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A large portion of the early inhabitants of Asia Minor were Semitic, and closely related to the Syrians. Semitic divinities were worshiped; a goddess, Mylitta, under other names, was adored in Pontus, at Ephesus, in Phrygia, and in Lydia. The Lydians were of the Semitic race. Cybele, the female divinity whom they served, was the same deity whose altars were at Babylon, Nineveh, and Tyre.
The typical example is that recorded by Herodotus, in the fifth century before Christ, at the temple of Mylitta, the Babylonian Venus, where every woman once in her life had to come and give herself to the first stranger who threw a coin in her lap, in worship of the goddess.
The Mylitta is common enough here, but there does not seem to be any kind of tree here on which the cocoons are to be found in greater numbers than twos and threes; and there must be some tree in India on which the cocoons are to be found in much greater plenty, because they could not otherwise be collected in sufficient quantity for manufacturing purposes.
That is the temple of the goddess of Sardis, Cybele or Ma, as they call her. In that grove there is many a sheltered spot where the young people of Sardis meet, as they say, in honor of their goddess." "Just as in Babylon, at the festival of Mylitta." "There is the same custom too on the coast of Cyprus.
It was more adapted to foster than to check lust and cruelty. To Astarte, maidens sacrifice their chastity. There was the same double ritual, made up of gross sensuality on the one hand, and of ascetic practices by the priesthood on the other, that belonged to the service of Mylitta at Babylon. Human sacrifice by fire was another horrible feature.
They bowed to the ground and chanted: “The holy goddess, our Lady Mylitta, whose sacrificants we are.” Then came a form so luminous that Mary hid her face and listened merely. “I,” said a voice—“I am Desire. In Greece I am revered, and there I am Aphrodite.
In spite of the effort to elevate the Deity as Lord and King above nature, most of the Semitic nations gradually sank back into the old nature-worship, and, uniting with the worship of the highest God, Baal and Bel, that of a female divinity under the names of Baaltis, Beltis, Aschera, Mylitta, they made religion to consist in the sacrifice of chastity to the will of the Deity, as the fruitful, productive power of nature, and thus fell into gross immorality.
In India the practice existed, when most temples had their 'bayadères. In ancient Chaldea every woman was compelled to prostitute herself once in her life in the temple of the goddess Mylitta the Chaldean Venus. This custom existed elsewhere, and by it the woman was compelled to remain within the temple enclosures until some man chose her, from whom she received a piece of money.
“That,” said Sephôrah, “is the worship Mylitta exacts.” As she spoke she drew herself up, her height increased, an unnatural splendor filled her eyes. “I,” she continued, “am her priestess. I sacrificed at Byblus, but you may sacrifice here. There is a dovecote, yonder is a cistern, beyond are the cypress and the evergreens that she loves. Mary, do you wish to be immortal? Do you see the way?”
She had walked in them, and she described their loveliness, and related that they were erected to pleasure a Persian princess whose eyes had wearied of the monotony of the Babylonian plain. Once when Pappus was present—and latterly he had been often there—she passed from the gardens to the grove where the temple of Mylitta stood.
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