Meanwhile, for our own argument, as to the precise nature of the
Babylonian King's divinity, vegetable or not, I do not think that we
have yet found the King of Babylon explicitly identified with a god of
vegetation.
The victim, remember, was at first divine, either as proxy of the king,
incarnating, I think, a god unknown; or as full of cosmic _rapport_, as
a man-god of the second species.[35] Next his divinity was established,
if Mr. Frazer rightly conjectured that he 'represented Tammuz
himself.'[36] Next he was a criminal vicariously sacrificed for 'the
saving of the king's life for another year.'[37]
Next 'it would appear that the Zoganes' (the same old victim) 'during
his five days of office personated not merely a king but a god, whether
that god was the Elamite Humman, the Babylonian Marduk, or some other
deity not yet identified.'[38] Next the victim personated 'a god or
hero of the type of Tammuz or Adonis, (and) enjoyed the favours of a
woman, probably a sacred harlot....' in addition to the caresses of
the royal seraglio.[39] Next the indefatigable victim represented the
king, 'the human god, the Saturn, Zoganes, Tammuz, or whatever he was
called,' though all we know of the god Zoganes is that Zoganes was the
title of the slave lord of the household at the Persian Sacæa.[40]
It would thus appear almost as if all gods are one god to Mr. Frazer by
a kind of scientific 'Henotheism.' Humman or Saturn, Zoganes or Tammuz,
Marduk or Adonis, any one of them, or all of them, will do for the king
to incarnate or personate. Any one of them, or all of them, will figure
as representatives of vegetable life in company with Zeus and the
horses of Virbius! 'We may conjecture that the horses by which Virbius
was said to have been slain were really embodiments of him as a deity
of vegetation.'[41] Now let me too say 'we may conjecture.' Mr. Frazer
tells us that 'horses were excluded from the grove and sanctuary' of
Virbius.[42] Is it putting too great pressure on evidence to conjecture
that the horses, while being driven out, were whipped? Now the horses
embodied, perhaps, as we are told, a deity of vegetation. They were
whipped, and therefore it was usual to whip the representatives of a
deity of vegetation. This solves our problem, why was the victim, the
divine victim, whipped?
Seriously, have we not in all this book to do with that method of
arbitrary conjecture which has ruined so many laborious philosophies of
religion?
As to one essential conjecture, that the Babylonian, or rather the
Persian, kings represented a deity of vegetation, I can offer only one
shadowy testimony. Nebuchadnezzar for a while exhibited a caprice in
favour of a purely vegetable diet. This may have been a survival of a
royal taboo. As a god of vegetation, a king would not eat vegetables
any more than a savage usually eats his totem. But some savages do eat
their totems on certain sacred occasions, and that may be the reason
why Nebuchadnezzar, for a given period, turned vegetarian.
[1] _G. B_. iii. 185.
[2] _G. B_. iii. 178.
[3] _G. B_. iii. 185.
[4] _G. B_. iii. 186.
[5] _G. B_. ii. 253.
[6] _Cieza de Leon_, p. 203.
[7] _G. B_. i. 143.
[8] Grinnell, _Pawnee Hero Stories_, pp. 362-369.
[9] _G. B_., ii. 238.
[10] _G. B_. ii. 24, note 1.
[11] _G. B_. iii. 167.
[12] _G. B_. iii. 171.
[13] _G. B_. iii. 170, 171.
[14] _G. B_. iii. 171.
[15] _G. B_. i. 131-157.
[16] _G. B_. ii. 24-26.
[17] _G. B_. ii. 24-26.
[18] _G. B_. ii. 8.
[19] _G. B_. ii. 253, 254.
[20] _G. B_. ii. 123.
[21] _G. B_. ii. 254, note 1.
[22] _G. B_. ii. 123.
[23] _G. B_. ii. 123.
[24] _G. B_. ii. 253, 254.
[25] _G. B_. ii. 254.
[26] _G. B_. ii. 123, 124; ii. 253, 254.
[27] _G. B_. iii. 152, 154.
[28] _G. B_. iii. 171.
[29] Jastrow, p. 484.
[30] _G. B_. ii. 123, 124.
[31] _G. B_. ii. 253, 54.
[32] _G. B_. ii. 123, 124.
[33] Jastrow, 59, 127, 631, 677, 678-9.
[34] _G. B_. ii. 254, note 1.
[35] _G. B_. ii. 24-26; i. 80-82.
[36] _G. B_. ii. 253, 254.
[37] _G. B_. iii. 152.
[38] _G. B_. iii. 160.
[39] _G. B_. iii. 178.
[40] _G. B_. iii. 185.
[41] _G. B_. ii. 314.
[42] _G. B_. i. 6.