54 Notes Antiquarian and Mythical. [no. 7, new series. 



sure is arranged a long line of 10 or 12 huge lingam stones, each 

 in its separate cell. 



Returning to the vestiges of lingam worship in very ancient 

 times, evidence is not wanting of its prevalence under its worst 

 aspect in Phoenicia — the scriptural Canaan — from whence it crept 

 into Palestine itself, nay, as Mitchell has shown with the highest 

 probability into the very Temple of Jehovah. In the account in 

 Kings and Chronicles of the idolatries introduced by the wicked 

 King Manasseh, he is said to have " set a carved image, the 

 idol which he had made, in the house of God," and " a graven 

 image of the grove that he had made in the house," &c. In the 

 words rendered " carved images" the learned Bate and Porkhurst 

 both unite in seeing an idol dedicated to licentious rites, the 

 same with that image stigmatised as " provoking to jealousy" 

 which Ezekiel saw defiling the gate of the altar, and closely con- 

 nected with that idol the setting up of which induced Asa to de- 

 pose the queen-mother Maachah. The nature of the idols as not 

 directly mentioned, the Scriptures preserving a marked silence on 

 this point throughout their record of the abominations introduced 

 by the idolatrous Jewish monarchs, but may be at once inferred 

 when it is known that the radical letters of the name of the idol 

 set up by Maachah present the identical word phallus, which, with- 

 out meaning in Greek, becomes plain enough when referred to its 

 Hebrew derivation. The punishment inflicted by the righteous 

 Asa on his own mother shows his sense of her enormity, and the 

 haste made by Manasseh to remove that particular image from the 

 house of God, when chastisement befell him, manifests the deep 

 guilt of its introduction there. 



In the second or Mosaic covenant, under which the Jewish 

 polity was finally consolidated, it is written " Thou shalt not plant 

 thee a grove of any trees near unto the altar of the Lord thy God, 

 which thou shalt make thee : neither shalt thou set thee up any 

 image (pillar) which the Lord thy God hateth." (Deut. xvi, 21, 22.) 

 Elsewhere in the first or Divine covenant, and throughout the Pro- 

 phets, the erection of " groves" and " statues" is undeviatingly 

 denounced as the most offensive form of Canaanitish idolatries. 

 When in addition to the " graven image of the grove" set up by 



