"If then, in Hebrew law and practice," says Dr. Inman, "we find such a strong infusion of the sexual element, we cannot be surprised if it should be found elsewhere, and gradually influence Christianity" (Ancient Symbolism). "The worship of God the Father has repeatedly clashed with that of God the Mother, and the votaries of each respectively have worn badges characteristic of the sex of their deity.... Our sexual sections are as well marked as those in ancient Jerusalem, which swore by Jehovah and Ashtoreth respectively" (Ibid). It is well known that religious prostitution has been practiced in some form by Christ's devotees from the earliest ages of the church down to the present time. Writing of the middle ages, Lecky, the historian of European morals, says: "We may not lay much stress on such isolated instances of depravity as that of Pope John XXIII., who was condemned, among many other crimes, for incest and adultery; or the abbot-elect of St. Augustine, at Canterbury, who in 1171 was found, on investigation, to have seventeen illegitimate children in a single village; or an abbot of St. Pelayo, in Spain, who in 1130 was proved to have kept no less than seventy concubines; or Henry III., Bishop of Liege, who was deposed in 1274 for having sixty-five illegitimate children; but it is impossible to resist the evidence of a long chain of Councils and ecclesiastical writers, who conspire in depicting far greater evils than simple concubinage.... The writers of the middle ages are full of accounts of nunneries that were like brothels, of the vast multitude of infanticides within their walls, and of that inveterate prevalence of incest among the clergy, which rendered it necessary again and again to issue the most stringent enactments that priests should not be permitted to live with their mothers or sisters" (History of European Morals, Vol. II, P. 331). For centuries the worship of the Virgin Mary, the Christian goddess of reproduction and motherhood, was supreme; the worship of God and Christ being subordinated to it. During these centuries, Hallam tells us, chastity was almost unknown. In every land, every class ignored the seventh commandment, because it was taught and believed that all offenses of this character were condoned by the Virgin. Hallam cites numerous instances of her alleged interventions in behalf of those who indulged in illegitimate practices. The following is one: "In one tale the Virgin takes the shape of a nun, who had eloped from the convent, and performs her duties ten years, till, tired of a libertine life, she returns unsuspected. This was in consideration of her having never omitted to say an Ave as she passed the Virgin's image" (Middle Ages, p. 604).