment of our own country.

The Bible furnishes us with abundant evidences of what idolatry was in Syria, and the neighbouring kingdoms of Philistia, Moab, Amalek and others. The principal gods of these countries were Baal, Moloch, and Chemosh : but the number of false gods altogether was extremely numerous. The more gods the more shrines, the more priestly gains and influence. The principal characteristics of the whole idol dynasty, were horrible cruelty and gross licentiousness. Chemosh was the god of the Moabites, and his rites were particularly distinguished by their lasciviousness. In Syria those of Ashtaroth, or Astarte, the queen of heaven, were similar ; but Baal and Moloch were the very impersonations of savage atrocity. Moloch is represented as a huge metallic image in a sitting posture, which, on days of sacrifice, was heated to redness in a pit of fire, and young children were brought as victims, and placed in his extended and burning arms, where they were consumed in the most exquisite agonies, while the devilish band of priests and their retainers drowned their piercing cries with the stunning din of drums, cymbals, horns, and trumpets.

Baal, however, was the principal idol of all those countries ; and — associated as he was in idea with the sun, as was the chief god of all pagan nations, from a fanciful process of imagination, treated of at large by writers on this subject, but which we need not trace here — to him, on almost every lofty eminence, fires were kindled at stated periods, and human sacrifices performed in the midst of unbounded and infernal glee. The Beal-fires, or Baal-fires, kindled on the mountains of Scotland and Ireland by the peasantry at Beltane, or May Eve, are the last remains of this most ancient and universal superstition.

When we recollect over what an immense extent of country, in fact over the greater part of the habitable globe, this idolatry extended ; and the number of ages, from the time of the flood to the time of Christianity, a period of upwards of two thousand years; what a terrible sum of miseries must have been inflicted on our race by the diabolical zeal and cupidity of pagan priestcraft. From the temple of Buddh and Jaggernath in India, to the stony circles of Druidism in Europe ; from the snowy wastes of Siberia and Scandinavia in the north, to the most southern lands in Africa and America, the fires of these bloody deities rejoiced the demoniac priests and consumed the people.

Mr. Bryant contends, and his theory seems both supported by strong facts and is generally admitted by intelligent historians, that the kindred of Nimrod, the tribe of Cush, a haughty and dominant race, disdaining labour or commerce, disdaining all professions but those of arms or the priesthood, followed the progress of diffusive population into all regions, and either subduing the original settlers or insinuating themselves amongst them, as they had been their general corruptors, became their generals, priests, and kings. This theory certainly agrees well with what the researches of late years have made known of the great tribes of emigration from the east ; agrees well with what we know of the Gothic or Cuthic nations, and with the establishment of the despotism of the feudal system. Castes, which remain so unbroken to the present day in Hindostan, and on which we shall have presently to remark, prevailed, in a greater or less degree, all over the world. In Egypt, Herodotus shews it to have been the case. None but kings and priests were noble. In Greece they had their race of demi-gods, or descendants of the ancient Pelasgi, or Cuthites, from whom their priests, augurs, and kings were chosen. Such was the case amongst the Gauls and Britons. The Druids were a sacred and noble caste, who disdained to work or mingle with the people ; an insult to one of whom was instant death, as it is with the Brahmins at the present day : and the strong spirit of caste throughout all the feudal nations of Europe, not only all past history, but present circumstances, shew us. Be the origin of dominant castes what it may, nothing is more conspicuous than their existence, and the evils, scorns, and ignominious burdens they have heaped upon the people.

Of the rancorous activity of the heathen priesthood to proselyte and extend their influence on all sides, the Jewish history is full. Scarcely had the Hebrews escaped from Egypt and entered the Desert, when the Moabites came amongst them with their harlot daughters, carrying beneath their robes the images of Chemosh, and scattering among the frail Jews the mingled fires of sensual and idolatrous passion. Through the whole period of the administration of the Judges, they were indefatigably at work, and brought upon the backsliding Hebrews the vengeance of their own living and indignant God. The wise and magnificent Solomon they plucked from the height of his peerless knowledge and glory, and rendered the reigns of his successors continual scenes of reproof and desolation, till the whole nation was swept into captivity.

There cannot be a more expressive instance of the daring hardihood and fanatic zeal of the priests of Baal, nor a finer one of their defeat and punishment, than that given on Mount Carmel in the days of Ahab and Jezebel. Those pestilential wretches had actually, under royal patronage, corrupted or destroyed the whole legitimate priesthood. There were but left seven thousand, even of the people, " who had not bowed the knee to Baal, nor kissed him." They were in pursuit of the noble prophet himself, when he came forth and challenged them to an actual proof of the existence of their respective deities.

It may be argued that the readiness with which they accepted this challenge, is sufficient evidence that they themselves were believers in the existence of their deity ; and it may be that some were stupid, or fanatic enough to be so ; but it is far likelier that, possessing royal patronage, and a whole host of base and besotted supporters, they hoped to entrap the solitary man : that, knowing the emptiness of their own pretensions, they were of opinion that Elijah's were equally empty, and therefore came boldly to a contest, in which if neither party won, an individual against a host would easily be sacrificed to priestly fury and popular credulity. Be it as it might, nothing is more certain than that the ferocious zeal of priestcraft, for its own objects, has been in all ages so audacious as not to fear rushing, in the face of the world, on the most desperate attempts. This event was most illustrative of this blind sacerdotal hardihood ; for, notwithstanding their signal exposure and destruction, yet in every successive age of the Hebrew kingdom, the pagan priests ceased not to solicit the Israelites to their ruin. The Hebrew kings, ever and anon, awoke from the trance of delusion into which they drew them, and executed ample vengeance ; hewing down their groves, and overturning their altars; but it was not till the general captivity, — till Judah was humbled for a time, before Babylon, and Israel was wholly and for ever driven from the land, that the pest was annihilated.

The mythology of Assyria was of much the same nature ; — Baal, however, being there held in far higher honour than all other gods ; for the priesthood, according to the servile cunning of its policy, had flattered the royal house by deifying its founder, and identifying him with the sun by the name of Belus, or Bel. What I have already said of this god will suffice ; and I shall only state that, as the priesthood there had shewn its usual character of adulation to the high, and cruelty to the low, so it displayed almost more than its customary lewdness. Herodotus tells us, that " at the top of the tower of Belus, in a chapel, is placed a couch magnificently adorned : and near it a table of solid gold ; but there is no statue in the place. No man is suffered to sleep here, but a female occupies the apartment, whom the Chaldean priests affirm their deity selects from "the whole nation as the object of his pleasures. They declare that their deity enters this apartment by night, and reposes upon this couch. A similar assertion is made by the Egyptians of Thebes ; for in the interior part of the temple of the Thebean Jupiter, a woman, in like manner, sleeps. Of these two women, it is presumed, that neither of them have any communication with the other sex. In which predicament, the priestess of the temple of Paterae, in Lycia, is also placed. Here is no regular oracle ; but whenever a divine communication is expected, the woman is obliged to pass the preceding night in the temple. " That is, the priests made their god the scape-goat of their own unbridled sensuality ; and, under the pretext of providing a sacrifice of beauty to the deity, selected the most lovely woman of the nation for themselves.