Forlong - Rivers of Life

Serpent and Phallic Worship.
energy; Judeans called the Samaritan temples where calves or bulls were holy, in a word
of Greek derivation, \wnaflp—pšleqoj naÒj, the dung-hill temple, and rqc Shikar (instead
of Shechem), a lie. The Samaritans in return called the Temple of Jerusalem the house
of dung atlqlqtyb, and since its destruction Ctbftyb, Ædes Plagæ. the house of calamity. 1
The tribes were quite proud, perhaps are so still, of having carried about idol
arks during all their so-called forty years of wandering in the desert. Amos and others
tell us that Moloch (Siva, Fire, or Passion), and Kiun (the star or sign of woman)
were inside of these. Hosea speaks in chap. iii. ver. 4, with regret that Israel is deprived
of king, sacrifice, and lingam, stone, or pole, or Matsebah (“Image”), and
Ephods and Teraphim. The Kiun 2 or Chiun was an emblem of Astarte or Ish-tar,
and is no doubt the root or origin of our word queen or quean, which is in Greek gun»;
O. Sax., quan, quena; Icel. qvinna, kona, gwen; O. Ger., quina, and Irish, coinne.
There are amongst us similar femininc terms not yet dead, which these words recall.
Calves or bulls and serpents were natural manifestations of this Jewish faith and so
also quarrels us to whether the Lingaites or Arkites (right- or left- hand sects) should
prevail. As I have said, numerous nations possessed arks, and prominently Hindoos,
Egyptians, Phenicians, Greeks, and Tibetans, down to Romans; and so also we have
much made of Rods, Spears, Batons, Kaducei and such Phallic emblems of the pillar,
tree, stone, or obelisk. Dionysus, like to Moses, but in a higher sense, for he was
a god-man and God of an Ark, was the possessor of a wonder-working Rod and very
wonderful emblems or insignia. His great emblem, both in Thebes and Troy, was an
Agalma, 'Agalma, or “image,” “statue,” “anything that delights;” it was also a
“shrine,” a “res auro ornata,” and bonâ-fide simulacrum of the God. The initial
letter of these words, and of the Greek alphabet, seems also to be here full of meaning
as regards this god. A, or alpha, signifies a male, that is Phallus, or “fellow”, as
A-koites, a bed-fellow; whilst A-gapo is to love or embrace; Agapē is love and gala
“something rare or precious,” and in medicine the milky juice of a plant; whilst gameo
is to marry; the husband is gametis, and the wife gamete which, straws though they
may be, show how the wind blows.
We gather, further, from that excellent publication by Mr Thomas Scott, “The
Physician on the Pentateuch,” that the usual article in heathen arks or coffers was
týu DionoÚsou ”Aido‹on, the pudendum, male or female; for one or both are commonly represented
in these shrines, just as they are in present Sivaik ones. This learned Physician,
whom I have not the pleasure of knowing, and whose work I had not read till after
most of this article was written, says, “Is not the Greek ”Aido‹on the Hebrew Eduth?”
He alsp draws. attention to the fact of Joshua’s “great stone” which he “set up as a
witness under an oak,” being an actual god who “heard all” that was said to him
(Josh. xxiv. 26, 27), and of Joshua’s spear taking the precise place of Moses’ Phallic
1 “Letters on Mythology,” Lon., 1748, p. 136, said to have been written by the Archdeacon of Durham.
2 In Sansk., Kun signifies to cherish or support,” and hence Woman or Womb.
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