114 Athanasius, _Oratio contra Gentes_, 26 (Migne’s _Patrologia Graeca_, xxv. 52), γυναῖκες γοῦν ἐν εἰδωλείοις τῆς Φοινικῆς πάλαι προεκαθέζοντο, ἀπαρχόμεναι τοῖς ἐκεῖ θέοις ἑαυτῶν τὴν τοῦ σώματος αὐτῶν μισθαρνίαν, νομίζουσαι τῇ πορνειᾳ τὴν θέον ἑαυτῶν ἰλάσκεσθαι καὶ εἰς εὐμενείαν ἄγειν αὐτὴν διὰ τούτων. The account of the Phoenician custom which is given by H. Ploss (_Das Weib_,2 i. 302) and repeated after him by Fr. Schwally (_Semitische Kriegsaltertümer_, Leipsic, 1901, pp. 76 _sq._) may rest only on a misapprehension of this passage of Athanasius. But if it is correct, we may conjecture that the slaves who deflowered the virgins were the sacred slaves of the temples, the _ḳedeshim_, and that they discharged this office as the living representatives of the god. As to these _ḳedeshim_, or “sacred men,” see above, pp. 17 _sq._, and below, pp. 72 _sqq._
_ 115 The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs_, translated and edited by R. H. Charles (London, 1908), chapter xii. p. 81.
116 Lucian, _De dea Syria_, 6. The writer is careful to indicate that none but strangers were allowed to enjoy the women (ἡ δὲ ἀγορὴ μούνοισι ξείνοισι παρακέεται).
_ 117 The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 30 _sq._
118 Herodotus, i. 93 _sq._; Athenaeus, xii. 11, pp. 515 _sq._
119 W. M. Ramsay, “Unedited Inscriptions of Asia Minor,” _Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique_, vii. (1883) p. 276; _id._, _Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia_, i. (Oxford, 1895) pp. 94 _sq._, 115.
121 Strabo, xii. 3. 32, 34 and 36, pp. 557-559; compare xii. 2. 3, p. 535. Other sanctuaries in Pontus, Cappadocia, and Phrygia swarmed with sacred slaves, and we may conjecture, though we are not told, that many of these slaves were prostitutes. See Strabo, xi. 8. 4, xii. 2. 3 and 6, xii. 3. 31 and 37, xii. 8. 14.
M26 The Asiatic Mother Goddess a personification of all the reproductive energies of nature. Her worship perhaps reflects a period of sexual communism.
122 On this great Asiatic goddess and her lovers see especially Sir W. M. Ramsay, _Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia_, i. 87 _sqq._
123 Compare W. Mannhardt, _Antike Wald- und Feldkulte_, pp. 284 _sq._; W. Robertson Smith, _The Prophets of Israel_, New Edition (London, 1902), pp. 171-174. Similarly in Camul, formerly a province of the Chinese Empire, the men used to place their wives at the disposal of any foreigners who came to lodge with them, and deemed it an honour if the guests made use of their opportunities. The emperor, hearing of the custom, forbade the people to observe it. For three years they obeyed, then, finding that their lands were no longer fruitful and that many mishaps befell them, they prayed the emperor to allow them to retain the custom, “for it was by reason of this usage that their gods bestowed upon them all the good things that they possessed, and without it they saw not how they could continue to exist.” See _The Book of Ser Marco Polo_, translated and edited by Colonel Henry Yule, Second Edition (London, 1875), i. 212 _sq._ Here apparently the fertility of the soil was deemed to depend on the intercourse of the women with strangers, not with their husbands. Similarly, among the Oulad Abdi, an Arab tribe of Morocco, “the women often seek a divorce and engage in prostitution in the intervals between their marriages; during that time they continue to dwell in their families, and their relations regard their conduct as very natural. The administrative authority having bestirred itself and attempted to regulate this prostitution, the whole population opposed the attempt, alleging that such a measure would impair the abundance of the crops.” See Edmond Doutté, _Magie et Religion dans l’Afrique du Nord_ (Algiers, 1908), pp. 560 _sq._