imes some foods were forbidden to them, and this taboo might be
extended to all who entered the temple. All must be clean in body and
dress.[2160] In the tragedies we find mention of the ascetic notion of
virginity.[2161] In the _Elektra_ (250-270) the heroine lays great
stress on the fact that her peasant husband has never taken conjugal
rights. Orestes asks whether the husband has taken a vow of chastity, so
that a vow of chastity was not an unknown thing. The notion of virginity
was very foreign to the mores of the Greeks, but it existed amongst
them. It gained ground in the later centuries. At the time of Christ it
is certain that a wave of asceticism was running through the Hellenistic
world.[2162] It may have been due to the sense of decline and loss in
comparison with the earlier times. It seems to bear witness to a feeling
that the world was on a wrong path, in spite of Roman glory and luxury.
If they could not correct the course of things, they could at least
renounce the luxury. That seemed like an effort to stem the tide. More
commonly the sentiment was less defined and less morally vigorous. It
was only world sickness. Cases occurred of individuals who renounced
marriage, or lived in it without conjugal intimacy.[2163] The Stoics,
Cynics, Neopythagoreans, and Neoplatonists all had ascetic elements in
their doctrines. The wandering preachers of these sects were rarely men
of any earnest purpose, and their speeches were empty rhetorical
exercises, but they popularized the doctrines of the sects. Simon
Stylites only continued a pagan custom. There were in front of the
temple at Hierapolis two columns one hundred and eighty feet high. Twice
a year a man climbed one of these and remained on top of it for seven
days to pray and commune with the gods, or in memory of Deukalion and
the flood. He drew up supplies with a rope. People brought him gifts of
money and he prayed for them, swinging a brazen instrument which made a
screaming sound.[2164]

+682. Hebrew asceticism.+ The Jewish tradition was that at Sinai all the
people were ordered to refrain from women for the time, but that for
Moses this injunction was unlimited (Exod. xix. 15). In the rabbinical
period it was established doctrine that any one who desired to receive a
revelation from God must refrain from women.[2165] Other cases in the
Old Testament show that persons who were under a renunciation of this
kind were in a state of grace. The ritual of uncleann