The History of Initiation - The Masonic Trowel

IN PERSIA. 81
of their powers. Here the phallus was a consecrated
symbol, which led to the grossest obscenities. To conciliate
the Persian monarchs and nobility, who were
120 much addicted to incestuous connexions ; these were at
length sanctioned, and even encouraged in the mys-
121
teries and ;
it became an axiom in
religion, that the
produce
of a son and a mother was the best calculated
for the office of a priest. 122
120 Vid. Fab. Mys. Cab., vol. i., p. 182.
121 "The Persians many their mothers, the Egyptians their sisters;
and Chrysippus, in his treatise of Policy, asserts, that the father may
lie with the daughter, the mother with the son, and the brother with
the sister ; but Plato more universally saith, that all wives ought to
be in common." (Stanley's Lives, vol. iii., p. 94.)
122 Strabo, 1. 15. Diog. Laert. in Proosm. A most appalling
description of the abominations necessarily resulting from such pernicious
tenets is displayed in the Apocryphal Book, called the Wisdom
of Solomon, (xiv. 22-27.)