latter argument turned
against the prophet. The people cite their own experience. When they
served the Queen of Heaven they fared well. In the rabbinical period
the Jews emphasized everything which could differentiate them from
heathen, and in the New Testament we find that idolatry and sensuality
are presented as the two great heathen characteristics which Christians
are to avoid. It is impossible for us to know to what extent the mores
of the masses, in the western Roman empire, were marked by the ancient
Roman austerity in the sex mores. It is, however, reasonable to believe
that the ancient mores prevailed most in the class amongst whom
Christian converts were found. Salvianus also gives to the German
nations very remarkable testimony as to their freedom from sensuality
and sex vice. The experience of societies also went to prove that such
vice can corrupt the finest brain and the most cultivated character;
also that, if it becomes current in a society, as pederasty and
prostitution did in the Greco-Roman world, it will eat out all manly
virtues, all cooperative devotion, the love of children, the energy of
invention and production, of an entire population. Thus by the
syncretism of the mores of the nations, and by experience, the
conviction was produced that the view of sensuality and sex vice which
the Jewish prophets taught was true, and that that view was the most
important part of the mores and of religion for the welfare of mankind.

[1885] Snouck-Hurgronje, _De Atjehers_, I, 64-66; _Bur. Eth._,
XVIII, 285; _Amer. Anthrop._, XI, 56; Codrington, _Melanesians_,
102, 299; Serpa Pinto, _Como eu Atravassei Africa_, I, 82;
Kubary, _Karolinenarchipel._, 47, 226, 244; Powers, _Calif.
Indians_, 24.

[1886] Ellis, _Ewe-speaking Peoples_, 141.

[1887] Barton, _Semitic Origins_, 78.

[1888] Wellsted, _Arabia_, II, 12.

[1889] _Proc. Soc. Bibl. Archeol._, 1890, XII, 383.

[1890] Herodotus, I, 193.

[1891] Wilken, _Volkenkunde_, 550.

[1892] Maspero, _Peuples de l'Orient_, I, 576, 589.

[1893] _Amer. Jo. Semit. Lang. and Lit._, XV, 201.

[1894] _Archiv f. Anthrop._, XXIX, 156.

[1895] _Archiv f. Anthrop._, XXIX, 150.

[1896] _Ibid._, 183.

[1897] W. R. Smith, _Relig. of the Semites_, 447.

[1898] Lucian, _De Syria Dea_, 6.

[1899] Herodotus, I, 93, 181, 199.

[1900] _Globus_, LXXXVI, 360.

[1901] Maurer, _Voelkerkunde, Bibel, und Christenth