CHAPTER VIIL

THE ROSICRUCIAN AND GNOSTIC MEANINGS OF THE OBELISKS, THE PYRAMIDS, AND THE PHALLIC MONUMENTS OF THE PEOPLES OF ANTIQUITY.
It is observed by Dionysius, the geographer, that Bacchus was worshipped with peculiar zeal and devotion by the ancient inhabitants of some of the smaller British islands. What islands are meant is uncertain; but pro- bably the Hebrides or Orcades. Here the women, crowned with ivy, celebrated his clamorous nocturnal rites upon the shores of the northern ocean, in the same manner as the Thracians did upon the banks of the Absinthus, or the Indians by the Ganges. In Stukeley’s Itinerary is the ground-plan of an ancient Celtic, or Scandinavian temple, found in Zealand, consisting of a circle of rude stones within a square: and it is probable that many others of these circles were inclosed in square areas. Stonehenge is the most important monument of this kind now extant; and from a passage of Hecatzeus, preserved by Diodorus Siculus, it seems to have been not wholly unknown to that ancient historian; who might have collected some vague accounts of the British Islands from the Phoenician and Carthaginian merchants, who traded there for tin. ‘‘The Hyperboreans,” said he, “inhabit an island beyond Gaul, in which Apollo is wor- shipped in a circular temple considerable for its size and richness.” This island can be no other than Britain.
The large obelisks of stone found in many parts of the
Meanings of the Obelisks. 71
north, such as those at Rudstone and near Boroughbridge in Yorkshire, belonged to the same religion, Obelisks, as Pliny observes, were sacred to the Sun; whose rays they signified both by their form and name. (Lib. xxxvi., l. 14.) They were, therefore, the emblems of light, the primary and essential emanations of the deity; whence radiating the head, or surrounding it with a diadem of small obelisks, was a mode of consecration or deification which flattery often employed in the portraits both of the Macedemonian kings and of the Roman emperors. ‘The mystagogues and poets expressed the same meaning by the epithet arKEIoz or arKatoz; which is occasionally applied to almost every personification of the deity, and more especially to Apollo; who is likewise called AYKHTENETHS, Or as contracted, AYKHTENH=; which mythologists have explained by an absurd fable of his having been born in Lycia; whereas it signifies the Author or Generator of Light ; being derived from arku, otherwise arKoz, of which the Latin word /uw is a con- traction. (Lukeios. Lukaios.—Luké, Lukos.—lIl., A. 101, Schol. Didym. et Ven. Heraclid. Pant., p. 417, ed. Gale.) In symbolical writing, the same meaning was signified by the appropriate emblems in various countries ; whence the zEY: MEIAIXIoZ at Sicyon, and the Apollo Carina at Megara in Attica, were represented by stones of the above-mentioned form (Pausan. in Cor., c. 9, Ss. 6); as was also the Apollo Agyieus in various places; and both Apollo and Diana by simple columns pointed at the top (Obelisci or Phalli); or, as the symbol began to be humanised, with the addition of a head, hands, and feet, On a Lapland drum, an instrument which was employed for the purposes of magic and divination, amongst the
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consulting mediums of the Lapps and Finns, the goddess appealed to—Ilsa, or Disa—is represented by a pyramid surmounted with the significant emblem so frequently observed in the hands of the Egyptian deities (O/. Rud- beck Atlant., p. ii., c. V-5 p. 277, and c. xi., 261); and the pyramid has likewise been observed among the religious symbols of the savages of North America. (Lajfitau, Meurs des Sauvages, t. 1., pp. 146 and 8.) The most sacred idol, too, of the Hindoos in the great temple of Juggernaut, in the province of Orissa, is a pyramidal stone (Hamilton’s Travels in India); and the altar in the temple of Mexico, upon which human victims were sacrificed to the deity of the Sun, was a pointed pyramid, on one side of which the unhappy captive was extended on his back, in order to have his heart taken out by the priest. (Acosta’s History of the Indies, p. 382.)
The spires and pinnacles with which our old churches are decorated—indeed, all uprights, including all the architectural families, and the varieties of tors, towers, and steeples, the especial mark and glory of Christian building—come from these ancient symbols. ‘They are everywhere indicative of the Phallus, or index-finger denoting the “ Fire,’—the aspiring fire, against the in- clination of gravity, which was the first vitalised idea, or Idol, worshipped magically and philosophically—the en- livening, godlike Power. The innumerable weathercocks, with which the pointed steeples are surmounted, though now only employed to show the direction of the wind, were originally emblems of the Sun; for the cock is the natural emblem—the magical “look-out,” to descry the dawn. The cock, with his “lofty and shrill-sounding cry,” in the profundity of the universal stillness, is the
Meanings of the Obelisks. 73
natural herald of the day, and therefore sacred to the fountain of light. (Pausan., lib. v., p. 444.) In the symbolical writing of the Chinese, the sun is still repre- sented by a cock in a circle; and a modern Parsee would suffer death rather than be guilty of the crime of killing one. (Hyde de Relig. vet. Persarum.) It appears on many ancient coins, with some symbol of the passive pro- ductive power on the reverse (See coins of Himera, Samothrace, Suessa, §¥c.). In some instances it is united with Priapic and other emblems and devices, signifying different attributes combined. (Jb. and Selinus.) The Egyptians, among whom of ancient nations the Obelisk and the Pyramid* were the most frequently employed as significant objects, held that there were two opposite powers in the world perpetually acting and reacting against each other; the one generating as the other destroyed ; and the other destroying as fast as the other generated. The former of these powers the Egyptians called Osiris, and the latter, Typhon. By the contention of these two the-world was produced, including all the operations of the mind, which was also called “matter,” thus agreeing with the realistic contentions of the arch-physicist, Spinoza. By the mutual assistance and inter-action of these two contending Supreme Powers, that mixture of good and evil, of procreation and dissolution, which was to constitute the harmony (necessarily the balance) of
* The Obelisk always means the male instrument, while the Pyramid signifies the female corresponding tumefactive, or rising power— power not submissive, but answerably suggestive ; synchronised in the anatomical clitoris, (root, in the Greek, probably, from clyte, “ sun- flower,’ as turning to the sun, that eccentric, minute object, meaning everything in the Rosicrucian mystic anatomy.
74 Phallicism.
the world, was supposed to be produced. (Eurip. apud Plutarch. de Is, et Osir.) ‘The notion of such a necessary mixture, or reciprocal operation, was, according to Plu- tarch, of immemorial antiquity, derived from the earliest theologists and legislators, not only in traditions and reports, but also in mysteries and sacred rites, both Greek and Barbarian. (De Js. et Osir., p. 369; Hippocrat. Awur., i, 6.) % Fire” was held to be the Efficient Prin- ciple of both Powers; that is, the “ Light” of Fire was mystically taken as the living power of the Good or Beneficent Impulse; as the “ Fire” of Light—the radical base of the same two things, Good, or Light, and Evil, or Fire, was “Fire,” motion, heat, or impulse; the whole being simply an abstraction, unintelligible to the mere human reason (which, in reality, as towards God’s meanings and purposes, is nothing); the two contrarieties or opposites being, in fact, the same thing, out of the mind, and independent not only of phenomena, but, farther, of the possibility of phenomena. This is the true doctrine—abstract, and hopelessly mystical as it is—of the Rosicrucians, which has been universally misunder- stood by the learned world, and shrunk from by Christian theologians. According to some of the later Egyptians, the ethereal fire was supposed to be concentrated in the sun. But Plutarch controverts this opinion, and asserts that Typhon, the evil or destroying power, was a terres- trial or material fire, essentially different from the zethereal. Plutarch means that the ethereal or celestial Fire is “Light,” which is the flower, the glory, or acmé of Heat, stimulated into visibility, lucidity, into proof of itself, into Fire. Plutarch, as well as other Greek writers, admits Typhon to have been the brother of Osiris, the Cain to
Meanings of the Obelisks. 75
the Abel, Esau to the Jacob, “ Law” to the “ Prophets,” Omega to Alpha of the Judaic or Israelitish system. The Greeks regarded this “ Dark Genius” as a being as sacred in his own way as the “Genius of the Light,” equally sprung from Kponos and pra, or Time and Matter. In this, however, as in other instances, he followed his own prepossessions, and was partly led by the new system of the Egyptian Platonics (Gnosticism, in fact), according to which there was an Original Evil Principle in nature, co-eternal with the Good, and acting in perpetual oppo- sition to it. This opinion owes its origin to a false notion, which we are apt to form of good and evil, by consider- ing them as self-existing inherent properties, instead of relative modifications dependent upon circumstances and causes, We owe the very capacity for thinking about good and evil at all, or of knowing any difference in them, to the fact that in the abstract, in nature, there is really no difference between good and evil.
The arrow or dart (Gedos, or OBedoc), was the appropriate emblem of the power that was exercised by the “ Fire,” Sun, Apollo or Phoebus. Every Obelisk was a typical representative in stone of a ray or beam of the far-darting, operative, vivifying fire. If the obelisks are attentively regarded, apart from the ornamental cradles in which they are deposited, it will be seen that they have no squared, solidly-imposed bases; but that the angles are rounded, or orbicular, with the intention that the whole ponderous weight should rest on a centre thread line, with the liberty to poise, or oscillate, or swing freely. This was the intention in the mind of the original fabricators and setters-up of these monster magic splints of stone; they were raised to nod or bow intelligently, recognising and
76 Phallicism.
replying magically, as oracles, to questions on the part of superstitious consultants—like the modern “tipping tables” of the Spiritualists. These ideas of the value set upon them, and of the respect and supernatural awe with which they were regarded, seem natural enough when we remember the strange and hitherto unintelligible name by which they were known among the early people in Wales and Cornwall—that of “ Bowing-Stones”—and when we can see with our own eyes how such rolling and swinging on their own axes when first set moving in oscillation, was possible to these stupendous, giddy monsters. The obelisks would thus prove of the same original purpose as the “Logan,” or Rocking-Stones, These were overpowering masses so beautifully poised as to be capable of being set in motion by the finger of a child—consultant Idols of Stone, into which the « Logh,” or Spirit of God, was supposed to descend, when invoked, in the assembly of the people seeking answers from the Deity, and prostrated before the majestically sublime, supposed enchanted object.
The signs of the zodiac were taken from the mystic symbols; and not, as some learned authors have supposed, the mystic symbols from the signs of the zodiac. By attracting or heaving the waters of the oeean, the Moon (Diana) naturally appeared to be the sovereign of hu- midity; and by seeming to operate so powerfully upon the constitutions of women, she equally appeared to be the patroness and regulatress of nutrition and passive generation. “Calor solis zre facit, lunaris humectat.” (Macrob., Sat. vii., c. x.) The ancient Egyptians, or at least some of them, appear to have known that water and air are but of one substance. (Plutarch de Is. et Osir.)
Meanings of the Obelisks. a4
There is vast ignorance, after all, in the ideas of con- temporary commentators upon the architectural monu- ments of the Egyptians, and as we fully believe, a total, sublimely unconscious misreading, and failure at compre- hension, of the real meanings of the hieroglyphics—an imagined translation of which is so ostentatiously paraded by those supposedly able professors.
Some of these verbose critics—overwhelming us with a prodigious and apparently inexhaustible deluge of talk— are apt to confound personages for the purpose of con- tracting dates. Warburton has humorously introduced one of these clever chronologers, proving that William the Conqueror and William the Third were one and the same person. (Div. Leg.) History, in reality, has suffered most from the historians. |
The earliest capital, in that which is called the classic architecture, seems to have been the bell, or seed-vessel, simply copied, without any alteration, except a little ex- pansion, at bottom, to give it stability. The Egyptian architecture appears to have been original and indigenous, and in this art only the Greeks seem to have borrowed from them, the different orders being only different modifications of the symbolical columns which the Egyp- tians formed in imitation of the ne/umbo, the lotus or water-lily. Columns and capitals of the same kind are still existing, in great numbers, among the ruins of Thebes in Egypt; and more particularly among those on the island of Philze on the borders of /A®thiopia, which was anciently held so sacred that none but priests were per- mitted to go upon it. The Ionic capital has no bell, but volutes formed in imitation of sea-shells, which have the same symbolical meaning. To these architectural ad-
78 Phallicism.
juncts is frequently added the ornament which architects call the honeysuckle. ‘The Greeks decorated the capitals of their columns with the foliage of various plants, some- times of the acanthus, and sometimes of the aquatic kind. (See Denon., -pl. lix.; 1; 2, and 3, and lx.) jeajeageeeee where the originals from which the Greeks took their Corinthian capitals plainly appear.) It might have been more properly called the “Egyptian” order, so far at least as relates to the form and decoration of the capitals. Peculiar decorative mouldings, of exceeding grace and beauty, are introduced in the Ionic order, among which figure largely the honeysuckle and lotus, Another enrich- ment is also employed, in graceful combination, in the capitals and mouldings. This is architectural detail, in the mouldings, full of suggested purpose, and called the “egg and anchor,” or “egg and tongue,” (adder’s-tongue), and ‘ spear-head”? mouldings. On the Isiac table, the figures of Isis are represented holding the stem of the lotus, surmounted by the seed-vessel in one hand and the circle and cross (the crux ansata) in the other. All the Greek architecture bears the tokens of the Egyptian, rendered elegant.
’ ‘We may reasonably infer that the greatest number of the superb edifices now remaining in Egypt, were executed, or at least begun, before the Homeric, or even Trojan times; many of them being such as could not have been finished but in a long course of years, even supposing the wealth and resources of the ancient kings of Egypt to have equalled those of the greatest of the Roman emperors, The columns being thus sacred symbols, the temples themselves, of which they always formed the principal part, were emblems of the deity, signifying generally the
Meanings of the Obelisks. 79
passive productive power. Thus the classic styles of architecture, the Greek and the Roman, and particularly that of the lateral (arca, “ark-like,” “archaic,” meaning old), or tabernacle, of which the horizontal line of the Cross was the sacred symbol, meaning mystically the “'To-Be,” or the “Jussit,” of the Infinite Contriver of All—or to speak masonically, the “Great Architect of the Universe,” the King (of Kings), or the “Great Master :”—the classic temples, we repeat, were always figured forth, or detailed, in the lateral or universal hori- zontal or fluent base-line, unceiled (“sealed’’), open to the heavens, from which the divinity was supposed to descend to his ‘shrine. All this was reproduced in certain ways in the Christian system, and particularly in the Gnostic readings of christianity.
The most obvious and consequently the most ancient symbol of the productive power of the “ Waters” (the “Great Deep,” the “Second Person in the Universe,” the “Second Person of the Christian Trinity”), in the mystic sense, the Chr-ist (XX) or the Virgin Mary, (Maria, Mar, Mare), either divinity, indifferently, from the feminine angle as the point of view—the most ancient of the symbols of the second great power of the Rosi- crucians, we repeat, was a fish. The ancients, particularly the Pheenicians, barbarised this idea, parodying it, although seriously and intentionally, into their Dagon, or God ot the Great Deep, or the Waters.*
* From this acceptation of the myth we obtain the “* Waters divided from the Waters’ of the Mosaic theosophical cosmogony—the «‘ Abyss,”’ the matter out of which all things were made, and “ without which nothing was made,” of the philosophers—the Deluge, or the extinction of all guilty humanity in the divine judgment—the Ark, or
So Phallicism.
We find the universal symbol, the Fish (Icthius, Ix- theus), Ix-ion, (the Rock), the Fish, as the Gnostic symbol of the Saviour in many ways, upon many of the earliest coins. It is a principal figure upon the Gnostic gems or talismans. The goddess of the Phoenicians was repre- sented by the head and body of a woman, terminating below in a fish. (Lucian de Syr. Dea, s. 14.) But on the Phoenician as well as Greek coins, now extant, the personage is of the other sex. And in plate L. of vol. i. of the Select Specimens is engraved a beautiful figure of the mystic Cupid or first-begotten Love, terminating in an aquatic plant which, affording more elegance and variety of form, was employed to signify the same mean- ing—that is, the “Spirit upon the Waters.” From this connexion of ideas between the Fish and the Saviour, comes the mystic symbol meaning the female vu/va or fish’s mouth—the mitre, cleft and peculiarly shaped, of the archbishops and bishops, especially those examples of the very earliest Christian mitres, or the cloven, sym- bolical, sacred head-coverings. The fur Pi/eus, Pileon,
the preservation of the example of humanity through Noah—the Raven of Doom, the “ black flying spirit of condemnation :”’—the Dove with wings but without feet, “ no rest for the sole of her foot” (the original of the younger sons’ martlet in heraldry), the white, re-soaring, angel-winged spirit of reconciliation, and of the second dispensation, and of forgive- ness and new life, accorded through the woman as the means of the Holy-Sex. This the female is, and thus blessed by God-Almighty and committed to the guardianship of Man—for whom (mystically) he stands responsible to God in his ‘ First-Death,” although mot in his ‘¢ Second’’—for in the spiritual acceptance of the idea of Death, there are “Two Deatus.’’ All life dies the First Death. It is to be hoped that very few have died or will die the “Second Death”— regarding which, we have mystical hints in the unexplored pro- fundities of Scripture.
Meanings of the Obelisks. 81
or black or dark-coloured rough coronal, worn by cor- porate officers, as well as the military, Tartar or Oriental light-horse (skirmishing horse), fur head-covers, with the ~ dangling “fly” or tail (there ought properly to be ¢wo), are Ismaelitish, irregular, bastard (grandly-bastard, for what they mean) proofs of this special magical swarthy service, or devotion to the Venus of the people (Venus Pande- mos), or the original grand “ Hussey”—to speak of her by the popular old English term—or general strumpet. In reality, this mystic original is taken for the “ Mother of the Nations’—the Female Dark-Doer—the Hetaira, Hagar—producer of the left-handed side of the popula- tion, and a true benefactress of the race human in the freedom of her favours. Her aggressive, warlike priests— a sort of corybanti, with their Moresco bells or jingles, the Oriental or Mahometan reproduction of the paraphernalia of the classic “clash and clamour”—by cymbals, voice, and bells—a sort of “Bacchic rout,” only, like the Cossacks, careering and shouting their “fuzzas” (from which comes the name Hussar, both from Uza, Venus, or Hussey),—are the regiments of Light Cavalry, Pan- dours, or Hussars, employed as marauders, a sort of military wasps or hornets. In the word Pandours (Hungarian Light Cavalry of this sprightly, fiercely mis- chievous kind), notice the Pan as indicative of the “ Touch-and-Go ” — “everywhere” — of their style of active carrying-on of this military game of sinister, although, from their system and their horseman- ship and their trappings, graceful and_ picturesque annoyance. [See the “Rosicrucians,” Second Edi- tion, pp. 255—258, for full proofs of the myste- riously eccentric origin of the Light Irregular Cavalry G
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of all western armies, as exemplified in their equip- ments. |
Virginity was a something especially looked upon as inalienable, and as a particular property of the Gods. It was a supernatural gift—out of the liabilities, and inde- pendent of the world. No mortal dared touch it. Savage barbarism only could lay hand on it. Thus, even the Bride was, in certain regards, only a victim, Hence her investment in white was as much a penitential denote- ment as an indication of purity. The victims, among the Romans, were arrayed in white. She was to be suatched, as it were, from her relatives for the purpose of marriage ; hence the pretended “running away” with the Bride, with the masquerading exhibition of the “ violent hand,” on the part of the Bridegroom, to seize her, amongst some early peoples. For these reasons, the Roman nation entertained some very awful, superstitious ideas, in their profound respect for the magic defensiveness and sacred putting aside implied in the very name of virgin.*
* Hence the duties of the Best-Man in the celebration of a marriage ; very fortunately alleviated in modern times, otherwise we should find very few (even devoted friends) disposed to accept such serious and uncomfortable responsibilities. The “ Best-Man” was the intended Husband’s Champion. He was bound in the old rigorous day, by oath, to deliver the ‘‘ Betrothed One,” or the Bride, spotless and safe, into the hands of the Bridegroom, his “ liege-principal” on the occasion. It was the obligation of this Best-Man to become the armed sentinel, and to take post before the Bedchamber-Door, then become sacred and solemn, where what was to be done was to be done in the presence of the Gods (solvere zonam, §c.). The Best-Man, fully armed and equipped—in ancient times it was in armour, with visor down (for the champion was anonymous),—kept guard before the door ; and since to him was committed possession of the key (in copy of the “symbol” key), he had, sword in hand, to maintain the door or doors against all comers; vitally against those who might attempt
Meanings of the Obelisks. 83
The chastity of the Vestal Virgins—who had charge of the “Holy Fire’”—equally as the virginity of the Nuns of Saint Bridget among the earlier devotees of the Chris- tian faith, who, with a like observance, maintained “sentry” —Amazon-Priests, as they might be called, in this manner —over the undying “Light” in the cloisters and sanc- tuaries of the Christ :—this state of absolute virginity was an all-powerful object. No matter what the enormity of her guilt otherwise, the woman—if a virgin—could not be subjected to the last penalty of death by violent hand. Here we see the reason of the “ putting away’”— or the silent, awful, living burial of the Vestal Virgin, even in the doubt—no one having witnessed the act—of
rescue. ‘The sentry’s duty was to keep this watch until daydawn, when his particular service was supposed to be superseded or accom- plished. It was defensive duty of this kind which was imagined to be the origin of ‘pledging,’ for safety at convivial meetings. The purpose and use has in modern days, and in the exercise of modern formalities, passed altogether out of recognition or of knowledge. This singular watch of the Bridegroom’s * Best-Man” was held in full solemnity until the sentinel was relieved at “cock-crow,” when his obligations were terminated. Any attempts at disturbance (for the women, amongst the ancients, used to make a show of rushing to the assistance of the Bride) or at interruption—even on the part of the most desperate rival of the newly-married man, who, at all hazards, wanted to break in—for such things have occurred—were to be reso- lutely withstood whilst the sentry remained the custodian of the “ key,” and he was compelled to hold his post, and, if necessary, to slay his assailant, even although he should be his own brother. And also, in this extremity, he would be held harmless, his full justification (by law both Divine and human) being the fact that the Bridal-Chamber was a holy place, as it was mystically ‘ sealed and sacred,”’ both as regards men and spirits ; and that he was bound, even at the risk of his life, to keep guard over it, in the due discharge of this high chivalric function. We here recall some mystical doings, even in the ceremonies of the Free- masons, in the proper observancesof their sublime forms in the sealed lodge.
84 Phallicism.
the infraction of her vows;—and the evidence being presumptive only of her guilt. Hence the fine precautions of the Roman equity. Asa singular difference, in the ideas of the strange sacredness, and also the peculiar religious perfection even of the idea of the want of virginity amongst different peoples, in the contrariety of their superstition, may be cited the impressions of the Hindoos. In the minds of this people, no woman is a fit candidate for Heaven unless she has fulfilled what to them is the very purpose of her being, and sacrificed her virginity; made over, as it were, her due to God—no female enter- ing Heaven who seeks to pass bodily unproven. Such a notion prevailed, also, among the Israelites :—witness the lament for Tammaz or Thammaz, the Hebrew “ Pheebus,” and the period of sacrificial “mourning amidst the moun- tains,” spent by the daughter of Jephtha—a sort of Iphigenia—“ bewailing her virginity;” and this actually “before the Lord.” This is one of the most tragical and touching stories in the Old Testament narrative, to the meanings of which very little attention is ordinarily paid. The Mahometans imagine that woman has no soul, and therefore no place in a future world, unless qualified and fitted therefor by being taken out of the ordinary cate- gory of women by extra-natural means, and by special magic merits. The Houris—the female, exquisitely physically endowed populace of the Mussulman Paradise —the Spirit Flowers of which are only for plucking and renewing use, are merely impersonated means of aggressive male delight.
A writer* who makes very nice distinctions in these
* Pierre Dufour, L’Antiquité la plus reculée jusqu’d nos jours, vol. ui., chap. 1, Bruxelles, 1861.
Meanings of the Obelisks. 85
important respects, has the following :—* Voila pourquoi, pendant les persécutions, il y eut tant de vierges chré- tiennes* outragées par leurs bourreaux, qui ne faisaient qu’appliquer l’antique loi romaine, en vertu de laquelle une vierge ne pouvait pas étre mise 4 mort.” “Les Juges Paiens prenaient un odieux plaisir 4 les frapper dans ce qu’elles avaient de plus cher. Mais leur virginité €tait un sacrifice qu’elles offraient chastement a Dieu en €change de la couronne du martyre. ‘Une vierge,’ disait Saint-Ambroise, ‘peutétre prostituée et non souillée.’ ‘Les vierges,’ dit Saint-Cyprien, ‘sont comme les fleurs du Jardin de Ciel.” ” And when forced, the author might have added, they become still more glorious flowers, or lights, of Paradise.
The reason for all this lies very deep, and is very refined and true. It will be readily seen on reflection that, owing to these ideas of the inherent sacredness of virginity (although, without the infraction of it, the human world could, of course, not be), the execu- tioners of the heathen nations were debarred from their incontestable right of public execution in the case of’ delinquent females, whether virgin or otherwise, were it not that in their superstitious reverence, they dared not “outrage” their gods by touching their property, as it were. In the fine devotional sensibility prevailing amongst
* “« Outragées par leurs bourreaux.” Boult. How’s this? We must take another course with you... . Come your ways. Marina. Whither would you have me? Boult. I must have your virtue taken off, or the common hangman shall execute it. Come your ways. We'll have no more gentlemen driven away. Come your ways, I say.”—Pericles, Prince of Tyre,
Act IV., Scene 6.
86 —— Phallicism.
the people, therefore, by the Roman law the carnifica, or executioners, were compelled, before they destroyed them (so curiously to express the idea), to eliminate the “ god” out of the victim before they inflicted the last penalty ; and they consequently were obliged, as a part of their odious office, indeed as their duty, to deflower the females ; and in plucking the last beautiful, dear “ Ross” of their maidenhood out of them, to make them +hings, fit to be thrown away.*
This is the reason why, according to the old unwritten law of England, ancient as the foundations of the Constitution itself, women, in the hands of the public executioners, were always burned or strangled at the stake, and thus dismissed as it were honourably, and not hanged, like men or dogs. It was a tribute to the sup- posed God in woman as the more glorious and magic object ; and it was an acknowledgment of the supposed sacredness of the strangely mysterious characteristics in the arrangements of th: mystic anatomy, wherein she is specially constituted, with nevertheless singular draw- backs, disabilities, and peculiarities. Man is philoso- phically held to be a phenomenon, just as woman is regarded as a phenomenon, only, in the latter case, to an infinitely farther extent. From some of these reasons arises the inherent sacredness of the human “ Act” all the world over, and highest and most profoundly so in the religions of the most civilised peoples.
* «Le viol des vierges chrétiennes n’était donc dans l’origine qu’un préliminaire de la peine capitale, conformément a l’usage de la pénalité romaine, ‘ Vitiate priusa carnifice, dein strangulate.’” (Suetonius dans la vie de Tibere).—Pirrre Durovur, L’ Histoire de Prostitution,
The Phalli. 87