_Mythology of the Ancients--Characteristics of the Pagan
Deities--Doctrine of the Reciprocal Principles of Nature--Creation of
the Egg--Creation and the Phallus--The Lotus--Osiris as the active,
dispensing, and originating energy--Hesiod and the generative
powers--Growth of Phallic Worship._
"By comparing all the varied legends of the East and West in conjunction,"
says a learned author, "we obtain the following outline of the mythology
of the Ancients: It recognises, as the primary elements of things, two
independent principles of the nature of Male and Female; and these, in
mystic union, as the soul and body, constitute the Great Hermaphrodite
Deity, THE ONE, the universe itself, consisting still of the two separate
elements of its composition, modified though combined in one individual,
of which all things are regarded but as parts.... If we investigate the
Pantheons of the ancient nations, we shall find that each, notwithstanding
the variety of names, acknowledged the same deities and the same system of
theology; and, however humble any of the deities may appear, each who has
any claim to antiquity will be found ultimately, if not immediately,
resolvable into one or other of the Primeval Principles, the Great God and
Goddess of the Gentiles."[4]
"We must not be surprised," says Sir William Jones, "at finding, on a
close examination, that the characters of all the Pagan deities, male and
female, melt into each other, and at last into one or two, for it seems a
well-founded opinion that the whole crowd of gods and goddesses in ancient
Rome and modern Varanes mean only the Powers of Nature, and principally
those of the Sun, expressed in a variety of ways and by a multitude of
fanciful names."
The doctrine of the Reciprocal Principles of Nature, designated as active
and passive, male and female, and often symbolized as the Sun and Moon, or
the Sun and the Earth, was distinctly recognised in the mythological
systems of America. It will be well to notice the _rationale_ of this
doctrine, and some of the more striking forms which, in the developement
of human ideas, it has assumed; for it may safely be claimed that under
some of its aspects or modifications it has entered into every religious
system, if, indeed, it has not been the nucleus of every mythology.
The idea of a creation, suggested by the existence of things, was, no
doubt, the first result of human reasoning. The mode of the event, the
manner in which it was brought about, was, it is equally unquestionable,
the inquiry which next occupied the mind, and man deduced from the
operations of nature around him his first theory of creation. From the
egg, after incubation, he saw emerging the living bird, a phenomenon
which, to his simple apprehension, was nothing less than an actual
creation. How naturally then, how almost of necessity, did that
phenomenon, one of the most obvious in nature, associate itself with his
ideas of creation--a creation which he could not help recognising, but
which he could not explain. The extent to which the egg, received as a
symbol, entered into the early cosmogonies will appear in another and more
appropriate connection.
By a similar process did the creative power come to be symbolized under
the form of the Phallus, in it was recognised the cause of reproduction,
or, as it appeared to the primitive man, of creation. So the Egyptians, in
their refinement upon this idea, adopted the scarabaeus as a symbol of the
First Cause, the great hermaphrodite Unity, for the reason that they
believed that insect to be both male and female, capable of self-inception
and singular production, and possessed of the power of vitalizing its own
work.
It is well known that the Nymphoe, Lotus, or Water-Lily is held sacred
throughout the East, and the various sects of that quarter of the globe
represent their deities, either decorated with its flowers, holding it as
a sceptre, or seated on a lotus throne or pedestal. "It is," says Maurice,
"the sublime and hallowed symbol that perpetually occurs in oriental
mythology, and not without substantial reason; for it is itself a lovely
prodigy, and contains a treasure of physical instruction." The reason of
its adoption as a symbol is explained by Mr. Payne Knight, and affords a
beautiful illustration of the _rationale_ of symbolism, and of the
profound significance often hidden beneath apparently insignificant
emblems. "This plant," observes Mr. Knight, "grows in the water, and
amongst its broad leaves puts forth a flower, in the centre of which is
formed its seed vessel, shaped like a bell or inverted cone, and punctured
on the top with little cavities or cells, in which the seeds grow. The
orifice of these cells being too small to let the seeds drop out when
ripe, they shoot forth into new plants in the places where they are
formed; the bulb of the vessel serving as a matrix to nourish them until
large enough to burst it open and release themselves, after which, like
other aquatic plants, they take root wherever the current deposits them.
The plant, therefore, being thus productive of itself, and vegetating from
its own matrix, without being fostered in the earth, was naturally adopted
as a symbol of the productive power of waters upon which the active Spirit
of the Creator acted in giving life and vegetation to matter. We
accordingly find it employed in every part of the northern hemisphere
where the symbolical religion, improperly called idolatry, existed."
Examples quoted illustrate the inductive powers by which unaided reason
arrives at its results, as well as the means by which it indicates them in
the absence of a written language or of one capable of conveying abstract
ideas. The mythological symbols of all early nations furnish ample
evidence that it was thus they embodied or shadowed forth their
conceptions,--the germ of a symbolic system, which was afterwards extended
to every manifestation of nature and every attribute of Divinity.
We may in this manner rationally and satisfactorily account for the origin
of the doctrine of the reciprocal principles. Its universal acceptance
establishes that it was deduced from the operations of that law so
obviously governing all animated nature--that of reproduction or
procreation.
In the Egyptian mythology, the Divine Osiris was venerated as the active,
dispensing, or originating energy, and was symbolized as the Sun; Isis as
terrene nature, the passive recipient, the producer; their annual
offspring was Horus, the vernal season or infant year. The poet Hesiod, in
the beginning of his Theogony, distinguishes the male and female, or
generative and productive powers of Nature, as Ouranus and Gaia, Heaven
and Earth. The celestial emblems of these powers were usually, as we have
said, the Sun and Moon; the terrestrial, Fire and Earth. They were
designed as Father and Mother; and their more obvious symbols, as has
already been intimated, were the Phallus and Kteis, or the Lingham and
Yoni of Hindustan.
That the worship of the phallus passed from India or from Ethiopia into
Egypt, from Egypt into Asia Minor, and into Greece, is not so much a
matter of astonishment,--these nations communicated with each other; but
that this worship existed in countries a long time unknown to the rest of
the world--in many parts of America, with which the people of the Eastern
Continent had formerly no communication--is an astonishing but well
attested fact. When Mexico was discovered, there was found in the city of
Panuco, the particular worship of the Phallus well established, its image
was adorned in the temples; there were in the public places bas reliefs,
which like those of India, represented in various manners the union of the
two sexes. At Tlascalla, another city of Mexico, they revered the act of
generation under the united symbols of the characteristic organs of the
two sexes. Garcilasso de la Vega says--"that according to Blas Valera, the
God of Luxury was called Tiazolteuli," but some writers say, "this is a
mistake." One of the goddesses of the Mexican Pantheon was named
Tiazolteotl, which Boturini describes as Venus unchaste, low, and
abominable, the hieroglyphic of these men and women who are wholly
abandoned, mingling promiscuously one with another, gratifying their
bestial appetites like animals. Boturini is said to be not entirely
correct in his apprehensions of the character of this goddess. She is
Cinteotl, the goddess of Maize, under another aspect. Certain of the
temples of India abound with sculptured representations of the symbols of
Phallic Worship, and if we turn to the temples of Central America, which
in many respects exhibit a strict correspondence with those of India, we
find precisely the same symbols, separate and in combination.