DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7416#0024
14
their sacred processions, with a moveable phallus of dispropor-
tionate magnitude, the reason for which Herodotus does not think
proper to relate, because it belonged to the mystic religion.1
Diodorus Siculus, however, who lived in a more communicative
age, informs us that it signified the generative attribute,1 and
Plutarch that the iEgyptian statues of Osiris had the phallus
to signify his procreative and prolific power ;3 the extension of
which through the three elements of air, earth, and water, they
expressed by another kind of statue, which was occasionally carried
in procession, having a triple symbol of the same attribute.4 The
Greeks usually represented the phallus alone, as a distinct symbol,
the meaning of which seems to have been among the last discoveries
revealed to the initiated.5 It was the same, in emblematical writing,
as the Orphic epithet JJArrENETflP, -universal generator; in
which sense it is still employed by the Hindoos.6 It has also been
observed among the idols of the native Americans,7 and ancient
Scandinavians ;8 nor do we think the conjecture of an ingenious
writer improbable, who supposes that the may-pole was a symbol
of the same meaning; and the first of May a great phallic fes-
tival both among the ancient Britons and Hindoos; it being still
celebrated with nearly the same rites in both countries.9 The
Greeks changed, as usual, the personified attribute into a distinct
deity called Priapus, whose universality was, however, acknow-
ledged to the latest periods of heathenism.10
1 Aioti 5c fietfrov re txet T0 a'Soioy, Kai Kivefi fiovypv rov cw/iaTOS, f<rn Xoyos ircpi
avrov Upos Myofieyos. lib. ii. c. 88.
1 Lib. i. c. 88.
■ * Xlavraxov Se koi av8pciyiro/xop<pov OtripiBos oyaAjUa htiKVvovtriv, t^opQia^ov rtp aiSoiy,
tiia to yofifioy icai Tpotpifiov. de Is. et Osir.
4 Aya\p.a irpoTiQzvrai, teat TrepHpepovaVj oil to aidoiov rpinXatTiov eVTiv, Ibid. p. 365.
5 Post tot suspiria epoptanun, totum signaculum lingua, simulacbrum
snembri virilis revelatur. Terlull. adv. Valentinianas.
« Sonnerat Voyage aux Indes.
7 Lafitan Mocurs des Sauvages. vol. i. p. 160.
' « 01. Rudbeck. Atlant. p. ii. c. v. p. 165, 192, 194, and 305.
9 Maurice's Indian Antiquities, vol. vi. p. 87—94.
I PRIETO PANTHEO. Titul. ant. in Gruter. vol. i. p. 195. No. 1,
their sacred processions, with a moveable phallus of dispropor-
tionate magnitude, the reason for which Herodotus does not think
proper to relate, because it belonged to the mystic religion.1
Diodorus Siculus, however, who lived in a more communicative
age, informs us that it signified the generative attribute,1 and
Plutarch that the iEgyptian statues of Osiris had the phallus
to signify his procreative and prolific power ;3 the extension of
which through the three elements of air, earth, and water, they
expressed by another kind of statue, which was occasionally carried
in procession, having a triple symbol of the same attribute.4 The
Greeks usually represented the phallus alone, as a distinct symbol,
the meaning of which seems to have been among the last discoveries
revealed to the initiated.5 It was the same, in emblematical writing,
as the Orphic epithet JJArrENETflP, -universal generator; in
which sense it is still employed by the Hindoos.6 It has also been
observed among the idols of the native Americans,7 and ancient
Scandinavians ;8 nor do we think the conjecture of an ingenious
writer improbable, who supposes that the may-pole was a symbol
of the same meaning; and the first of May a great phallic fes-
tival both among the ancient Britons and Hindoos; it being still
celebrated with nearly the same rites in both countries.9 The
Greeks changed, as usual, the personified attribute into a distinct
deity called Priapus, whose universality was, however, acknow-
ledged to the latest periods of heathenism.10
1 Aioti 5c fietfrov re txet T0 a'Soioy, Kai Kivefi fiovypv rov cw/iaTOS, f<rn Xoyos ircpi
avrov Upos Myofieyos. lib. ii. c. 88.
1 Lib. i. c. 88.
■ * Xlavraxov Se koi av8pciyiro/xop<pov OtripiBos oyaAjUa htiKVvovtriv, t^opQia^ov rtp aiSoiy,
tiia to yofifioy icai Tpotpifiov. de Is. et Osir.
4 Aya\p.a irpoTiQzvrai, teat TrepHpepovaVj oil to aidoiov rpinXatTiov eVTiv, Ibid. p. 365.
5 Post tot suspiria epoptanun, totum signaculum lingua, simulacbrum
snembri virilis revelatur. Terlull. adv. Valentinianas.
« Sonnerat Voyage aux Indes.
7 Lafitan Mocurs des Sauvages. vol. i. p. 160.
' « 01. Rudbeck. Atlant. p. ii. c. v. p. 165, 192, 194, and 305.
9 Maurice's Indian Antiquities, vol. vi. p. 87—94.
I PRIETO PANTHEO. Titul. ant. in Gruter. vol. i. p. 195. No. 1,