There is no doubt that it was in the Asiatic cult of Venus that the first elements were given for sexual excesses. It is hardly a matter of surprise therefore if these same elements came constantly, as has been shown above, into greater and greater prominence, and in this way pushed the original form of the Worship into the background. By degrees as enlightenment increased and the respect felt towards the gods diminished, Venus also soon lost her old character as goddess of procreation and sank into the patroness of sensual gratification. Her temples as well as her holy groves lost their exclusive title to bestow the blessing of fruitfulness on the embraces of the sexes, and came merely to serve as appointed trysting-places of carnal pleasures. The offerings made at her shrines were no longer to win an assurance of posterity; they became bribes paid to buy a free opportunity for the indulgence of sensuality. They degenerated into fornication-fees, as her temples did into brothels. The priestesses of Astarté or Mylitta stood at the beck and call alike of strangers and natives, and the opportunity was ever open for sexual enjoyment. Hence too it is that a special designation for the brothel will be looked for in vain in Asia. The thing existed there without the name being required; and the State found no need to establish an institution, which had long ago, without any intervention on its part, taken form under the cloak of religion.
Even amongst _the Jews_, who frequently enough, but always as a temporary aberration merely, adhered to the foreign cult, brothels in the strict sense seem never to have existed[112]. Although courtesans are frequently mentioned in the Old Testament, and even the dwelling of a Wanton as well as her behaviour pictured with considerable fullness of detail[113], yet all this would seem to have had more of a private than of a public character,—due heed being given to the fact that not a few passages are to be taken only in a figurative sense. Prostitution as a regular calling was strictly prohibited[114] to the daughters of Israel; and such women as practised it openly seem to have been mainly foreigners, perhaps natives of Phoenicia and Syria, who at the same time entertained with dancing and the music of stringed instruments[115]. But the attempt to draw a conclusion from this as to the pre-eminent chastity of the Jewish women, as e.g. _Beer_ (on p. 25 loco citato) wishes to do, would be justifiable neither for earlier nor yet for later times. The passages of the Old Testament dealing with Sodom and with the dissoluteness under Mannasseh even in the very Temple at Jerusalem are sufficient by themselves to prove the contrary.