By John Newton, M.R.C.S.
The study of sacred symbols is as yet in its infancy. It has hitherto
been almost ignored by sacerdotal historians; and thus a rich mine of
knowledge on the most interesting of all subjects--the history of the
Religious Idea in man--remains comparatively unexplored. The topic has
a two-fold interest, for it equally applies to the present and the past.
As nothing on earth is more conservative than religion, we have still a
world of symbolism existing amongst us which is far older than our sects
and books, our creeds and articles, a relic of a forgotten, pre-historic
past. Untold ages before writing was invented, it is believed that men
attempted to express their ideas in visible forms. Yet how can a savage,
who is unable to count his fingers up to five, and has no idea of
abstract number, apart from things, whose habits and thoughts are of the
earth, earthy, form a conception of the high and holy One who inhabiteth
eternity? Even under the highest forms of ancient civilisation, abundant
proofs exist that the imagination of men, brooding over the idea of the
Unseen and the Infinite, were bounded by the things which were presented
in their daily experience, and which most moved their passions, hopes
and fears. Through these, then, they attempted to embody such religious
ideas as they felt. They could not teach others without visible symbols
to assist their conceptions; and emblems were rather crutches for the
halting than wings to help the healthy to soar. Mankind in all ages
has clung to the visible and tangible. The people care little for the
abstract and unseen. The Israelites preferred a calf of gold to the
invisible Jehovah; and sensuous forms of worship still fascinate the
multitude.
Whilst studying a collection of symbols, gathered from many climes and
ages, such as this volume presents, I feel sure that every intelligent
student will have asked himself more than once--Is there not some key
which unlocks these enigmas, some grand idea which runs through them
all, connecting them like a string of beads? I believe that there is,
and that it is not far to seek. What do men desire and long for most?
Life. "Skin for skin; all that a man hath will he give for his life," is
a saying as true now as in the days of Job. "Give me back my youth, and
I will give you all I possess," was said by the aged Voltaire to his
physician. And our poet laureate has sung,
'Tis Life, whereof our nerves are scant,
O life, not death, for which we pant;
More life, and fuller, that I want.
But we must add, as necessarily contained in the idea of Life in its
highest sense, those things which make Life desirable.
This fulness of life has been the summum bonum, the highest good, which
mankind has sighed for in every age and clime. For this the alchemists
toiled, not to advance chemistry, but to discover the Elixir of Life and
the Philosopher's Stone. But what nature refused to science, the gods,
it was believed, would surely give to the pious! and the glorious prize
referred to has been promised by every religion. "I am come that they
might have Life, and that they might have it more abundantly." Life is
the reward which has been promised under every system, including that of
the founder of Christianity. A Tree of Life stood in the midst of that
Paradise which is described in the book of Genesis; and when the first
human couple disobeyed their Maker's command, they were punished by
being cut off from the perennial fount of vitality, lest they should
eat its fruit and thus live for ever; and in a second Paradise, which is
promised to the blessed by the author of the book of Revelation, a tree
of life shall stand once more "for the healing of the nations." To the
good man is promised, in the Hebrew Scriptures, long life, prosperity,
and a numerous offspring. "Thy youth is renewed like the eagle's."* Ps.
ciii. 5.
In the wondrous theology of Ancient Egypt, which at length is open to
us, the "Ritual of the Dead" celebrates the mystical reconstruction of
the body of the deceased, whose parts are to be reunited, as those of
Osiris were by Isis; the trials are recorded through which the deceased
passes, and by which all remaining stains of corruption are wiped away;
and the record ends when the defunct is born again glorious, like that
Sun which typified the Egyptian resurrection.**
* St. Paul points oat (Eph. vi. 2) that to only one of the
ten commandments is a promise added. And what is the
promise? "That thy days may be long." (Exod. xx. 12.) See
also Psalm cxxxiii. 3, "the blessing, even life for
evermore."
** Apuleius, who had been initiated into the mysteries of
Isis, informs us that long life was the reward promised to
her votaries. (Metam. cap. xi.)
In the ancient mythology of India, it is recounted that of old the gods
in council united together to procure, by one supreme effort, the Amrita
cup of immortality, which, after the success of their scheme, they
partake of with their worshippers. Even for the Buddhist, his cold,
atheistical creed promises a Nirvana, an escape from the horrors of
metempsychosis, a haven of eternal calm, where "there shall be no more
death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain,
for the former things are passed away;" "there the weary be at rest."
Rev. xxi. 4, Job iii. 17.
This idea of tranquillity is in striking contrast to the heaven promised
by the religion of the north of Europe, which was the one most congenial
to a people whose delight was in conquest and battle. Those who had led
a life of heroism, or perished bravely in fight, ascended to Valhalla;
and the eternal manhood which awaited them there was to be passed in
scenes that were rapture to the imagination of a Dane or a Saxon. Every
day in that abode of bliss was to be spent in furious conflict, in
the struggle of armies and the cleaving of shields; but at evening
the conflict was to cease; every wound to be suddenly healed. Then the
contending warriors were to sit down to a banquet, where, attended by
lovely maidens, they could feast on the exhaustless flesh of the boar
Saehrimnir, and drink huge draughts of mead from the skulls of those
enemies who had not attained to the glories of Valhalla.
The paradise promised to the faithful by Mahomet is full of sensuous
delights. The Arabian prophet dwells with rapture on its gardens and
palaces, its rivers and bowers. Seventy-two houris, or black-eyed girls,
rejoicing in beauty and ever-blooming youth, will be created for the
use of the meanest believer; a moment of pleasure will be prolonged to
a thousand years, and his powers will be increased a hundred-fold to
render him worthy of his felicity.
Thus we see that in all these great historical faiths the prize held
out to the true believer has this in common, viz., Life, overflowing,
ever-renewed, with the addition of those things which make life
desirable for men; whether they are sensuous pleasures, or those which,
under the loftier ideal of Christianity, are summed up in Life, both
temporal and eternal, in the light of God.
Such being the case, we might anticipate that the symbols of every
religion would reproduce, in some shape or other, the ideal which is
common to all. The earliest and rudest faiths were content with gross
and simple emblems of life. In the later and more refined forms of
worship, the ruder types were highly conventionalised, and replaced by a
more intricate and less obvious symbolism.
We proceed now to investigate the more primitive emblems. The origin of
life is, even to us, with all our lights, as great a mystery as it was
to the ancients. To the primitive races of mankind the formation of a
new being appeared to be a constant miracle, and men very naturally used
as tokens of life, and even worshipped, those objects or organs by which
the miracle appeared to be wrought. Thus, the glorious sun, that "god
of this world," the source of life and light to our earth, was early
adored, and an effigy thereof used as a symbol. Mankind watched with
rapture its rays gain strength daily in the Spring, until the golden
glories of Midsummer had arrived, when the earth was bathed during the
longest days in his beams, which ripened the fruits that his returning
course had started into life. When the sun once more began its course
downwards to the Winter solstice, his votaries sorrowed, for he seemed
to sicken and grow paler at the advent of December, when his rays
scarcely reached the earth, and all nature, benumbed and cold, sunk into
a death-like sleep. Hence feasts and fasts were instituted to mark
the commencement of the various phases of the solar year, which have
continued from the earliest known period, under various names, to our
own times.
The daily disappearance and the subsequent rise of the sun, appeared to
many of the ancients as a true resurrection; thus, while the east came
to be regarded as the source of light and warmth, happiness and glory,
the west was associated with darkness and chill, decay and death. This
led to the common custom of burying the dead so as to face the east when
they rose again, and of building temples and shrines with an opening
towards the east. To effect this, Vitruvius, two thousand years ago,
gave precise rules, which are still followed by Christian architects.
Sun-worship was spread all over the ancient world. It mingled with other
faiths and assumed many forms.* Of the elements, fire was naturally
chosen as its earthly symbol. A sacred fire, at first miraculously
kindled, and subsequently kept up by the sedulous care of priests
or priestesses, formed an important part of the religions of Judea,
Babylonia, Persia, Greece and Rome, and the superstition lingers amongst
us still.
* We may point out that, according to all the Gospels,
Christ expired towards sunset, and the sun became eclipsed
as he was dying. He rose again exactly at daybreak.
So late as the advent of the Reformation, a sacred fire was kept ever
burning on a shrine at Kildare, in Ireland, and attended by virgins of
high rank, called "inghean au dagha," or daughters of fire. Every year
is the ceremony repeated at Jerusalem of the miraculous kindling of the
Holy Fire at the reputed sepulchre, and men and women crowd to light
tapers at the sacred flame, which they pass through with a naked body.
Indeed, solar myths form no unimportant part of ancient mythology. Thus
the death of nature in the winter time, through the withdrawal of the
sun, was supposed to be caused by the mourning of the earth-goddess
over the sickness and disappearance into the realms of darkness of her
husband and mate, the sun.
Mr. Fox Talbot has lately given the translation of an Egyptian poem,
more than three thousand years old, and having for its subject the
descent of Ishtar into Hades. To this region of darkness and death the
goddess goes in search of her beloved Osiris, or Tammuz. This Ishtar is
identical with the Assyrian female in the celestial quartette, the
later Phoenician Astarte, "The Queen of Heaven with crescent horns,"
the moon-goddess, also with the Greek Aphrodite and Roman Venus; and the
Egyptian legend reappears in the west as the mourning of Venus for the
loss of Adonis.
Again, the fable of Ceres mourning the death of her daughter Proserpine
is another sun-myth. The Roman Ceres was the Greek [----------], Mother
Earth, who through the winter time wanders inconsolable. Persephone,
her daughter, is the vegetable world, whose seeds or roots lie concealed
underground in the darkness of winter. These, when Spring comes with its
brightness, bud forth and dwell in the realms of light during a part of
the year, and provide ample nourishment for men and animals with their
fruits. The sun, being the active fructifying cause in nature, was
generally regarded as male. Thus, in the Jewish scriptures, he is
compared to "a bridegroom coming out of his chamber" (Ps. xix. 5), i.e.,
as a man full of generative, procreative vigour. The moon and the earth,
being receptive were naturally regarded as female.
At the vernal equinox, the ancients celebrated the bridal of the sun and
the earth. Yet, inasmuch as the orbs of heaven and the face of nature
remain the same from year to year, and perpetually renew light and life,
themselves remaining fresh in vigour and unharmed by age, the ancients
conceived the bride and mate of the sun-god as continuing ever virgin.
Again, as the ancient month was always reckoned by the interval between
one new moon and the next,--an interval which also marks a certain
recurring event in women, that ceases at once on the occurrence of
pregnancy,--the lunar crescent became a symbol of virginity, and as such
adorns the brow of the Greek Artemis and Roman Diana. This was used as
a talisman at a very remote period, and was fixed over the doors of the
early lake-dwellers in Switzerland, like the horse-shoe is to modern
side-posts. With the sun and moon were often associated the five visible
planets, forming a sacred seven,--a figure which is continually cropping
up in religious emblems.
So much for the great cosmic symbols of Life. But the primitive races
of mankind found others nearer home, and still more suggestive--the
generative parts in the two sexes, by the union of which all animated
life, and mankind, the most interesting of all to human beings,
appeared to be created. This reverence for, or worship of, the organs of
generation, has been traced to a very early period in the history of the
human race. In a bone-cave recently excavated near Venice, and
beneath its ten feet of stalagmite, were found bones of animals, flint
implements, a bone needle, and a phallus in baked clay. And if we turn
to those savage tribes who still reproduce for us the prehistoric past,
this form of religious symbolism meets as everywhere. In Dahomey, beyond
the Ashantees, it is, according to Captain Barton, most uncomfortably
prominent. In every street of their settlements are priapic figures.
The "Tree of Life" is anointed with palm oil, which drips into a pot or
shard placed below it, and the would-be mother of children prays before
the image that the great god Legba would make her fertile.
Burton tells us that he peeped into an Egba temple or lodge, and found
it a building with three courts, of which the innermost was a sort of
holy of holies. Its doors had carvings on them of a leopard, a fish, a
serpent, and a land tortoise. The first two of these are female symbols,
the two latter emblems of the male. There were also two rude figures
representing their god Obatala, the deity of life, who is worshipped
under two forms, a male and a female. Opposite to these was the male
symbol or phallus, conjoined in coitu with the female emblem. Du Chaillu
met with some tribes in Africa who adore the female only. His guide,
he informs us, carried a hideous little image of wood with him, and at
every meal he would take the little fetish out of his pocket, and pour a
libation over its feet before he would drink himself.
We know that a similar superstition prevailed in Ireland long after
the advent of Christianity. There a female, pointing to her symbol,
was placed over the portal of many a church as a protector from evil
spirits; and the elaborate though rude manner in which these figures
were sculptured shows that they were considered as objects of great
importance. It was the universal practice among the Arabs of Northern
Africa to stick up over the door of their house or tent the genital
parts of a cow, mare, or female camel, as a talisman to avert the
influence of the evil eye. The figure of this organ being less definite
than that of the male, it has assumed in symbolism very various forms.
The commonest substitution for the part itself has been a horse-shoe,
which is to this day fastened over many of the doors of stables and
shippons in the country, and was formerly supposed to protect the cattle
from witchcraft. From a lively story by Beroalde de Verville, we learn
that in France a sight of the female organ was believed, as late as the
sixteenth century, to be a powerful charm in curing any disease in, and
for prolonging the life of, the fortunate beholder.
As civilisation advanced, the gross symbols of creative power were cast
aside, and priestly ingenuity was taxed to the utmost in inventing a
crowd of less obvious emblems, which should represent the ancient ideas
in a decorous manner. The old belief was retained, but in a mysterious
or sublimated form. As symbols of the male, or active element in
creation, the sun, light, fire, a torch, the phallus or linga, an erect
serpent, a tall straight tree, especially the palm and the fir or pine,
were adopted. Equally useful for symbolism were a tall upright stone
(menhir), a cone, a pyramid, a thumb or finger pointed straight, a mast,
a rod, a trident, a narrow bottle or amphora, a bow, an arrow, a
lance, a horse, a bull, a lion, and many other animals conspicuous for
masculine power. As symbols of the female, the passive though fruitful
element in creation, the crescent moon, the earth, darkness, water, and
its emblem a triangle with the apex downwards, "the yoni," a shallow
vessel or cup for pouring fluid into (cratera), a ring or oval, a
lozenge, any narrow cleft, either natural or artificial, an arch or
doorway, were employed. In the same category of symbols came a ship or
boat, the female date-palm bearing fruit, a cow with her calf by her
side, the fish, fruits having many seeds, such as the pomegranate, a
shell (concha), a cavern, a garden, a fountain, a bower, a rose, a fig,
and other things of suggestive form, etc.
These two great classes of conventional symbols were often represented
in conjunction with each other, and thus symbolised in the highest
degree the great source of life, ever originating, ever renewed. The
Egyptian temple at Denderah has lately been explored by M. Mariette. In
a niche of the Holy of Holies he discovered the sacred secret. This was
simply a golden sistrum (see ante, pp. 44 and 70), an emblem formed by
uniting the female oval O with the male sacred Tau T; and thus identical
in meaning with the coarse emblem seen by Captain Burton in the African
idol temple. A similar emblem is the linga standing in the centre of
a yoni, the adoration of which is to this day characteristic of the
leading dogma of Hindu religion. There is scarcely a temple in India
which has not its lingam; and in numerous instances this symbol is the
only form under which the great god Siva is worshipped. (See ante, pp.
72, 78.)
The linga is generally a tall, polished, cylindrical, black stone,
apparently inserted into another stone formed like an elongated saucer,
though in reality the whole is sculptured out of one block of basalt.
The outline of the frame, which reminds us of a Jew's harp (the
conventional form of the female member), is termed argha or yoni. The
former, or round perpendicular stone, the type of the virile organ, is
the linga. The entire symbol, to which the name lingyoni is given, is
also occasionally called lingam. This representative of the union of the
sexes typifies the divine sacti, or productive energy, in union with the
procreative, generative power seen throughout nature. The earth was the
primitive pudendum, or yoni, which is fecundated by the solar heat,
the sun, the primitive linga, to whose vivifying rays man and animals,
plants and the fruits of the earth, owe their being and continued
existence. These "lingas" vary in size from the tiny amulets worn about
the neck, to the great monoliths of the temples. Thus the lingam is an
emblem of the Creator, the fountain of all life, who is represented in
Hindu mythology as uniting in Himself the two sexes.
Another symbol, the caduceus, older than Greek and Roman art, in which
it is associated with Esculapius and Hermes, the gods of health and
fertility, has precisely the same signification as the sistrum and the
lingam. This is made clear enough in the following extract from a letter
by Dr. C. E. Balfour, published in Fergusson's Tree and Serpent Worship,
1878. "I have only once seen living snakes in the form of the Esculapian
rod. It was at Ahmednuggar, in 1841, on a clear moonlight night. They
dropped into the garden from the thatched roof of my house, and stood
erect."
"They were all cobras, and no one could have seen them without at once
recognising that they were in congress. Natives of India consider that
it is most fortunate to witness serpents so engaged, and believe that if
a person can throw a cloth at the pair so as to touch them with it,
the material becomes a representative form of Lakshmi,* of the highest
virtue, and is preserved as such." The serpent, which casts its skin and
seems to renew its youth every year, has been used from remotest times
as a living symbol of generative energy, and of immortality; indeed,
in the most ancient Eastern languages, the name for the serpent also
signifies life.** It has been usually worshipped as the Agathodoemon,
the god of good fortune, life, and health; though in the
Hebrew scriptures, and elsewhere, we meet with a good and a bad
serpent--Oriental dualism. The Kakodoemon, however, is usually
represented as winged--the Dragon, as in the following example.
* The consort, or life-giving energy of Vishnu.
** As in French, the name for the male organ and for life is
the same in sound, though not in spelling or gender.
In the remarkable Babylonian seal, Plate iv., Fig. 8, the deity is
represented as uniting in himself the male and the female. On each side
is a serpent, as the emblem of the life flowing from the Creator; that
on the male side, having round his head the solar glory, is compared
to the sun-god, as the active principle in creation; that on the female
side, over whose head is the lunar crescent, to the moon- and earth-
goddess, the passive principle in creation. Both are attacked by a
winged dragon, the kakodoemon, or the evil principle. This is according
to the ancient Chaldean doctrine of two creations of living beings, the
one good and the other malign. The Chinese still think that an eclipse
is caused by the efforts of a furious dragon to destroy the sun and
moon; and Apollo, the sun-god, destroying the serpent Python, has
reappeared on our coin as St. George killing the dragon. Even Apollyon
appears in old paintings with huge wings, like those of a bat.
Having thus explained what appears to be the key to a wide range of
religious symbolism, and shown its application in many cases, we shall
further apply it to unlock the famous object of Assyrian worship.
Soon after the discoveries of Botta and Layard were published, it was
conjectured that this strange object, so continually represented as
being adored, might be the asherah of the Hebrew scriptures, translated
"grove" in the English version. How far the view was correct we shall
now proceed to examine.
The religion of the East at a very remote period appears to have been
the worship of one God, under several names. The most primitive was
El, Il, or Al, = the strong, the mighty one; or its plural Elohim, as
expressing His many powers and manifestations. Another name was Baal or
Bel,--the lord, which also had a plural form, Baalim. The first word is
continually used in the Hebrew scriptures, and applied both to the true
God and the gods of the nations. Baal is only once thus applied, Hosea
ii. 16; yet Balaam, inspired by God, prophesies from the high places of
Baal. This name, though so appropriate to the Almighty, became abhorrent
to the Jews when it was so frequently associated with idolatry, and a
new cognomen, or "the Supreme," was adopted by them, viz., Jehovah, =
the Eternal, the Ever-Living One, the Creator; see Exod. iii. 14. "Baal"
was the supreme god of all the great Syro-Phoenician nations, with the
insignificant exception of the Jews; and when the latter migrated into
Canaan they were surrounded on all sides by his worshippers. Towns,
temples, men, including even a son of Saul, of David and of Jonathan,
viz., Eshbaal, Meribbaal, and Beelida, were called after him. As the
sun-god, Baal-Hammon, Song of Sol. viii. 11; 2 Kings xxiii. 5; he
was worshipped on high places, Num. xxii. 41; and an image of the sun
appeared over his altars, 2 Chron. xxxiv. 4. As the generative and
productive power, he was worshipped under the form of the phallus,
Baal-Peor; and youths and maidens, even of high birth, prostituted
themselves in his honour or service; Num. xxv.; 2 Kings xxiii. 7. As
the creator, he was represented to be of either or of both sexes; and
Arnobius tells us that his worshippers invoked him thus:
"Hear us, Baal! whether thou be a god or a goddess."
Though he is of the masculine gender in the Hebrew, the lord, yet Baal
is called [------], = the lady, in the Septuagint; Hos. ii. 8; Zeph. i.
4; and in the New Testament, Romans xi. 4. At the licentious worship
of this androgyne, or two-sexed god, the men on certain occasions wore
female garments, whilst the women appeared in male attire, brandishing
weapons. Each of this god's names had a female counterpart; and the
feminine form of Baal was Beltis, Ishtar, and Ashtarte. As he was the
sun-god, she was the moon-goddess. Now, whilst the masculine name (as
Bel or Bal, Baal, Baalim,) appears nearly one hundred times in the
Hebrew Old Testament, the feminine equivalent is only found three times
in the singular Ashtoreth, and six times in the plural Ashtaroth;
always in association with Baal-worship. Knowing, as we do, the immense
diffusion of her worship amongst the Babylonians, Assyrians, and
Phoenicians, this appears strange. There is a word of the feminine
gender occurring in the Hebrew twenty-four times, viz., Asherah or
Asharah; plural, Asharth translated in the Septuagint and Latin vulgate,
a tree, or "grove," in which they have been followed by most modern
versions, including the English. This supplies the void, for Asharah
may be regarded as another name for the goddess Ashtoreth, as is plainly
seen by the following passages: "They forsook Jehovah and served Baal
and Ashtoreth;" Judges ii. 18; whilst in the following chapter we read,
"They forgot Jehovah their God, and served the Baalim and the Asharoth;"
iii. 7. What, then, was the Asharah? It was of wood, and of large size;
the Jews were ordered to cut it down; Exod. xxxiv. 18, etc.; and Gideon
offered a bullock as a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the Asherah.
Occasionally it was of stone. It was carved or graven as an image; 2
Kings xxi. 7. It often stood close to the altar of Baal; Judges vi. 25
and 80; 1 Kings xvi. 82, 88; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 8. Usually on high places
and under shady trees; 1 Kings xiv. 28; Jer. xvii. 2; but one was
erected in the temple of Jehovah by Manasseh; 2 Kings xxi. 7. It had
priests; 1 Kings xviii. 19; and its worship was as popular as that of
Baal; for whilst the priests of "the Baal" were four hundred and fifty,
those of "the Asherah" were four hundred, who ate at the table of Queen
Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal, king of Sidon. It was sometimes surrounded
with hangings, and was worshipped by both sexes with licentious rites; 2
Kings xxiii. 7; Ezek. xvi. 16. As Baal was associated with sun-worship,
so was the Asherah with that of the moon; 2 Kings xxi. 8; 2 Chron.
xxxiv. 4.
Besides these Asheroth, female emblems of Baal, there were Asherim,
male emblems of Baal, "symbolising his generative power" (Furst, Hebrew
Lexicon), which are mentioned sixteen times in the Hebrew scriptures.
It is only found in the plural, and must have been a multiple
representation of the singular, Asher, which means "to be firm, strong,
straight, prosperous, happy," * and cognate with the Phoenician (Osir),
"husband," "lord," an epithet of Baal.
* The lupanars at Pompeii were distinguished by a sign over
the street door, representing the erect phallus, painted or
carved, and having the words underneath, "Hie habitat
felicitas."
Doubtless this was also identical with the Egyptian Osiris, = the sun,
= the phallus. He was said to have suffered death like the sun; and
Plutarch tells us that Isis, unable to discover all the remains of
her husband, consecrated the phallus as his representative. Thus "the
Asharim" were male symbols used in Baal-worship, and sometimes consisted
of multiple phalli, of which the branch carried by an Assyrian
priest, in Plate iii. Fig. 4, is a conventional form. They were then
counterparts of the "multimammia" of Greek and Roman worship.* This is
confirmed by a curious passage, 1 Kings xv. 13 (repeated 2 Chron. xv.
16). We learn (xiv. 28) that the Jews, under Rehoboam, son of Solomon,
having lapsed into idolatry, had "built them high places, images, and
Asharim ("groves," A. V.) on every high hill, and under every green
tree; and that there were also consecrated ones ("sodomites," A. V.) in
the land." But Asa, his brother, on succeeding to the throne, swept
away all these things, and (xv. 18) deposed the queen mother, Maachah,
because she had made a miphletzeth to an Asherah ("an idol in a grove,"
A. V.) miphletzeth, is rendered by the Vulgate "simulacrum Priapi."
The word is derived from palatz, "to be broken," "terrified," or the
cognate, phalash, palash, "to break or go through," "to open up a way;"
a word or root found in the Hebrew, Phoenician, Syriac, and Ethiopie.
Doubtless the Greek [------] phallus, was hence derived, since it has
no independent meaning in Greek; and Herodotus and Diodorus expressly
assert that the chief gods of Greece and their mysteries, especially
the Dionysiac or Bacchic revels, in which the phallus was carried in
procession, were derived from the east. Compare also the Latin pales,
English pale, pole, = Maypole. A similar word, with a corresponding
meaning, exists in the Sanscrit. Thus, then, according to the Hebrew
scriptures, there were two chief symbols used in the worship of Baal,
one male, the other female.
See Figs. 15, 16.
We can now look upon the very symbols themselves, which were so
used--perhaps the most remarkable in existence. It is well known that
the Chaldeans, from whom all other nations derived their religion,
astronomy, and science, gave the name of Bel or Baal to their chief
god. In the most ancient inscription yet deciphered, written in the
Babylonian and Arcadian languages, a king rules by "the favour of Bel."
Another name for Baal is Assur, or Asher, from whom Assyria is named.
In the cuneiform inscriptions of Sennacherib, the great king of Assyria,
Nineveh is called "the city of Bel," and "the city beloved by Ishtar."
In another inscription he says of the king of Egypt:--"the terror of
Ashur and Ishtar overcame him and he fled." Assurbanipal thus commences
his annals "The great warrior, the delight of Assur and Ishtar, the
royal offspring am I." In a cuneiform inscription of Nebobelzitri, we
read:--"Nineveh the city, the delight of Ishtar, wife of Bel." Again,
"Beltis, the consort of Bel." "Assur and Beltis, the gods of Assyria."
Thus we see that Baal and Bel were identical with Assur, and Ashur.
Doubtless, then, "Asherah" is the last name with the feminine
termination (as Ish = man, Ishah=woman), and is identical with Ishtar,
Ashteroth, Astarte and Beltis. The Septuagint has rendered "Asherah" by
"Astarte," in 2 Chron. xv. 16, and the Vulgate by "Astaroth," in Judges
iii. 7. Herodotus described (b.c. 450) the great temple of Belus at
Babylon, and its seven stages dedicated to the sun, moon, and planets,
on the top of which was the shrine. This contained no statue, but there
was a golden couch, upon which a chosen female lay, and was nightly
visited by the god. Now, therefore, that the palaces of the Assyrian
kings, and their "chambers of imagery," have been by great good fortune
laid open to us, we might expect to discover the long-lost symbolism of
Baal-worship. And so we have.
To commence with the simplest. The (Ashcrim) is seen as the mystic
palm-tree, the tree of life, Fig. 99; the phallic pillar putting
forth branches like flames, Fig. 65; and the tree with seven phalloid
branches, so common on Assyrian and Babylonian seals, Plate xvii., Fig.
4. See also the remarkable Syrian medals, Plate xvii., Fig. 2, on which
is represented Baal as the sun-god, holding the bow, and surrounded by
phalli.
Or, least conventional of all, the simple phallus, of which there are
two remarkable specimens in the British Museum. Each of these is about
two and a half feet high, and once guarded the bounds of an estate.
Among the Greeks and Romans, boundaries were also marked by a phallic
statue of Hermes, the god of fertility. These Assyrian emblems have
doubtless often been honoured with rural sacrifice. Themselves the most
expressive symbol of life, they are also covered with its conventional
emblems.
A back view of one is given, Figure 174. The body is mainly occupied
with a full length portrait of the great king. For as the Assyrians
represented the Deity, the source of all life, by the phallus, so the
monarch was the god of this lower world, the incarnation of God
on earth. He was the source of life to the empire, and as such was
addressed--"O king, live for ever" (Dan. v. 10). He, like the gods,
never dies. "Le Roi est mort; Vive le Roi" The ensigns of royalty were
also those of the creator-god. Accordingly, his garments and crown
are embroidered with that sacred emblem, the Asherah. He bears the
strung-bow and arrows, emblems of virile power, borne afterwards by the
sun-god Apollo, and the western son of Venus. An erect serpent occupies
the other side, and ends with forky tongue near the orifice. The glans
is covered with symbols. On the summit is a triad of sun emblems;
beneath are three altars, over two of which are the glans-shaped caps,
covered with bulls' horns, always worn by the Assyrian guardian angels,
and intense emblems of the male potency. For in ancient symbolism, a
part of a symbol stands for the whole; as here, the horns represent the
bull, and the glans the phallus. Above the third altar is a tortoise,
whose protruded head and neck reminded the initiated of the phallus; and
the altars are covered with a pattern drawn from the tortoise scales. We
have, besides, a vase with a rod inserted, emblem of sexual union, and
a cock, with wings and plumage ruffled, running after a hen in amorous
heat. The glans only of the other is copied.
Fig. 175. At the top are the sun-symbols, as before. Beneath is the
horse-shoe-like head-dress of Isis, and there are two altars marked with
the tortoise-emblem in front. Over both rises the erect serpent, and
upon one lies the head of an arrow or a dart, both male symbols. The
miphletzeth which Queen Maachah placed in or near the Asherah, probably
resembled these Assyrian phalli, or the Asherim.
And now we come to the Asherah, a much more complex and difficult
symbol than any other which we have named. This object has long puzzled
antiquarians, and though it is continually recurring in the sculptures
from Nineveh, it has not yet been fully explained. In Fig. 176 we see it
worshipped by human figures, with eagles' heads and wings, who present
to it the pine-cone, = the testis, and the basket, =the scrotum (?),
intense emblems of the male creator.
Fig. 177 it is adored by the king and his son or successor, with their
attendant genii. The kings present towards it a well-known symbol of
life and good fortune, the fist with the forefinger extended, or
"the phallic hand." Here, then, we have evidently the Asherah, or
Ashtaroth-symbol, the female Baal, the life-producer, "the door" whence
life issues to the world. As such the goddess is here symbolised as an
arched door-way. In the Phonician alphabet, the fourth letter, daleth,
= a door, has the shape of a tent-door, as on the Moabite stone, A, and
also in the Greek [------] But another form, perhaps as ancient, is D,
which, when placed in its proper position, would be [--], the very form
of the Asherah.* In the plural, this word stands for the labia pudendi,
[--------], "because it shut not up the doors of the womb," Job iii.
10.** We infer from Numbers xxv. 6-8, that in the rites of Baal-peor,
the Kadeshoth, or women devoted to the god, offered themselves to his
worshippers each in a peculiar bower or small arched tent, called a
qubbah. The part also through which Phinehas drove his spear (see Num.
xxv. 8), the woman's vulva, is also called qobbah, the one word being
derived from the other, according to Onkelos, Aquila, and others. Qubbah
means, according to Fuerst, Heb. Lex., "something hollow and arched, an
arched tent, like the Arabic El. Kubba, whence the Spanish Al-cova, and
our Alcove." In the Latin also, the word fornix, a vault, an arch, meant
a brothel, and from it was derived fornicatio. Qubbah is translated by
the LXX., kaminos, "an oven or arched furnace" (Liddell and Scott); but
it meant also the female parts. See Herodotus v. 92 (7). Thus, then, the
Alcove was itself a symbol of woman, as though a place of entrance and
emergence, and whence new life issues to the world. And when the male
worshipper of Baal entered to the kadeshah, the living embodiment of
the goddess, the analogy to the Asherah became complete, as we shall now
show.
* The first letter, Aleph, = an ox, is, even on the Moabite
stone, written thus, and has become the modern A. In the
earlier hieroglyph it must have been thus V. The Egyptian
hieroglyph for ten is Compare the Greek [--] and Latin
Decem.
** The first of the Orphic Hymns is addressed to the goddess
Artemisias (Prothnraia) or the Door-keeper, who presided
over childbirths, like the Roman Diana Lucina.
The central object in the Assyrian "grove" is a male date-palm, which
was well known as an emblem of Baal, the sun, the phallus, and life.
This remarkable tree, Tamar in Phoenician and Hebrew, the phoenix in
Greek, was formerly abundant in Palestine and the neighbouring regions.
The word Phoenicia (Acts xi. 19, xv. 8) is derived from phoinix, as the
country of palms; like the "Idumeo palmo" of Virgil. Palmyra, the
city of the sun, was called in the Hebrew Tamar (1 Kings ix. 18). In
Vespasian's famous coin, "Judoa capta," Judoa is represented as a female
sitting under a palm-tree. The tree can at once be identified by its
tall, straight, branchless stem, of equal thickness throughout, crowned
at the top with a cluster of long, curved, feather-like branches, and
by its singularly wrinkled bark. All these characteristics are readily
recognised in the highly conventional forms of the religious emblem,
even in the ornament on the king's robe, fig. 174. The date-palm is
dioecious, the female trees, which are sometimes used as emblems, being
always distinguished by the clusters of date fruit. "Thy stature is like
to a palm-tree, thy breasts to clusters" (Cant. vii. 7). "The righteous
shall flourish like the palm-tree" (Ps. xcii. 12), fruitful and ever
green. "They are upright as the palm-tree, but speak not" (Jer. x. 8-5).
The prophet is evidently describing the making of an Asherah. There was
a Canaanite city called Baal-Tamar, = Baal, the palm-tree, designated
so, it is probable, from the worship of Baal there "under the form of
a priapus-column," says Fuerst, Heb. Lex. The real form was doubtless an
"Asherim," a modified palm-tree, as we have already shown. Palm-branches
have been used in all ages as emblems of life, peace, and victory. They
were strewn before Christ. Palm-Sunday, the feast of palms, is still
kept. Even within the present century, on this festival, in many towns
of France, women and children carried in procession at the end of their
palm-branches a phallus made of bread, which they called, undisguisedly,
"la pine," whence the festival was called "La Fete des Pinnes." The
"pine" having been blest by the priest, the women carefully preserved
it during the following year as an amulet. (Dulaure, Hist, des differens
Cultes.)
Again, the Greek name for the palm-tree, phoenix, was also the name
of that mythical Egyptian bird, sacred to Osiris, and a symbol of
the resurrection. With some early Christian writers, Christ was "the
Phoenix." The date-palm is figured as a tree of life on an Egyptian
sepulchral tablet, older than the Exodus, now preserved in the museum at
Berlin. Two arms issue from the top of the tree; one of which presents
a tray of dates to the deceased, whilst the other gives him water, "the
water of life." The tree of life is represented by a date-palm on some
of the earliest Christian mosaics at Rome. Something very like the
Assyrian Asherah, or sacred emblem, was sculptured on the great doors of
Solomon's temple, by Hiram, the Tyrian (1 Kings vii. 18-21). We read "he
carved upon them carvings of cherubims and palm-trees and open flowers,
and spread gold upon the cherubims and palm-trees" (1 Kings vi. 82-35).
He also erected two phallic pillars in front of the Temple, Jachin
and Boaz, = It stands--In strength. No wonder Solomon fell to worship
Astarte, Chemosh, and Milcom.
Although to our modern ideas the mystical tree, symbol of life and
immortality, seems out of place in Judaism, yet no sooner did the
Jews possess a national coinage under the Maccabees than the palm-tree
reappears, always with seven branches (like the golden candlestick, Ex.
xxv.), as on the shekel represented Plate xvii., Fig. 4. The Assyrian
tree has always the same number, and the tufts of foliage (symbolising
the entire female tree) which deck the margins of the mystic D--apt
emblems of fertility--have also invariably seven branches. This may
remind us of the seven visible spheres that move around our earth "in
mystic dance," and of Balak's offering, upon seven altars, seven bulls
and seven rams (Num. xxiii. 1; Rev. ii. 1) The mystic door is also
barred, like the Egyptian sistrum carried by the priestesses of Isis,
to represent the inviolable purity and eternal perfection which were
associated with the idea of divinity. When Mary, the mother of Jesus,
took the place in Christendom of "the great goddess," the dogmas which
propounded her immaculate conception and perpetual virginity followed as
a matter of course.
Thus, then, we explain the greatest symbol in Eastern worship,--it is
the "Tree of Life in the midst of the Garden," which has remained so
long a mystery. To Dr. Inman belongs the distinguished merit of having
first broken ground in the right direction. In his Ancient Faiths, vol.
1, 1868, he identified the Assyrian "Asherah" with the female "door of
life," and pointed out its analogy to the barred sistrum. We have
seen that it is really much more complex, being precisely analogous in
meaning to the famous crux ansata (Fig. 170), the central mystery of
Egyptian worship; to the lingam or lingyoni of India (Fig. 109), the
great emblem of Siva-worship; and to the caduceus of Greece and Rome. As
represented on the Assyrian sculptures, it is always substantially
the same. Probably this stereotyped form was the result of a gradual
refinement upon some rude primitive type, perhaps as coarse as that seen
by Captain Burton in the African idol-temple.
To exhibit all the strange developments and modifications which this
idea has assumed in the religious symbolism of Eastern and Western
nations would require a large volume. But the subject is so rich in
varied interest that we cannot conclude without taking a glance at it.
First, the simple O, barred, is reproduced with a contraction towards
the base, as in the Indian "yoni," and the Egyptian sistrum, used in
the worship of Isis. Second, within the O was represented the goddess
herself, as revealed within her own symbol. This is illustrated in
Plate xvii., Fig. 5, where Demeter or Ceres is thus depicted, with
her cornucopia, from a bronze coin of Damascus. Thirdly, but much more
commonly, the goddess holds in her hands emblems of the male potency in
creation, and thus completes the symbol. As in the coin figured Plate
xvii., Fig. 8, the goddess, standing within the O, the portico of her
temple, holds in her right hand the cross, that most ancient emblem of
the male and of life. In the beautiful Greek coin of Sidon next
figured, the goddess--evidently Astarte, the moon-goddess, the Queen of
Heaven--stands on a ship, the mystic Argha or Ark, holding in one hand a
crozier, in the other the cross. (Plate xvii., Fig. 7.)
Under Christianity, the Virgin Mary, who, as Queen of Heaven, stands on
the crescent moon, is pictured beneath the mystic doorway, with (the God
as) a male child in her arms. See Plate xviii., copied from the woodcut
title to the Psalter of the Blessed Virgin, printed at Czenna, in old
Prussia, 1492. Like Isis, she is the mother and yet the spouse of God,
"clothed with the sun, and having the moon under her feet" (Rev. xii.
1). The upper half of the picture is very like the Assyrian scenes.
On either side is a king, Frederick III. and his son the Emperor
Maximilian, at their devotions. The alcove is of roses, an emblem of
virginity. The famous Mediaeval "Romaunt de la Rose" turns upon this.
Among the many titles given to "the Virgin" in Mediaeval times, we find
Santa Maria della Rosa, that flower being consecrated to her. Hence it
is often represented in her hand. Dante writes
"Here is the Rose,
Wherein the Word Divine was made incarnate."
In Plate xviii., the Virgin goddess is seated with the God-child in
a bower, exactly the shape of the Assyrian, composed of fruits highly
significant of sex, as has already been explained. In some Hindoo
pictures, the child is naked, having the member erect, and also making
the phallic hand, with the right forefinger erected. (Plate xiv., Fig.
14.)
In other conventional forms we have male symbols only within the female
O. This is a very numerous class. In the Fig. 3, Plate xvii., we see the
fir-tree or pine take the place of the palm-tree, and in Fig. 6, Plate
xvii., the cone. On this remarkable medal of Cyprus is a representation
of the temple of Venus at Paphos, famous even in the days of Homer.
(Odyss. viii. 862.) The worship of that divinity is said to have been
imported into Cyprus from the East. The goddess united both sexes in her
own person, and was served by castrated priests. We see here, within the
innermost sanctum of the temple, a cone as emblem of the male; and the
meaning is further pointed by the sun-emblem above, inserted within the
crescent moon.
Let us next examine how the cone came to be used as a masculine emblem.
If we turn to Figs. 174 and 175, it will be seen that the "glans" was
particularly honoured as the head of the phallus; it was also the part
dedicated to God by effusion of blood in the rite of circumcision. This
"acorn" is conical or dome-shaped, and thus--a part being taken for the
whole--the cone or pyramid was used as a conventional symbol of the male
creator. Placed on a stem it is frequently represented as worshipped on
Assyrian bas reliefs. See Fig. 177. It was also a symbol of fire, the
sun, and life; as such it formed a fitting monument for the Egyptian
kings. Our word pyramid is from the Greek puramis, itself derived from
pur, Jire, and puros, wheat, because pyramid-shaped cakes of wheat and
honey were used in the Bacchic Fig. 177. rites. It played an important
part in sun-worship. The emperor Heliogabalus (who, as his name implies,
had been a priest of Baal, the sun-god, in Syria,) established the
Syrian worship at Rome. He himself drove the golden chariot of the sun,
drawn by six white horses, through the streets of Rome to a splendid
new temple on the Palatine mount, the god being represented by a conical
black stone, said to have fallen from heaven; and which the emperor
removed from a temple of the sun, at Emesa, in Syria. At a subsequent
period, an image of the moon-goddess, or Astarte, was brought by his
orders from a celebrated fane at Carthage to Rome, and there solemnly
married with licentious rites to the sun-god, amidst general rejoicing.*
* In Astrology, the conjunction of Jupiter and Venus was
considered the most fortunate of all; such as kings and
princes should be born under.
A curious parallel to these mystic nuptials of the Assyrian god and
goddess may be found in some of the religious ceremonies of the modern
Hindoos. Fergusson tells us that "the most extraordinary buildings
connected with Hindu temples are the vast pillared colonnades or
choultries. By far their most important application is when used as
nuptial halls, in which the mystic union of a male and female divinity
is celebrated once a year."
Again, in Indian mythology, the pyramid plays an important part. It
belongs to Siva, = the sun, = fire, = the phallus, = life. By one
complex symbol, very common on ancient Hindoo monuments in China and
Thibet, the universe was thus represented. Notice the upward gradation.
Earth + water = this globe. The creator-god, whose emblem, flame, mounts
upwards, is the author and representative of all life upon it; he is the
connecting link, united by the crescent moon with heaven. The arrow-
or spear- head inserted within the crescent is an earth emblem of Siva;
like the lingam it typified the divine source of life, and also the
doctrine that perfect wisdom was to be found only in the combination of
the male and female principles in nature. It decorates the roofs of the
Buddhist monasteries in Thibet, and like the sacred lotus flower and the
linga, both of which became emblems of Buddha, was derived from older
faiths. Other interpretations may suggest themselves. This will enable
us to understand the remarkable sculptures of the second or third
century, from the Amravati Tope, Plate xix., which present so many
points in common with the religious symbols of the Chaldeans. In Fig. 2
we see a congregation of males and females, the sexes being separated,
worshipping a linga, or stone conical pillar, on the front of which is
sculptured the sacred tree, with branches like flames; three symbols of
life in one. It rises from a throne, on the seat of which are placed
the two emblems of earth and water. In the other figure, the sacred tree
takes the place of the linga, rising above the throne, as if from the
trisul or trident, male emblems of Siva. Winged figures, Garudas, attend
it above, floating over the heads of the worshippers. An intrusion of
the newer faith is also to be recognised, as the feet of Buddha are
sculptured before the throne.
In the mysteries of Mithra, the symbols in Fig. 178 were also employed.
They represented the elements to which the soul ought to be successively
united in passing through the new birth.
We will add but two more emblems, culled from medieval heraldry, Figs.
179 and 180, in both of which the Asherah, the "grove" of Baal-worship,
will be at once recognised; the arrow and the cross, symbols of the male
creator, taking the place of the mystic palm-tree.
In all these, from the rudest to the most complex, we are thus able to
trace a common idea, viz., a feeling after God, as the Life and Light of
the Universe, and an attempt to express a common hope in visible forms.