mbol
of the productive function of the deity), it is not certain that it was
Semitic. Hierapolis had long been an important religious center in a
region in which Asiatic and Greek worships were influential, and foreign
elements might easily have become attached to the worship of a Semitic
deity. The cult of the Asian Great Mother (whom the Greeks identified
with their Leto) had orgiastic elements. Lucian's reference to a custom
of emasculation suggests Asian features at Hierapolis.[727]

+400+. In Babylonia and Palestine stones, held by some to be phalli,
have been found.[728] While the shape of some of these objects and their
occurrence at shrines may be supposed to lend support to this view, its
correctness is open to doubt. There is no documentary evidence as to the
character of the objects in question, and they may be explained
otherwise than as phalli. But, if they are phalli, their presence does
not prove a phallic cult--they may be votive objects, indicating that
the phallus was regarded as in some sort sacred, not that it was
worshiped. Decision of the question may be reserved till more material
has been collected. There is no sufficient ground for regarding the
stone posts that stood by Hebrew shrines as phallic symbols; they are
naturally explained as sacred stones, originally embodying a deity,
later attached to his shrines as traditional objects entitled to
veneration.[729]

+401+. In Asia Minor and the Hellenic communities (both in Ionia and in
Greece proper) the phallicistic material is extensive and complicated. A
symbolic signification appears to have been superimposed on early
realistic anthropomorphic figures that were simply images of
supernatural Powers. In various regions such figures came to be
associated with the generative force of nature in human birth, and the
tendency to specialization assigned these divine beings special
functions; of this nature, probably, were the local Athenian deities
Orthanes, Konisalos, and others.[730] At a later period such functions
were attributed to the well-developed gods of fertility; rituals sprang
up and were explained by myths, and various combinations and
identifications were made between the prominent gods.

+402+. The most interesting figure of this character is Priapos, an
ithyphallic deity of uncertain origin; his special connection was with
Lampsakos, and he may have been an Asian creation. From the variety of
his functions (he was patron of gardens a