Bible Studies: Essays on Phallic Worship and Other Curious Rites and CustomsWheeler, J. M. (Joseph Mazzini)
Religion
Bible Studies: Essays on Phallic Worship and Other Curious Rites and Customs
Wheeler, J. M. (Joseph Mazzini)
Bible -- Antiquities; Phallicism; Rites and ceremonies in the Bible
Millington, in his _Testimony of the Heathen_, cites as illustration of
Exodus xxii. 8, the most telling passages from Herodotus in regard to
the Lydians and Arabians confirming alliances in this fashions. The
well-known case of Cataline and his fellow conspirators who drank from
goblets of wine mixed with blood is of course not forgotten, but Dr.
Trumbull overlooks the passage in Plutarch's "Life of Publicola," in
which he narrates that "the conspirators (against Brutus) agreed to
take a great and horrible oath, by drinking together of the blood, and
tasting the entrails of a man sacrificed for that purpose." Mr. Wake
also in his _Evolution of Morality_, has drawn attention to the
subject, and, what is more, to its important place in the history of
the evolution of society. Herbert Spencer points out in his "Ceremonial
Institutions," that blood offerings over the dead may be explained as
arising in some cases "from the practice of establishing a sacred bond
between living persons by partaking of each other's blood: the derived
conception being that those who give some of their blood to the ghost of
a man just dead and lingering near, effect with it a union which on the
one side implies submission, and on the other side, friendliness."
The widespread custom of blood-covenanting illustrates most clearly, as
Dr. Tylor points out, "the great principle of old-world morals, that man
owes friendship, not to mankind at large, but only to his own kin; so
that to entitle a stranger to kindness and good faith he must become a
kinsman by blood."* That any sane man seated at a table ever said, "Take
eat, this is my body," and "Drink, this is my blood," is ridiculous. The
bread and wine are the fruits of the the Sun. Justin Martyr, one of the
earliest of the Christian fathers, informs us that this eucharist was
partaken in the mysteries of Mithra. The Christian doctrine of partaking
of the blood of Christ is a mingling of the rites of sun-worshippers
with the early savage ceremony of the blood covenant.
* The origin of the mystery of the Rosy Gross may have been
in the savage rite of initiation by baptism with arms
outstretched in a cruciform pool of blood. See Nimrod, vol.
ii.
SCAPEGOATS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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