Note 431 — Chapter X · THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS OF HELLAS: AN IDEAL OF SELF-REALIZATION

The pre-Hellenic Oriental cult of Aphrodite had undoubtedly an unfavorable influence on morality. “Some part of this evil character [was] transplanted into Greek legend, but very little into Greek worship.... What we know is that until the declining period of Greek history the cult of Aphrodite, so far as it appears in written or monumental record, was as pure and austere as that of Zeus and Athena” (Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States (1896), vol. ii, pp. 657, 663).