deities were, in time past, assigned to this office; and there have been
nations where, to assuage the lust of those who came to their devotion,
they kept men and women in their temples for the worshippers to lie with;
and it was an act of ceremony to do this before they went to prayers:

"Nimirum propter continentiam incontinentia necessaria est;
incendium ignibus extinguitur."

["Forsooth incontinency is necessary for continency's sake; a
conflagration is extinguished by fire."]

In the greatest part of the world, that member of our body was deified;
in the same province, some flayed off the skin to offer and consecrate a
piece; others offered and consecrated their seed. In another, the young
men publicly cut through betwixt the skin and the flesh of that part in
several places, and thrust pieces of wood into the openings as long and
thick as they would receive, and of these pieces of wood afterwards made
a fire as an offering to their gods; and were reputed neither vigorous
nor chaste, if by the force of that cruel pain they seemed to be at all
dismayed. Elsewhere the most sacred magistrate was reverenced and
acknowledged by that member and in several ceremonies the effigy of it
was carried in pomp to the honour of various divinities. The Egyptian
ladies, in their Bacchanalia, each carried one finely-carved of wood
about their necks, as large and heavy as she could so carry it; besides
which, the statue of their god presented one, which in greatness
surpassed all the rest of his body.--[Herodotus, ii. 48, says "nearly
as large as the body itself."]--The married women, near the place where
I live, make of their kerchiefs the figure of one upon their foreheads,
to glorify themselves in the enjoyment they have of it; and coming to be
widows, they throw it behind, and cover it with their headcloths. The