Hence modern accounts are apt to impute a licentious character to Ishtar, as a goddess of violent {165} and lawless passion, and to connect with this aspect of her the institution in her temple at Erech of the service of sacred prostitutes, attested by certain cuneiform texts. In comparing the ritual of East and West, I shall give some consideration to this phenomenal practice. But this view of Ishtar is utterly contrary to that presented of her in the hymns and liturgies. Not only are certain hymns to Ishtar transcendently noble and spiritual in tone, surpassing most of the greatest works of Babylonian religious poetry, but certain phrases specially exalt her as the virgin-goddess. In one of the lamentations we read, “Virgin, virgin, in the temple of my riches, am I.”[165.1] “The spirit-maid, glory of Heaven: the Maiden Ishtar, glory of Heaven.”[165.2] In a psalm to Nana, one of the by-names of Ishtar, she is called “Virgin-goddess of Heaven”;[165.3] in another she speaks of herself, “she of the pure heart, she without fear was I.”[165.4] This virgin-character of hers must then be regarded as fixed by such epithets and phrases, of which more examples might no doubt be found. Therefore the phrase attached to her in the Epic of Gilgamesh,[165.5] “Kadisti Ilani,” must not be translated as Dhorme would translate it,[165.6] “the courtesan of the Gods,” merely on the ground that the same word is applied to her temple-harlots: for the word properly means “pure” from stain, hence “holy,”[165.7] and in this latter sense it could be applied to her consecrated votaries, in spite of their service, which seems to us {166} impure: the same word “Kedesh” is used for the votaries of the same ritual in Phoenicia and Syria. This apparent contradiction in the conception of Ishtar’s character is sometimes explained[166.1] by the suggestion that she was really a combination of two distinct goddesses, a voluptuous and effeminate goddess of Erech, and a pure and warlike Assyrian goddess of Nineveh. But there is no real contradiction; for in Babylonian religious and liturgical literature the lower view of Ishtar is never presented at all. She is always worshipped as pure and holy; the licentiousness of folklore, if there was any such in vogue, was not allowed to intrude into the temple-service. Therefore Ishtar is no real exception to the rule that purity, even in our sense, is a prevailing characteristic of Babylonian divinity, as it was of the Hebraic.