"And he dreamed, _and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it_."
These are the words of the sacred text. Can anything be more convincing? It continues thus:
"And Jacob awoke out of his sleep . . . and he was afraid, and said . . . this is none other but the house of God, _and this is the gate of heaven_."
Here we have "the gate of heaven," mentioned by Origen in describing the _Metempsychosis_.
According to the ancients, the _top_ of this ladder was supposed to reach _the throne_ of _the most high God_. This corresponds exactly with the vision of Jacob. The ladder which he is made to see reached unto heaven, _and the Lord stood above it._[46:1]
"And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the _stone_ that he had put for his pillow, _and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it_."[46:2]
This concluding portion to the story has evidently an allusion to _Phallic_[46:3] worship. There is scarcely a nation of antiquity which did not set up these stones (as emblems of the reproductive power of nature) and worship them. Dr. Oort, speaking of this, says:
Few forms of worship were so universal in ancient times as the homage paid to sacred stones. In the history of the religion of even the most civilized peoples, such as the Greeks, Romans, Hindoos, Arabs and Germans, we find traces of this form of worship.[46:4] The ancient _Druids_ of Britain also worshiped sacred stones, which were _set up on end_.[46:5]
Pausanias, an eminent Greek historian, says:
"The _Hermiac_ statue, which they venerate in Cyllenê above other _symbols_, is an erect _Phallus_ on a pedestal."[46:6]
This was nothing more than a smooth, oblong _stone_, set erect on a flat one.[46:7]
The learned Dr. Ginsburg, in his "Life of Levita," alludes to the ancient mode of worship offered to the heathen deity Hermes, or Mercury. A "Hermes" (_i. e._, a _stone_) was frequently set up on the road-side, and each traveller, as he passed by, paid his homage to the deity by either throwing a stone on the heap (which was thus collected), or by _anointing_ it. This "Hermes" was the symbol of Phallus.[46:8]
Now, when we find that _this form of worship was very prevalent among the Israelites_,[47:1] that these sacred stones which were "set up," were called (by the heathen), BÆTY-LI,[47:2] (which is not unlike BETH-EL), and that _they were anointed with oil_,[47:3] I think we have reasons for believing that the story of Jacob's _setting up_ a stone, _pouring oil upon it_, and calling the place _Beth-el_, "has evidently an allusion to Phallic worship."[47:4]