Faith between the covers

The gods abhorred abstinence and even though the consequences were not always as dire as the one that Hippolytus faced, abjuring sex never went unpunished or unreformed in the ancient world

Sex and Religion: Teachings and Taboos in the history of world faiths
 

Author: Dag Oistein Endsjo
 

Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books
 

Price: Rs 499   

Pages: 332

Hippolytus cuts a rather tragic figure in Greek antiquity. He was the son of a powerful father, Theseus, who was king of Athens and one of its most valorised heroes, widely feted for his slaying of the Minotaur. But the story of Hippolytus, the one with which this book begins, is more of a cautionary tale. It was widely used as a parable against abstinence.
 

Hippolytus had earned the wrath of the goddess