981] In later
times (second century A.D.) we find the sacrifice of a woman's hair as a
substitute for herself.[1982] Men were also dedicated in sex perversion.

+611. Degeneration of the customs of consecrating women.+ Evidently
vicarious sacrifice and expiatory sacrifice are very ancient heathen
ideas. They contain deductions and assumptions about the nature of the
deity which are of the first theological importance. The cases of custom
which have been described also show the power and persistency of
theological dogma to override for centuries the strongest interests and
sentiments. Evidently the variations in the custom marked the breaking
down of the boundaries which held it firm in the religious mores. The
Babylonian custom described by Herodotus seems to be a variation by
which every woman was held bound to the goddess. Then sensuality,
priestcraft, greed, and frivolity easily used such a custom until it
became a root of corruption. This is what happened, and forms of the
custom which had no sense but the gratification of licentiousness spread
around the Mediterranean. The old female sex mores were very simple and
austere, but they were corrupted after the middle of the second century
B.C. Those of Roman Carthage, if we can trust Salvianus, became more
corrupt than those of Punic Carthage ever had been. They were less
ferocious and more frankly voluptuous. Salvianus's description of
southern Gaul makes it as bad as Africa. According to him the Vandals
were pure-minded, and their mores were so pure and firm that they
successfully resisted the Roman corruption and put the sex relation back
again on the basis of the "law of God."[1983]

+612. Our traditions from Israel.+ If now we turn back to the Israelites
we can see the stream by which our own mores have come down to us. There
arose amongst the Israelites, in the tenth century B.C., an opposition
to the religion which was common to the west Semites. It was like the
reform of the Iranian religion by the magi, who produced a religion
which was too severe and exacting for any but priests to live by it.
There have also been many attempts to reform Islam from within. They
have taken the form of throwing off later additions and returning to
primitive purity, that is, to the mode of life of Arabs in Mohammed's
time. In some cases (e.g. the Wahabees of the nineteenth century) the
reforms have originated with people who were on a lower grade of life
than the mass of Moslem