brought down by the Jordan into a lake without issue.  I must therefore look upon the history as a myth which may have served a double purpose.  The first would be to deter the Jew from the Malthusian practices of his pagan predecessors, upon whom obloquy was thus cast, so far resembring the scandalous and absurd legend which explained the names of the children of Lot by Pheine and Thamma as “Moab” .(Mu-ab) the water or semen of the father, and “Ammon” as mother’s son, that is, bastard.  The fable would also account for the abnormal fissure containing the lower Jordan and the Dead Sea, which the late Sir R. I. Murchison used wrong-headedly to call a “Volcano of Depression”:  this geological feature, that cuts off the river-basin from its natural outlet, the Gulf of Eloth (Akabah), must date from myriads of years before there were “Cities of the Plains.”  But the main object of the ancient lawgiver, Osarsiph, Moses or the Moseidae, was doubtless to discountenance a perversion prejudicial to the increase of population.  And he speaks with no uncertain voice, Whoso lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death (Exod. xxii.  I9):  If a man lie with mankind as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination:  they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them (Levit. xx. 13; where v.v. 15-16 threaten with death man and woman who lie with beasts).  Again, There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel (Deut. xxii. 5).

The old commentators on the Sodom-myth are most unsatisfactory, e.g.  Parkhurst, s.v.  Kadesh.  “From hence we may observe the peculiar propriety of this punishment of Sodom and of the neighbouring cities.  By their sodomitical impurities they meant to acknowledge the Heavens as the cause of fruitfulness independently upon, and in opposition to, Jehovah;[FN#391] therefore Jehovah, by raining upon them not genial showers but brimstone from heaven, not only destroyed the inhabitants, but also changed all that country, which was before as the garden of God, into brimstone and salt that is not sown nor beareth, neither any grass groweth therein.”  It must be owned that to this Pentapolis was dealt very hard measure for religiously and diligently practicing a popular rite which a host of cities even in the present day, as Naples and Shiraz, to mention no others, affect for simple luxury and affect with impunity.  The myth may probably reduce itself to very small proportions, a few Fellah villages destroyed by a storm, like that which drove Brennus from Delphi.

The Hebrews entering Syria found it religionised by Assyria and Babylonia, whence Accadian Ishtar had passed west and had become Ashtoreth, Ashtaroth or Ashirah,[FN#392] the Anaitis of Armenia, the Phoenician Astarte and the Greek Aphrodite, the great Moon-goddess,[FN#393] who is queen of Heaven and Love.  In another phase she was Venus Mylitta = the Procreatrix, in Chaldaic Mauludata and in Arabic Moawallidah, she who bringeth