The life and work of St. Paul

196 THE LIVE AND WOSfC OF ST. PAUL.
preaching the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews." l It appears
from this that Salamis was one of the towns whore the Jews' quarter was
sufficiently populous to maintain several synagogues; and if the Apostles
came in contact with the heathen at all, it would only be with proselytes.
But the notices of this part of their journey are scant, nor is any indication
given of the length of their stay in Cyprus. Any work among the Gentiles
was doubtless hindered by the apotheosis of sensuality for which the island
was noted. The contact of Greeks with Phoenicians had caused a fusion
between the subtle voluptuousness of the Hellenic race and the more burning
passion of the Phoenicians and other Orientals ; and the maritime population
who touched at the island from every civilised country were ready learners in
the school of degradation. Yenus was the presiding goddess; and as she
received from this fact her name of Cypris, so she was most commonly
alluded to in the poets as the Paphian, Amathusian, or Idalian, from her
temples in various parts of the island. She was
"
Idalian Aphrodite, beautiful,
Fresh as the foam, new bathed in Paphian wells."
It was hitherward that she came as Aphrodite Anadyomeue, when
" From the sea
She rose and floated in her pearly shell,
A laughing girl."
It was by these " purple island sides " that she first
" Fleeted a double light in air and wave."
Yet in the Paphian temple, where no blood was offered, where her immemorial
shrine, famous even in the days of Homer, 2 breathed from a hundred altars
the odour of perpetual incense, 3 and where kings and emperors turned aside to
do her homage, the image which was enshrined in her adytum was 110
exquisite female figure sculptured by the hand of a Phidias or a Scopas, but
a coarse truncated cone of white marble 4
a sort of Asherah such as might
naturally serve as the phallic symbol of the Assyrian and Sidonian deity from
whom this form of nature-worship was derived. 6 And as her temples had the
right of asylum a right which was certain to crowd their vicinity with
criminals of every variety we might have conjectured, apart from direct
testimony, that the worship was to the last degree debasing ;
that the Paphian
1 Acts xiii.
s 8
5, KarfrftUuv.
Horn. Od. 8, 362.
Virg. Mn. 1. 417.
4 As it was white (TO S* ayoA/ua OVK a.v ciiedarai? aAAw no i) nvpajuu'St AevKjj) there cannot be
much doubt that it was of marble, though. Maximus Tyr. adds >' S ( v\r\ ayvod-rai. (Di&t.
8, 8).
"
Apud Cyprios Venus in modum umbilici, vel ut "
quidam volunt, Metae, colitur
(Serv. ad JSn. i. 724).
8 Tac. H. ii. 3 ; Strabo, xiv. 683 ; Athen. XT. 18. The crescent and star represented
on coins as adorning the front of the Temple are perhaps a trace of the Phoenician origin
of the worship, and of the connexion between the Paphian Venus and the Phoenician
Asherah (Movers. Phim. 607).
The sun, at Eme&a, had a similar KovomStt irxnn* (Herodian.
v. 3), a sort of potTvXioK JuireTrfJ. Models of it were sold (ayoV