Introduction to the History of Religions Part 10

+379+. The ethical power of the cults so far discussed resides in the human a.s.sociation to which they give rise and the sanctions they supply to conduct. Of these two effects the former is the more important. The moral character of a ghost or spirit or deity never rises above that of its circle of wors.h.i.+pers: its approval or disapproval is the echo of current usage, and has special efficiency only in the accompanying power of reward or punishment; it appeals to the hopes and fears of men. This police function is doubtless valuable in restraining from crime and inciting to good conduct, but it has no regenerative power. The enlargement of human a.s.sociation, on the other hand, increases sympathy and cooperation among men, and paves the way to the cultivation of the mutual respect and regard which is the basis of social virtue.

+380+. Among the lower cults ancestor-wors.h.i.+p may be expected to take the highest place, for the reason that it tends to strengthen family unity and the solidarity of the clan, tribe, or nation; all such knitting together of men makes for the increase of honesty and kindliness. The data are lacking, however, for the determination of this point. It may be said in general that the att.i.tude toward the dead becomes finer with advance in civilization; but before a specific moral power in ancestor-wors.h.i.+p can be proved, it will be necessary to have exact details of moral ideas and conduct in all the lower tribes, together with some information regarding the att.i.tude of individuals toward questions of conduct, and the motives that impel toward this or that action. The question of ethical growth in society is a complicated one, and the most that can be said for any element of social const.i.tution is that it tends to strengthen or weaken the individual's confidence in and regard for his fellows.

+381+. The part played in religious history by the wors.h.i.+p of the dead is so important that some writers have derived all religion from it.[705] This view is now generally rejected for the reason that it does not accord with known facts; it is only by forced (though often ingenious) interpretations that a plausible case is made out for it. To reply in detail to the arguments advanced in its favor would be to go over the whole ground of the origin of religious observances; the answer is furnished by setting forth the nature of the various cults, as is attempted in this and following chapters. If, for example, there is reason to believe that savages have always regarded the lower animals as powerful beings, there is no need, in accounting for the veneration given them, to resort to the roundabout way of a.s.suming a misinterpretation of names of men derived from beasts.

+382+. Between Euhemerism and the theory that explains myths as a "disease of language" there is little or no essential difference of principle. Both theories a.s.sume that man, having devised certain epithets, later came to misunderstand them and to build up histories on the misunderstanding. Both thus rest the immense ma.s.s of human religious customs and beliefs, which form so large a part of human history, on the precarious foundation of pa.s.sing fancy and inadvertence, and they must be put into the same category with the nave theory, once popular, that religion is the invention of priests who sought to control men through their fears.

+383+. Ancestor-wors.h.i.+p is the feeling of kins.h.i.+p with the dead, invested by religion with peculiar intensity and solemnity. It has been one of the great constructive forces of society.

CULTS OF GENERATIVE POWERS

+384+. The origin of religion is not to be referred exclusively to any one order of ideas; it springs out of man's total life. All objects and processes have been included in men's construction of nature, and the processes, when they have been held to bear on human well-being, have been ascribed to a force inherent in things or to the activity of supernatural beings.

+385+. The study of processes has gone hand in hand with the creation of divine beings who are supposed to manifest themselves in the processes.

The great spectacle of nature's productivity has been especially recognizable in the vegetable world and in the world of man; in both of these life has been perpetually unfolding itself under men's eyes as a mysterious process, which, by virtue of its mysteriousness, has become religious material and has entered into systems of religious wors.h.i.+p.

+386+. The relation of vegetable life to religious cults is referred to elsewhere,[706] and a brief survey may now be given of usages and ideas that have been connected with the production of human life.

+387+. It is obvious that not all customs that include the function of generation are of the nature of religious observances. The promiscuity that obtains in many savage communities before marriage is a nave unreflective animal procedure. Exchange of wives (as in Central Australia) and the offering of a wife to a guest are matters of social etiquette. Festivals in which s.e.xual license is the rule are generally merely the expression of natural impulses. Holidays, being times of amus.e.m.e.nt, are occasions used by the people for the satisfaction of all appet.i.tes: there is eating and drinking, buffoonery, disregard of current conventions, unbounded liberty to do whatever exuberant animalism prompts. Such festivities abound among existing savages,[707]

were not uncommon in ancient civilized times,[708] and have survived in diminished form to the present day.[709] In the course of time they often become attached to the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.ds, are organized, explained by myths, and sanctified. In such cases of coalescence we must distinguish between the true wors.h.i.+p offered to a divine being, and the observances, generally originating in desire for animal amus.e.m.e.nt and enjoyment, that have been attached to them.

+388+. _Cult of generative organs._ Men's attention must have been directed very early to those organs that were believed to be connected with the genesis of human life. At what stage this belief arose it is hardly possible to say; there are peoples among whom it seems not to exist;[710] but it is found over a great part of the world, and was doubtless an outcome of popular observation.[711] As it was intimately connected with life it pa.s.sed naturally into the domain of religion, and in process of time became a more or less prominent part of religious observances; the organs in question, both male and female, became objects of religious devotion.

+389+. Here again it must be noted that not all usages connected with the organs of generation were religious of origin. It is pointed out above[712] that the origin of circ.u.mcision and excision is to be sought in another direction. Ithyphallic images are sometimes merely attempts at realism in art; a nude figure (as in modern art) must be represented in its full proportions. Such seems to be the nature of certain images among the Western Bantu,[713] and this may have been the case with the images of the Egyptian Khem and Osiris and similar deities. In general this sort of representation in savage and ancient civilized communities is often either simple realism or indecency. Folk-stories abound in details that sound indecent to modern ears, but were for the authors often merely copies of current usages.

+390+. All important members of the human body have been regarded as to a greater or less extent sacred, their importance depending on their subservience to man's needs. The head of an enemy gives the slayer wisdom and strength; an oath sworn by the head or beard of one's father is peculiarly binding; the heart, when eaten, imparts power; a solemn oath may be sworn by the s.e.xual organs. In no case does the sacredness of an object necessarily involve its wors.h.i.+p; whether or not it shall receive a true cult depends on general social considerations.

+391+. Though phallic cults proper cannot be shown to be universal among men, they have played a not inconsiderable part in religious history.

They appear to have pa.s.sed through the usual grades of development--simple at first, later more complicated. The att.i.tude of savages and low communities generally, non-Christian and Christian, toward the phallus, suggests that in the earliest stage of the cult some sort of wors.h.i.+p was paid the physical object itself considered as a creator of life; satisfactory data on this point, however, are lacking.

It was at so early a period that it was brought into cultic connection with supernatural beings that its initial forms escape us.

+392+. It seems not to exist now among the lowest peoples. There are no definite traces of it in the tribes of Oceania, Central Africa, Central Asia, and America. The silence of explorers on this point cannot indeed be taken as proof positive of its nonexistence; yet the absence of distinct mention of it in a great number of carefully prepared works leads us to infer that it does not play an important part in the religious systems therein described.[714] It seems to require, for its establishment, a fairly well-developed social and political organization. Some of the tribes named above have departmental deities, mostly of a simple sort, but apparently it has not occurred to them to isolate this particular function, which they probably regarded as a familiar part of the order of things and not needing special mention.

The gift of children was in the hands of the local G.o.d, a generally recognized part of his duty as patron of the tribe, and all s.e.xual matters naturally might be referred to him. Also, as is remarked above, in certain tribes there was no knowledge of the connection between the birth of children and the union of the s.e.xes,[715] and such tribes would of course ascribe no creative power to the phallus.

+393+. The best example of a half-civilized phallic cult is that which is now practiced in Yoruba and Dahomi, countries with definite government and inst.i.tutions. The cult is attached to the wors.h.i.+p of a deity (Elegba or Legba), who appears to be a patron of fertility; the phallus occupies a prominent place on his temples, and its wors.h.i.+p is accompanied by the usual licentious rites.[716] These are expressions of popular appet.i.te, and it does not appear that the cult itself is otherwise religiously significant.

+394+. In modern India the civaite phallicism is p.r.o.nounced and important. The linga is treated as a divine power, and, as producer of fertility, is especially the object of devotion of women;[717] though civaism has its rites of unbridled b.e.s.t.i.a.lism, the wors.h.i.+p of the linga by women is often free from impurity; it is practically wors.h.i.+p of a deity of fertility. The origin of the Indian cult is not clear. As it does not appear in the earliest literature, it has been supposed to have come into Aryan wors.h.i.+p from non-Aryan tribes. Whatever its origin, it is now widely observed in Aryan India, and has been adopted by various outlying tribes.[718]

+395+. While it is, or was, well established in j.a.pan, it apparently has had no marked influence on the religious thought of the people. Phallic forms abound[719] in the land, in spite of repressive measures on the part of the government, but the cult partakes of the general looseness of the s.h.i.+nto organization of supernatural Powers. It is said to have been adopted in some cases by Buddhists. It appears to have been combined with s.h.i.+nto at a very early (half-civilized) time, for which, however, no records exist.

+396+. It is among the great ancient civilized peoples that the most definite organization of phallic cults is found.

+397+. For Egypt there is the testimony of Herodotus,[720] who describes a procession of women bearing small phallic images and singing hymns in honor of a deity whom he calls Dionysos--probably Khem or Osiris or Bes; such images are mentioned by Plutarch,[721] supposed by him to represent Osiris. Both Khem and Osiris were great G.o.ds, credited with general creative power, and popular ceremonies of a phallicistic nature might easily be attached to their cults. Bes, a less important deity, seems to have been fas.h.i.+oned largely by popular fancy. These ceremonies were doubtless attended with license,[722] but they probably formed no part of Egyptian serious wors.h.i.+p. The phallus was essential in a realistic image, but it appears to have been regarded simply as a physical part of the G.o.d or as an emblem of him; there is no evidence that wors.h.i.+p was addressed to it in itself.

+398+. The evidence that has been adduced for a cult of the phallus among Semitic peoples is of a doubtful nature. No ithyphallic images or figures of G.o.ds have been found. Religious prost.i.tution there was in all North Semitic lands,[723] but this is a wholly different thing from a phallicistic cult. It is supposed, however, by not a few scholars that descriptions and representations of the phallus occur in so many places as to make some sort of cult of the object probable. In a pa.s.sage of the Book of Isaiah, descriptive of a foreign cult practiced, probably, by some Jews, the phallus, it is held, is named.[724] The pa.s.sage is obscure. The nature and origin of the cult referred to are not clear; it is not elsewhere mentioned. The word (_yad_, usually 'hand') supposed to mean 'phallus' is not found in this sense elsewhere in the Old Testament or in later Hebrew literature. But, if the proposed rendering be adopted, the reference will be not to a cult of the phallus but to s.e.xual intercourse, a figurative description of idolatry.

+399+. A distinct mention of phalli as connected with religious wors.h.i.+p occurs in Pseudo-Lucian's description of the temple of a certain G.o.ddess at Hierapolis.[725] He gives the name to enormously high structures standing in the propylaea of the temple, but mentions no details suggesting a phallic cult. Twice a year, he says, a man ascends one of them, on the top of which he stays seven days, praying, as some think, for a blessing on all Syria--a procedure suggesting that the pillar was simply a structure consecrated to the deity of the place (probably Atargatis, who is often called "the Syrian G.o.ddess")[726]. However, if there was a phallic cult there (the phallus being regarded as a symbol of the productive function of the deity), it is not certain that it was Semitic. Hierapolis had long been an important religious center in a region in which Asiatic and Greek wors.h.i.+ps were influential, and foreign elements might easily have become attached to the wors.h.i.+p of a Semitic deity. The cult of the Asian Great Mother (whom the Greeks identified with their Leto) had orgiastic elements. Lucian's reference to a custom of emasculation suggests Asian features at Hierapolis.[727]

+400+. In Babylonia and Palestine stones, held by some to be phalli, have been found.[728] While the shape of some of these objects and their occurrence at shrines may be supposed to lend support to this view, its correctness is open to doubt. There is no doc.u.mentary evidence as to the character of the objects in question, and they may be explained otherwise than as phalli. But, if they are phalli, their presence does not prove a phallic cult--they may be votive objects, indicating that the phallus was regarded as in some sort sacred, not that it was wors.h.i.+ped. Decision of the question may be reserved till more material has been collected. There is no sufficient ground for regarding the stone posts that stood by Hebrew shrines as phallic symbols; they are naturally explained as sacred stones, originally embodying a deity, later attached to his shrines as traditional objects ent.i.tled to veneration.[729]

+401+. In Asia Minor and the h.e.l.lenic communities (both in Ionia and in Greece proper) the phallicistic material is extensive and complicated. A symbolic signification appears to have been superimposed on early realistic anthropomorphic figures that were simply images of supernatural Powers. In various regions such figures came to be a.s.sociated with the generative force of nature in human birth, and the tendency to specialization a.s.signed these divine beings special functions; of this nature, probably, were the local Athenian deities Orthanes, Konisalos, and others.[730] At a later period such functions were attributed to the well-developed G.o.ds of fertility; rituals sprang up and were explained by myths, and various combinations and identifications were made between the prominent G.o.ds.

+402+. The most interesting figure of this character is Priapos, an ithyphallic deity of uncertain origin; his special connection was with Lampsakos, and he may have been an Asian creation. From the variety of his functions (he was patron of gardens and viticulture, of sailors and fishermen, and in some places a G.o.d of war)[731] it may be surmised that he was originally a local deity, charged with the care of all human interests, in an agricultural community the patron of fertility, and at some time, and under circ.u.mstances unknown to us, especially connected with s.e.xual life. Whatever his origin, his cult spread over Greece, he was identified with certain Greek deities, licentious popular festivals naturally attached themselves to his wors.h.i.+p, and his name became a synonym of s.e.xual pa.s.sion. In the later time the pictorial representations of him became grossly indecent; his cult was an outlet for popular and artistic license.[732] On the other hand, in the higher thought he was made the representative of the production of universal animal life, and rose to the rank of a great G.o.d.[733]

+403+. The Greek deities with whom Priapos was oftenest identified were Dionysos and Hermes--both G.o.ds of fertility. They, as great G.o.ds of such a nature, would naturally absorb lesser phallicistic figures; but they were specialized in other directions, and Priapos remained as the distinctest embodiment of phallicistic conceptions. Other such figures, as Pan, t.i.tans, Sileni, and Satyrs, were beings connected with fields, woods, and mountains, products of a low form of civilization, to whom realistic forms and licentious festivals naturally attached themselves.

+404+. Rome had its native ithyphallic deity, Mutunus Tutunus (or Mutinus), a nave symbol of generative power.[734] Little is known of his cult beyond the fact that he figured in marriage ceremonies in a peculiarly indecent way; by later writers he is sometimes identified with Priapos.[735] The Romans adopted the cult of Priapos as well as other phallicistic forms of wors.h.i.+p; his original character appears in his role of patron of gardens.

+405+. Phalli as amulets occur in all parts of the world; as symbols and perhaps as abodes of deities, they have been held potent to ward off all evils.[736]

+406+. The female organ (_yoni_, _kteis_) appears frequently in figures of female deities, ordinarily without special significance, religious or other, except as a sign of s.e.x. In the rare cases in which it is the object of religious veneration (as in India) it is subordinated to the phallos[737]--there is little or no evidence for the existence of a yonistic cult proper.[738] Female deities act as fully formed anthropomorphic Powers, embodiments of the productive energies of nature; they are generally treated as persons, without special reference to bodily parts. The most definite formulation of this conception appears in caktism, the wors.h.i.+p of the female principle in nature as represented by various G.o.ddesses, often accompanied, naturally, by licentious rites.[739]

+407+. _Androgynous deities_ represent attempts to combine in a single person the two sides of the productive power of nature. Such attempts are relatively late, implying a considerable degree of reflection and organization; how early they began we have not the data to determine.

They are not found among savage or half-civilized peoples.

+408+. In Semitic lands no artistic representations of a bis.e.xual deity are now known, but evidence is adduced to show that this conception existed in early times. It has been sought in two old Babylonian inscriptions published by the British Museum.[740] The first of these (written in Sumerian) reads: "For [or, in honor of] the (divine) king of countries, the (divine) Nana [Ishtar], the lady Nana, Lugaltarsi, king of Kish, has constructed," etc. Barton takes the two t.i.tles "the divine Ishtar" (='king of countries,' masculine) and "the lady Ishtar" to refer to the same deity, in whose person would thus be united male and female beings. If, however, the king of countries and Ishtar be taken to be two different deities (as is possible), there is no bis.e.xuality. The second inscription, which is bilingual, has the expressions "the mother-father Enlil," "the mother-father Ninlil" (Sumerian), rendered in Semitic "the father-mother Enlil," "the father-mother Ninlil." These expressions probably signify not that the two deities are bis.e.xual, but that each of them fulfills the guarding and nouris.h.i.+ng functions of a father and a mother.

The expression in a hymn to Ishtar that "she has a beard like the G.o.d Ashur" may be satisfactorily explained as an astrological statement, the meaning of which is that the planet Dilbat (Ishtar, Venus) at certain times equals the sun (represented by Ashur) in brilliancy, her rays being likened to a beard.[741] A similar astrological interpretation is offered by Jastrow of a pa.s.sage (to which attention was called by Francois Lenormant) in which a female Dilbat and a male Dilbat are spoken of. Other astrological texts indicate that the terms 'male' and 'female' are employed as expressions of greater or less brilliancy.[742]

Lajard's view, that all Babylonian and a.s.syrian deities were androgynous, hardly needs discussion now.[743]

+409+. Of a more definite character are expressions in two Phoenician inscriptions. In an inscription of Eshmunazzar II (probably early in the fourth century B.C.) the great G.o.ddess of Sidon is called "Ashtart _Shem_ Baal."[744] The word _shem_ means 'name,' and, if it be so interpreted as to give the G.o.ddess the name of a male divinity, she may be understood to have partly male form. But such change of name is hardly probable, and this is not necessarily the natural force of the phrase. In Hebrew to "call one's name on a person or thing" is to a.s.sert owners.h.i.+p in it or close connection with it.[745] In the West Semitic area some personal names signify simply 'name of such and such a deity,'

as, for example, Shemuel (Samuel), 'name of El,' Shemzebul, 'name of (the G.o.d) Zebul,' denoting devotion or subordination to the deity in question. "Shem Baal" as a t.i.tle of Ashtart may then indicate her close relation with the G.o.d, or, perhaps, if the expression be understood more broadly, her equality with him in power (the name of a deity involves his attributes)--he was the great G.o.d, but she, the expression would say, is not less mighty than he; or, less probably, _baal_ may be taken not as proper name but as t.i.tle, the sense then being that the G.o.ddess is the lord of the city.[746] Another proposal is to read "Ashtart shame Baal," 'Ashtart of the heaven [sky] of Baal.'[747] There is a Phoenician Baal-shamem, 'lord of the sky,' but nowhere else is the sky described as the abode of a baal, and the transference of the local city-G.o.ddess to that region would be strange; nor in the expression 'Baal-shamem' is Baal a proper name--it is merely a t.i.tle.

+410+. Another phrase, occurring in many Carthaginian inscriptions, makes mention of "Tanit face of Baal,"[748] an expression that may point to a female body with male face. Its indefiniteness--it does not state the nature of the face (it may point to a beard)--makes it difficult to draw from it any conclusions as to the character of the deity named.[749] But the probability is that it is identical in sense with the one mentioned above. Tanit was the great G.o.ddess of Carthage; she is called "Adon," 'lord,' and her equality with Baal is indicated by the statement that she had his face, the word 'face' being here equivalent to 'personality' and 'power.'[750]

+411+. At a later period (early in the fifth century of our era) two authors, Servius and Macrobius, make definite statements concerning a bis.e.xual cult, apparently Semitic.[751] Both statements occur in connection with Vergil's use of the masculine _deus_ (_ducente deo_) as a t.i.tle of Venus, in explanation of which the cases of supposed bis.e.xualism are cited.[752] What is said is that there was in Cyprus a deity whose image was bearded--a G.o.d of virile nature, but dressed as a woman, and regarded as being both male and female. Further, Philochorus is quoted to the effect that men sacrificed to her in women's dress and women in men's dress. This last remark does not necessarily point to an androgynous deity, for exchange of dress between men and women sometimes occurs where there is no question of the cult of such a deity.[753] But the Cyprian deity is said also to have been called ?f??d?t??

(Aphroditos? or Aphroditon?)[754]--apparently a male Aphrodite.

+412+. Leaving aside a few other notices that add nothing to our knowledge of the point under consideration, we should naturally conclude, if we give any credit to the statements of Servius and Macrobius, that there was a report in their time of a bis.e.xual deity in Cyprus. As regards Vergil's "deus," that may be merely a poetical expression of the eminence and potency of the G.o.ddess. But the a.s.sertions of her bis.e.xual character are distinct, even if the "beard"

be discarded. This latter may have come from a misunderstanding of some appearance on the face of the statue; or, as has been suggested, there may have been a false beard attached to it permanently or occasionally,[755] and from this may have sprung the belief in the twofold nature of the deity. We are not told, however, that such a nature was ascribed to Aphrodite, or that a beard was attached to her statue; and, if this was done, it is difficult to suppose that a popular belief in the bis.e.xuality of a deity could have arisen from such a procedure. Some better ground for the statements of Servius and Macrobius there seems to have been, though we do not know their authorities. In any case it may be concluded that the cult in question, if it existed, was late, popular, and without marked influence on the Semitic religious development. No figures or other traces of a bis.e.xual deity have been discovered in Cyprus or elsewhere (unless the Carthaginian Tanit be an exception), and all that is otherwise known of the character and cult of the Babylonian Ishtar, the Phoenician Ashtart, and the Carthaginian Tanit (=Ashtart) is against the supposition of bis.e.xuality. Ishtar, originally a deity of fertility, became, through social growth, a patron of war and statecraft; but there is no indication that an attempt was ever made to combine these two characters in one figure.

+413+. The Phrygian figure Agdistis, represented in the myths as androgynous[756] (the myths being based on cults), is connected with the wors.h.i.+p of the Great Mother, Kybele (the embodiment of the female productive power of nature), with whom is a.s.sociated Attis (the embodiment of the male power).[757] The myths identify Agdistis on the one hand with Kybele, on the other hand with Attis--he represents in his own person the combination of the two generative powers. But it is doubtful whether this was his significance in the actual wors.h.i.+p, in which he hardly appears; he was probably a divine figure of the same character as Kybele and Attis, worked up by myth-makers and woven into the larger myth. His self-castration reflects the practice of the priests and other wors.h.i.+pers of Kybele.[758] Thus culturally he is of little or no importance.

+414+. There is no evidence that this Phrygian figure was derived from Semitic sources. A certain similarity between Phrygian and Syrian cults of G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses of fertility is obvious, and the social relations between Asia Minor, Syria, and Cyprus make borrowing in either direction conceivable. But cults of such deities might grow up independently in different regions,[759] and the supposition that the Phrygian wors.h.i.+p was native to Asia Minor is favored by the great elaboration of its ceremonies and by their barbarous character. This character suggests that the wors.h.i.+p may have originated with savage peoples who preceded the Aryans in the country.[760]

+415+. The most definite androgynous figure is the Greek Hermaphroditos.

It was only in Greece that such a compound name arose, and that the composite form became established in art. It is not certain when the Greek form was fixed. If the statement that Aristophanes used the term "Aphroditos"[761] (or "Aphroditon") is to be relied on, it must be concluded that the conception existed in Greece prior to the fifth century, probably in that case as a popular usage that was unorganized and unimportant, since it is not referred to in the existing literature.

But of this Aristophanes we know nothing, and the vague statements of Servius and Macrobius may be neglected as being without significance for the figure in question.

+416+. The name Hermaphroditos is said to occur for the first time in the fourth or third century B.C.[762] This would indicate a gradual formulation of the idea, the result being the combination of two divine forms into a single form. Aphrodite would naturally be chosen for the female side, and the ithyphallic Hermes is appropriate for the male side--possibly the Hermes pillar with Aphrodite bust was the earliest form.[763] The representations of Hermaphrodites show a male body with female bust; the name Aphroditos would rather suggest a female body with male additions. Other Greek bis.e.xual figures are forms of Priapos and Eros.

An historical connection between the Greek and the Phrygian forms is possible, but is not proved. In India the bis.e.xual form of civa, which seems to be late,[764] connects itself with the licentious character of his rites. Its historical origin is uncertain.

+417+. It does not appear that the cult of the Greek androgynous deities entered seriously into the religious life of the people. In late philosophic circles they were treated merely as symbols of the creative power of nature, and thus lost their character as persons.

+418+. The starting-point for the development of the hermaphrodite figure may perhaps be found in two facts, the interchange or change of s.e.xual characters[765] and the combination of two deities to express a broader idea than either of them represents. The a.s.sumption of female dress and s.e.xual habits by males, and of male dress and habits by females, has prevailed over a great part of the world.[766] The embodiment of this fact in a composite divine form would be not unnatural at a time when there was a disposition to give expression, in the person of G.o.ds, to all human experiences. Such definite embodiment is, however, rare in religious history, probably, as is suggested above, because it involves a large generalization and a more or less distinct symbolism. The first movement in this direction may have been navely sensuous; later, as is remarked above, the symbolic conception became predominant.

+419+. The a.s.sociation of certain _animals_ with certain phallic deities (as the bull with Dionysos, the goat with Pan, the a.s.s with Priapos) is a part of the general connection between G.o.ds and animals, the grounds of which are in many cases obscure.[767] Pan's rural character may explain his relation to the goat; the bull, the a.s.s, and many other animals regarded as sacred, may have been brought into ritual connection with G.o.ds by processes of subordination of divine beasts and through collocation of cults. There is no evidence to show that the animals connected with phallic G.o.ds were selected on account of their salacious dispositions or their s.e.xual power.