On the occasion of the New Year's Day, the King had the mission of marrying the beautiful Inanna-Ishtar, incarnated here below by her human representative. The nuptials were realized by a real sexual union, celebrated afterwards in popular jubilation by a banquet, music and songs. The carnal encounter between the king and the goddess of love was supposed to bring fertility to the people and the country. If it were a pledge of abundant harvests, the sacred marriage also testified to the approval of the power of the king by the gods, which is confirmed by a poem, The Blessing of Shulgi, a ruler of the end of the third millennium: "When the Lord , Pastor Dumuzi, lying next to [me], the holy Inanna, will have kneaded my milky and succulent bosom when he has touched my holy vulva. When, like his slender boat, he will have carried life, when he has caressed me on the bed: then I will caress him and decree a fortunate destiny! "
An infidelity to the God of Israel
One wonders who, at the time of the ceremony, assumed the role of Ishtar. Some think it was the queen; But other historians tend to favor a sacred prostitute, the hieroglyph. Several documents refer to sexual practices in temples - including one mentioning a priestess practicing sodomy to avoid getting pregnant - and the vocabulary related to prostitution, quoted in The Law Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon (18th century before Our era), is very rich: the term kulmashitu or qadishtu, in particular, seems to refer to women with free habits working in temples.
Later, the Bible, which originated on these lands bathed in ancient Babylonian culture, will in turn evoke the phenomenon of sacred prostitution. Thus in Deuteronomy 23:18: "There shall be no sacred prostitute among the daughters of Israel, nor a holy harlot among the children of Israel," or in 2 Kings 23: 7, which tells how the king Josiah "demolishes the houses of the sacred prostitutes, who were in the temple of Yahweh, and the women weared sails for Asherah [a goddess]." Referring to the prostitutes of the temple of Samaria, Micah (2: 7) promises the wrath of Yahweh. But the wife of Hosea is a prostitute of the Canaanite cults of fertility, whom the prophet married on the command of Yahweh, for, he says, "the land is merely a prostitute, turning from [me] 1, 2). The metaphor here is particularly clear: prostitution is assimilated to pure and simple infidelity to the God of Israel. The strongest anathema is thrown on this practice.
The salvific redemption
And yet ... Can we not find in the Song of Songs strange resonances between this magnificent song of love and those who are intoned by the hierodules during the sacred marriage: "Kiss me with full mouth: Your caresses are much better than wine, (...) your person is a perfume that embalms: young women are crazy about you! Drag me in your train: run! The king introduced me into his room: let us play, let us enjoy you! Ah, that one has reason to love you! (1: 2-4)? It is true that biblical exegesis interpreted this poem as a metaphor for the love of God to his people. An unfailing love, if we are to believe the New Testament: born of a virgin, Jesus might have experienced total contempt for women trading in their bodies. But to explain, on the contrary, that "publicans and prostitutes come before you [the Pharisees who scrupulously observe the Law] to the Kingdom of God" (Matthew 21:31). The supreme sinner, the woman of evil life may, on condition of repentance, be one of the elect. It is besides to Mary Magdalene, a prostitute consoled by her faith, that the risen Jesus appears in the first place. The Madeleine and Christ, or the ultimate association between prostitution and the sacred?
