Page:The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter (1922), vol. 2.djvu/270

 a result. The Holy Scripture tells us of Onan, son of Judas, grandson of Jacob, and husband of Thamar, who was slain by the Lord because he spilled his semen, “he poured his semen upon the ground.” We may be reproached, perhaps, for citing the Holy Bible too frequently, but that book contains the knowledge of salvation, and those who wish to be saved should not fail to study it with assiduity. That this study has occupied a good part of our life, we admit, and we have always found that study profitable. To vigorous minds that admission may seem ridiculous, but we are writing only for pious souls, and they will willingly applaud this courageous profession of our piety.

The theologians have also classified onanism and pollution among the sins against the Holy Ghost, and this being the case, there is no being in the world who has been sinned against so often. A medium indulgence in this sin furnished the pleasure of a queen, the severity of one Lucretia does not repel a thousand Tarquins. Men with vivid imaginations create for themselves a paradise peopled with the most beautiful houris, more seductive than those of Mahomet; Lycoris had a beautiful body but it was unfeeling; the imagination of her lover pictured her as falling before his caresses, he led her by the hand over pressed Rh