Unchastity of the Ancients.—We are prone to believe that the present is the most liscentious age the world has ever known ; that in the nineteenth century the climax of evil has been reached ; that the libidinous blood of all the ages has culminated to produce a race of men more carnal than all predecessors. It is a sickening thought that any previous epoch could have been more vile than this; but history presents facts which disclose in ancient times periods when lust was even more uncontrolled than now ; when vice was a universal ; and when virtue was a thing unknown. A few references to historical facts will establish this point. We do not make these allusions in any way to justify the present immorality, but to show the part which vice has acted in the overthrow of nations. From the sacred record we may judge that before the flood a state of corruption prevailed which was even greater and more general than any that has ever since been reached ; only eight persons were fit to survive the calamity which swept into eternity that lustful generation with their filthy deeds. But men soon fell into vice again, for we find among the early Assyrians a total disregard of chastity. Her kings reveled in the grossest sensuality. No excess of vice could surpass the licentiousness of the Ptolemics, who made of Alexandria a bagnio, and all Egypt a hot-bed of vice. Herodotus relates that “the pyramid of Cheops was built by the lovers of the daughter of this king ; and that she never would have raised this monument to such a height except by multiplying her prostitutions.” History also relates the adventures of that queenly courtesan, Cleopatra, who captivated and seduced by her charms two masters of the world, and whose lewdness surpassed even her beauty. Tyre and Sidon, Media, Phoenicia, Syria, and all the Orient, were sunk in sexuality. Fornication was made a part of their worship. Women carried through the streets of the cities the most obscene and revolting representations. Among all these nations a virtuous woman was not to be found; for, according to Herodotus, the young women were by the laws of the land "obliged, once in their lives, to give themselves up to the desires of strangers in the temple of Venus, and were not permitted to refuse anyone." St. Augustine speaks of these religious debaucheries as still practiced in his day in Phoenicia. They were even continued until Constantine destroyed the temples in which they were prosecuted, in the fourth century. Among the Greeks the same corruptions prevailed in the worship of Bacchus and Phallus, which was celebrated by processions of half-nude girls "performing lascivious dances with men disguised as satyrs." In fact, as X. Bourgeois says, "Prostitution was in repute in Greece." The most distinguished women were courtesans, and the wise Socrates would be justly called, in modern times, a libertine. The abandonment to lust was, if possible, still more complete in the times of the Roman emperors. Rome astonished the universe "by the boldness of its turpitudes, after having astonished it by the splendor of its triumphs." The great Cæsar was such a rake that he has been said to have "merited to be surnamed every woman’s husband.” Antony and Augustus were equally notorious. The same sensuality pervaded the masses as resigned in the courts, and was stimulated by the erotic poems of Ovid, Catullus, and other poets of the time. Tiberius displayed such ingenuity in inventing refinements in impudicity that it was necessary to coin nee words to designate them. Caligula committed the horrid crime of incest with all his sisters, even in public. His palace was a brothel. The Roman empress, Messalina, disguised herself as a prostitute and excelled the most degraded courtesans in her monstrous debaucheries. The Roman emperor Vitellius was accustomed to taken an emetic after having eaten to repletion, to enable him to renew his gluttony. With still grosser sensuality he stimulated his satiated passions with philters and various aphrodisiac mixtures. Nero, the most infamous of the emperors, committed rapes on the stage of the public theaters of Rome, disguised as a wild beast. If this degraded voluptuousness had been confined to royalty, some respect might yet be entertained for the virtue of the ancients ; but the foul infection was not restrained within such narrow bounds. It invaded whole empires until they fell in pieces from very rottenness. What must have been the condition of a nation that could tolerate such a spectacle as its monarch riding through the streets of its metropolis in a state of nudity, drawn by women in the same condition ? Such a deed did Heliogabulus in Rome. In the thirteenth century, virtue was almost as scarce in France as in ancient Greece. Nobles held as mistresses all the young girls of their domains. About every fifth person was a bastard. Just before the Revolution, chastity was such a rarity that a woman was actually obliged to apologize for being virtuous ! In these disgusting facts we find one of the most potent agents in effecting the downfall of the nations. Licentiousness sapped their vitality and weakened their prowess. The men who conquered the world were led captive by their own beastly passions. Thus the Assyrians, the Medes, the Grecians, the Romans, successively fell victims to their lusts, and gave way to more virtuous successors. Even the Jews, the most enlightened people of their age, fell more than once through this same sin, which was coupled with idolatry, of which their seduction by the Midianites is an example. Surely, modern times present no worse spectacles of carnality than these ; and will it be claimed that anything so vile is seen among civilized nations at the present day ? But though there may be less grossness in the sensuality of to-day, the moral turpitude of men may be even greater than that of ancient times. Enlightened Christianity has raised the standard of morality. Christ’s commentary upon the seventh commandment requires a more rigorous chastity than ancient standards demanded, even among the Jews ; for had not David, Solomon, and even the pious Jacob more wives than one ? Consequently, a slight breach of chastity now requires as great a fall from virtue as a greater lapse in ages past, and must be attended with as severe a moral penalty. We have seen how universal is the “social evil,” that is a vice almost as old as man himself, which shows how deeply rooted in his perverted nature it has become. The inquiry arised, What are the causes of so monstrous a vice? so gross an outrage upon nature’s laws ? so withering a blight upon the race?
— JOHN HARVEY KELLOGG