We are still trying to find an historical case of a man who is
sacrificed in the character of a god and a king. The argument next
introduces us to the Sacæa at Babylon, when the mock-king was hanged,
the Persian feast, which, as we saw, M. Parmentier, following Herr
Meissner, is inclined to identify with the ancient Babylonian Zagmuk,
or Zakmuk, and with the Jewish Purim.
This identification, this theory that Zakmuk, Sacæa, and the Jewish
Purim are all the same feast, is essential to Mr. Frazer's theory.
But, before his theory was published, Meyer, in the new volume of
his 'History of Antiquity,' had declared that the identification is
impossible, philologically and as a matter of fact (_Geschichte des
Alterthums_). It would be interesting to know the meaning of the
word Sacæa, or _Sacea_, or _Sakia_, which Hyde translates 'convivial
drinking, drinking healths' (_compotatio, propinatio_).[77] We remember
the Persian butler, called a _Sáki_, in Omar Khayyam:
The eternal _Sáki_ from the bowl has poured
Myriads of other bubbles, and will pour.
If the wine-pourer, the _Sáki_, of Omar is etymologically connected
with the Sakæa, or Sacæa, then the feast means a wine-party. The
Greeks, however, connected the Sacæa with the Sacæ, an Oriental tribe
of the great race stretching from the Black Sea to Dacia. Indeed, in
Strabo's time, the feasters at the Sacæa dressed as Scythians (Sacæ)
and drank, as Horace tells us that the Scythians were used to drink.
This occurred at Zela, a town of Pontus, where a love goddess, in
Persian Anaitis, of the type of the Babylonian Ishtar, was adored. Mr.
Frazer even conjectures that her high priest, or a substitute, 'who
played the King of the Sacæa,' was yearly sacrificed here, perhaps as
Tammuz.[78] No record of the fact has reached us.
The interesting point about this derivation of Sacæa from the tribe of
the Sacæ is that the festival was believed, says Strabo, to commemorate
a great victory of the Persians over the Sacæ. In precisely the same
way the Persian feast of the Magophonia was supposed to commemorate
a victory over and massacre of the Magi.[79] Purim, again, was held
to commemorate a triumph of the Jews over the Persians and a massacre
of the Persians. In three cases, then, Sacæa, Magophonia, and Purim,
a feast which was a secular drinking bout, preserve the memory of
a bloody victory. I do not observe that Mr. Frazer notices this
coincidence.
But manifestly this kind of feast is not a feast of the death of a
mock-king, still less, if possible, a religious festival of the death
and resurrection of a vernal god.[80] Yet there really was (if we
accept rather poor evidence) _not_ a sacrifice but an execution of a
mock-king, a criminal, at the Sacæa, as held in Babylon. I quote our
authorities. First comes Athenæus, who is writing about feasts of
unreason, at which, in various regions, the slaves are waited upon by
their masters.[81] He says nothing of the execution of a mock-king. He
remarks: 'Berosus, in the first book of his "History of Babylon," says
that on the sixteenth day of the month Lous there is a great festival
celebrated at Babylon, which is called _Sakeas_, and it lasts five
days; and during these days it is the custom for the masters to be
under the orders of their slaves, and one of the slaves puts on a robe
like the king's, being called _Zoganes_, and is master of the house.
And Ctesias also mentions this festival in the second book of his
"History of Persia."' (Ctesias nourished rather earlier than Berosus,
who is about 200 B.C.)
Thus Athenæus is silent about the execution of a mock-king, though
doubtless he had the book of Berosus before him. And Dio Chrysostom,
who does speak of the execution, and he alone does so, says nothing
about Berosus, or any other authority. I cite the observations of Dio
Chrysostom. He puts them into the mouth of the cynic, Diogenes, who
is lecturing Alexander the Great, to tame his pride; and who tells
illustrative anecdotes, some of them absurd, much as Mr. Barlow was
used to instruct Masters Harry Sandford and Tommy Merton. Dio, then,
makes Diogenes say that at the Sacæa 'they take one of the prisoners
condemned to death and seat him upon the king's throne, and give him
the king's raiment, and let him lord it and drink, and run riot and use
the king's concubines during these days, and no man prevents him from
doing just what he likes. But afterwards they strip, and scourge, and
crucify (or hang, _ἐκρέμασαν_) him.'[82] He dies, not as a victim, by
sacrifice, but as a criminal, by a cruel and degrading form of capital
punishment.[83] According to Dio any condemned criminal would serve
the turn. But Mr. Frazer suggests that perhaps the profession of victim
was hereditary.[84]
Such is the story which Dio makes Diogenes tell Alexander, in a
humorous apologue against royal pride. 'You will soon be growing a
crest like a cock,' says Diogenes in Dio's essay. I cannot think that
evidence found only in a literary _tour de force_, and put into the
mouth of a professed humourist, proves historically that the mock-king
was actually hanged once a year, at a feast described by Athenæus,
Strabo, and Hesychius, who never mention so strange an affair as the
hanging. The reader will not find that Mr. Frazer suggests all these
doubts. Indeed, the student who avoids footnotes will believe that the
tale of the hanging is 'according to the historian Berosus, who, as a
Babylonian priest, spoke with ample knowledge.'[85]
Now, granting that there really was a yearly execution at Babylon of
a criminal, a mock-king, why was he put to death? We know what Mr.
Frazer's theory needs. It needs historical examples of men who, by
being sacrificed as victims, obtain a divine character, as representing
the god to whom they are sacrificed. The theory also demands that these
victims shall be arrayed and crowned as kings. It is desirable, too,
that they should perish about our Eastertide, and that they should be
supposed to rise again. The solitary example of a Saturnalian victim
in Mœsia did not fulfil these conditions. He was arrayed as a king,
indeed, and was sacrificed, if we believe the legend of St. Dasius; but
he was not stripped and scourged, and he died, not at Easter, but in
November: if he had not refused the part thrust on him he would have
died in December. There was no word about his resurrection. It was
found necessary to suggest that originally the Saturnalian victim died
in February-March, but this was not proved.
The other historical case, the mock-king of the Sacæa, also does not
fulfil the conditions required. He is robed, and crowned, and scourged,
but he is not sacrificed. We have no hint of a resurrection; none
of a religious character attaching to the feast; none of a divine
character attaching to the victim. The feast is traditionally a revel
commemorative of a victory: the victim is a condemned criminal. As to
the date of the death, Mr. Frazer has two contradictory theories. By
the first (which is correct) the victim died probably in June-July (if
not, certainly in September). By the second, the month date of the
death is fixed (provisionally) in March-April. Let me add that, to suit
Mr. Frazer's theory, the victim must not only have been divine at the
origin of the institution, but must have been recognised as divine at
the time of the Crucifixion of our Lord: otherwise our Lord's death, in
the character of the victim, could lend him no 'halo of divinity.'
[1] Spencer and Gillen, _Natives of Central Australia_..
[2] _G. B_. i. 80, 81.
[3] _G. B_. ii. 81.
[4] _Etudes Traditionistes_. A. L.
[5] _G. B_. i. 157.
[6] _G. B_. ii. 1-5.
[7] _Modern Mythology_, 'Myths of the Origin of Death.'
[8] Spencer and Gillen, p. 476.
[9] Mariner, ii. 127.
[10] _Making of Religion_, chapters xi.-xiii.
[11] _G. B_. ii. 1.
[12] _Prim. Cult_. ii. 308, 1871; ii. 340, 1873. In the edition of
1891, Mr. Tylor, in accordance with his altered ideas, dropped his
denial of borrowing, and said that Torngarsuk was later identified with
the devil--a common result of missionary teaching, just as Saints under
Protestantism became, or their statues became, 'idols.'
[13] _G. B_. ii. 1. Meiners, _Geschichte der Religionen_, Hanover,
1806, 1807, i. p. 48.
[14] E. I. Dodge, _Our Wild Indians_, p. 112.
[15] "Le Jeune", _Relations des Jésuites_, 1633, p. 16; 1634, p. 13.
[16] Callaway, _Religion of the Amazulu_, pp. 26, 27.
[17] Thevet, _Singularités de la France Antarctique_, ch. 77. Paris,
1855. Andouagni is a creator, not addressed in prayer. See 'Science and
Superstition,' pp. 10, 11.
[18] Hymns in Maspero, _Music de Boulaq_, pp. 49, 50.
[19] _Religion of Babylon and Assyria_, p. 483.
[20] _G. B_. iii. 198.
[21] _G. B_. ii. 3, 4, citing L. W. King, _Babylonian Religion and
Mythology,_ p. 8 (1899).
[22] _G. B_. iii. 154.
[23] Jastrow, _The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria_, p. 307. Boston,
U.S., 1898.
[24] Jastrow, p. 311.
[25] _G. B_. ii. 2.
[26] _G. B_. i. 77.
[27] _G. B_. i. 77, 78.
[28] _G. B_. ii. 1.
[29] _G. B_. ii. 6.
[30] _G. B_. ii. 56; i. 151 _et. seq._
[31] _G. B_. i. 80-82.
[32] The mortals who incarnate gods are catalogued in _G. B_. vol. i.
pp. 139-157. Not one is said to be put to death.
[33] _G. B_. i. 80, 81.
[34] _G. B_. ii. 6-8.
[35] _G. B_. ii. 8-57.
[36] _G. B_. i. 236.
[37] _G. B_. ii. 11.
[38] _Emin Pasha in Central Africa_, p. 91.
[39] _G. B_. i. 155; compare ii. 10.
[40] Callaway, _Religion of the Amazulu_, p. 122.
[41] Here the facts of Dos Santos are confused. In volume i. p. 155 we
read: 'The King of Quiteva, in Eastern Africa, ranks with the deity;'
'indeed, the Caffres acknowledge no other gods than their monarch,
and to him they address those prayers which other nations are wont to
prefer to heaven' (Dos Santos, Pinkerton, xvi. 682, 687, _seq_.). If
the Caffres have no gods, a god cannot be incarnate in their king. But,
elsewhere in Dos Santos (ii. p. 10), there is no 'King of Quiteva' (as
in i. p. 155). Quiteva is no longer a district, but we read 'contiguous
to the domains of the Quiteva;' a title like 'the Inca,' in fact, as
Dos Santos tells us the Quiteva is 'the King of Sofala.' Is Sofala also
known as Quiteva, and the King of Sofala as 'the Quiteva'? The King
of Quiteva 'ranks with the deity'--though the Caffres have no deity
for him to rank with (ii. 155). But when the Quiteva becomes 'King of
Sofala' (ii. 10), the neighbouring prince who kills himself is 'the
Sedanda,' who is not said to 'rank with the deity.' And Dos Santos
assures us that the Caffres _have_ a God, unworshipped!
[42] _Prophecies of the Brahan Seer_, Mackay, Stirling, 1900.
[43] _G. B_. ii. 18.
[44] _G. B_. ii. 18-24.
[45] _G. B_. i. 139-157.
[46] _G. B_. ii. 8-24.
[47] _G. B_. iii. 197.
[48] _G. B_. ii. 24, 26.
[49] _G. B_. iii. 194.
[50] Spencer and Gillen, Glossary, _s.v. Alatuja_ and pp. 9-11.
[51] _G. B_. iii. 178.
[52] _Ibid._
[53] _G. B_. ii. 26.
[54] _G. B_. ii. 26.
[55] _G. B_. ii. 30.
[56] _G. B_. ii. 24.
[57] Macrobius himself is an author of the fourth or fifth century of
our era. Macrobius, i. x. 2; Livy, ii. xxi. 2.
[58] Cumont, _Revue de Philologie_, July 1897, vol. xxi. p. 149, citing
Mommsen, C.I.L. I(2) p. 337, and Marquhardt, _Staatsverw_.
iii.(2) 587.
[59] Lucian, _Saturnalia_, 2.
[60] Macrobius, i. vii. 31-33.
[61] The reason was probably a mere 'blind' for wife-murder.
[62] _G. B_. iii. p. 140.
[63] _Analecta Bollandiana_, xvi. pp. 5-16.
[64] _G. B._ iii. p. 143.
[65] _G. B_. iii. p. 144.
[66] _G. B_. iii. p. 142.
[67] _G. B_. ii. p. 144.
[68] Later (_Rev. de Philol._, xxi. 3, pp. 152, 153), M. Cumont dates
the Greek at about 500-600 A.D., because there were then apprehensions,
as in the MS., of the end of the world. But so there were in 1000 A.D.
[69] December 16-23. So also thinks M. Parmentier, _Rev. Phil_. xxi.
p. 143, note 1. M. Parmentier says that we must either suppose the
victim to have been selected by lot a whole month in advance (of which
practice I think we have no evidence), or else cast doubt on the whole
story, except the mere martyrdom of Dasius. But the latter measure M.
Parmentier thinks too sceptical.
[70] Porphyry, _De Abstinentia_, ii. 56; Lactantius, i. 21.
[71] _G. B_. iii. 147.
[72] _G. B_. iii. 148.
[73] _G. B_. iii. 147, note 2; 148, note 2.
[74] _G. B_. ii. 253, 254.
[75] _G. B_. ii. 254.
[76] _G. B_. ii. 147.
[77] Hyde, _De Bel. Pers_. p. 267.
[78] _G. B_. iii. 163, 164.
[79] Strabo, p. 512.
[80] Herodotus, iii. 79.
[81] Athenæus, xiv. p. 639, c.
[82] Dio, _Oratio_ iv., vol. i. p. 76, Dindorf.
[83] Mr. Frazer, in his text, attributes the statement to Berosus,
a Babylonian priest of about 200 B.C. In fact, we do not know Dio's
authority for the tale (_G. B_. ii. 24, note I). Mr. Frazer admits this
in his note. Ctesias may be Dio's source, or he may be inventing. On
the other hand, Macrobius, a late Roman writer, says that the Persians
used to regard 'as due to the gods the lives of consecrated men whom
the Greeks call Zanas' (Macrobius, _Saturnalia_, iii. 7, 6). But what
Zanæ are the learned do not know: whether the word means _ζωγανας_, or
the Zanes at Olympia (Pausanias, v. xxi. 2; _G. B_. ii. 24, note I).
Moreover, Macrobius may have drawn his facts from Dio. But Dio says
nothing about 'consecrated men.'
[84] _G. B_. iii. 186.
[85] _G. B_. ii. 24.