n temples and their attached porches, and never on
enclosing walls, gateways, and other non-religious structures. Our ideas
of propriety, according to Voltaire, lead us to suppose that a ceremony
(like the worship of Priapus) which appears to us infamous, could only
be invented by licentiousness; but it is impossible to believe that
depravity of manners would ever have led among any people to the
establishment of religious ceremonies. It is probable, on the contrary,
that this custom was first introduced in times of simplicity--that the
first thought was to honor the Deity in the symbol of life which it has
given us; such a ceremony may have excited licentiousness among youths,
and have appeared ridiculous to men of education in more refined, more
corrupt, and more enlightened times, but it never had its origin in
such feelings.... It is out of the question therefore to suppose that
a general prevalence of vice would of itself, without the authority
of priests and scriptures, suffice to lead to the defilement of holy
temples."(101)

101) Rivers of Life, vol. i., p. 275.

Originally the Ionians, as their name indicates, were Yoni worshippers,
i. e., they belonged to the sect which was driven out of India because
of their stubborn refusal to worship the male energy as the Creator.
During the later ages of their history, at a time when their religion
had degenerated into a licensed system of vice and corruption, and after
their temples had become brothels in which, in the name of religion,
were practiced the most debasing ceremonies, the Greeks became ashamed
of their ancient worship, and, like the Jews, ashamed also of their
name.

It is believed that the Greeks received from Egypt, or the East, their
first theological conceptions of God and religion. These ideas

"were veiled in symbols, significant of a primitive monotheism; these,
at a later period, being translated into symbolical or allegorical
language, were by the poets transformed into epic or narrative myths,
in which the original subject symbolized was almost effaced, whilst
the allegorical expressions were received generally in a literal sense.
Hence, to the many, the meaning of the ancient doctrine was lost, and
was communicated only to the few, under the strictest secrecy in the
mysteries of Eleusis and Samothrace. Thus there was a popular theology
to suit the people, and a rational theology reserved for the educated,
the symbolical language in b