sacred.[602]
WINDS
+326+. Traces of an early cult of the physical wind may be found,
perhaps, in certain customs that survive in modern communities; as, for
example, in the offering of food to the wind that it may be placated and
do no harm.[603] The belief of sailors that wind may be called up by
whistling rests on a process of imitative magic that may be connected
with an early cult. Wind is said to be regarded as a divine being in
some American tribes.[604] But generally it is the spirit or god of a wind
(and usually of a definite wind) that is invoked. Examples of wind-gods
are found in all parts of the world.[605] A wind may be the vehicle or
the messenger of a deity.[606]
+327+. As in the cases of other elements, referred to above, it is often
hard to say whether it is the thing or the deity that is invoked:
Achilles's appeal, for instance, seems to be to the physical winds, but
Iris, who goes to summon them, finds them carousing like men, and they
act like gods.[607] It must be borne in mind, however, that in early
thought all active things are conceived of as being anthropomorphic, and
there is the difficulty, just mentioned, of determining where the
anthropomorphic object stops and the spirit or god begins.
HEAVENLY BODIES
+328+. The heavenly bodies seem to have been regarded at first merely as
objects somehow thrown up into the sky or in some other way fixed there
by gods or men.[608] Later, under the general anthropomorphizing
tendency, they are conceived of as manlike beings, and their characters
and histories are worked out in accordance with local ideas. Their
origin is ascribed at first to such creative beings as appear in the
various early communities; for example, among the Navahos to the First
Man, the First Woman, and the coyote.[609]
+329+. In half-civilized peoples elaborate cosmogonies arise, in which
the sky is introduced along with sun, moon, and stars. The most
noteworthy of these representations of the origin of the sky is one that
occurs in almost identical forms in Egypt and New Zealand, among the
Masai of Central East Africa, and elsewhere: two beings lie in marriage
embrace--one is lifted up and stretches from horizon to horizon as the
sky, the other remains as the earth.[610] The sun is commonly male but
sometimes female,[611] and there is also diversity of views as to the
sex of the moon. The stars are often called the children of the sun and
moon.
+330+. Savage fancy sees in the groups of stars resemblances to human
persons and objects.[612] Such resemblances are worked out by civilized
peoples, a descriptive science of constellations arises, and stories are
invented to explain the origin of their names. These stellar myths,
brought into connection with others, play a great part in developed
mythologies.
+331+. Among higher communities there are diverse conceptions of the sex
of the great luminaries. The word for 'sun' is feminine in Sanskrit,
Anglo-Saxon, German, and often in Hebrew; masculine in Babylonian,
Assyrian, Greek, and Latin. 'Moon' is masculine in Anglo-Saxon and
German, and generally in Sanskrit and the Semitic languages; feminine in
Greek and Latin. The reasons for these differences are to be sought in
the economic relations of the communities to sun and moon, and in the
play of imagination, but the history of the variations is not clear. One
proposed explanation is that to those who traveled by night on land or
on sea the moon was the strong guide and patron, and by day the sun
appeared as a splendidly beautiful woman. Other explanations have been
offered, but no general determining principle can be stated.[613]
+332+. The early anthropomorphic figures of sun and moon appear to be on
the verge of becoming true gods. It is, however, often difficult to
decide whether in the widespread veneration of the sun it is to be
regarded as a living thing (it is frequently represented as a man, a
great chief,[614] dwelling in the sky), or a physical object inhabited
by a spirit, or a fully developed god.[615] The transition to the higher
conception is gradual, and will be discussed below,[616] along with the
representations of the moon and the stars.
+333+. The view that the sky and the earth are the original progenitors
of things appears among many peoples, low and high (notably among the
Chinese); the two are sometimes taken for granted, but it is probable
that there were always stories accounting for their origin. The sky is
sometimes female, usually in the older myths (Maori, Egyptian),
sometimes male (Greek, Roman).[617]
+334+. Thunder and lightning are regarded in early systems of thought as
independent things, only locally or accidentally combined. They are
awful and terrible to savage feeling,[618] but they have never received
religious worship. A quasi-scientific explanation of thunder found among
certain peoples (North American, Brazilian, Bakuana, Karen, and others)
is that it is produced by the flapping of the wings of a mighty
bird.[619] More commonly thunder is the voice of a deity, and lightning
is his arrow,[620] or these are said simply to be sent by a god.[621]
WORSHIP OF HUMAN BEINGS[622]
+335+. We might naturally suppose that human beings, as well as animals,
plants, and inanimate things, would be objects of religious reverence to
undeveloped communities; men, it might seem, would be thought worthier
objects of worship than beasts, plants, and stones. In fact, the cult of
human beings has been and is widespread, but in this cult the savage
mind makes a sharp distinction between the living and the dead. Living
men are tangible and intelligible, affected with human frailties, and
therefore offer less food for the imagination than beasts; the souls of
dead men are remote, intangible, mysterious, and it is they that have
most inspired religious emotion. The history of these cults is in some
points obscure; though many facts have been collected, the data are not
full and exact enough to furnish a complete explanation of the details
of usage, diffusion, origin, and development.
THE CULT OF THE LIVING
+336+. Savages appear to put no limit to the possible powers of men. In
the absence of any exact knowledge of natural law there is no reason why
a man should not be thought capable of inflicting sickness and death,
bringing rain, securing food, and doing all that relates to human life.
Magicians, prophets, ascetics, and saints are credited with such powers
in early and later times. Polynesian chiefs are supposed to be imbued
with a sacredness that makes contact with them dangerous, and everything
that they touch becomes thereby taboo to the ordinary man; the same sort
of sacredness clung to the Roman flamen dialis, to the emperor of Japan,
and to many other high officials. This reverence, however, is simply
fear of the mysterious, and does not, in itself, reach the height of
worship, though it prepares the way for it and may sometimes be scarcely
distinguishable from worship proper. The magician is the mouthpiece of a
god, and in popular belief is often invested with power that is
practically divine.
+337+. Many cases, in fact, are reported in which living men are
worshiped as gods; but such reports are often open to doubt and need
confirmation. Travelers and other observers are not always in position
to state the facts precisely; particularly they do not always
distinguish between awe and religious worship, and the statements of
savages on this point are often vague. Frazer has collected a
considerable number of examples of alleged worship of living men.[623]
One of these, that of the dairyman (_palol_) of the Todas of Southern
India, is not supported by the latest observer, who says that the palol
is highly respected but not worshiped.[624] An apparently clear case of
worship is the Panjab god Nikkal Sen, said to be General Nicholson;[625]
and it is not improbable that in other cases mentioned by Frazer
(Marquesas Islands, Raiatea, Samoa, Fiji) actual deification takes
place.
+338+. Among many more-advanced communities divinity has been ascribed
to living monarchs: to the kings of ancient Egypt; to many early
Babylonian kings; to the emperor of China; to some of the Ptolemies and
Seleucids; to certain Roman emperors; to the kings of Mexico and Peru;
and in more modern times to the emperor of Japan. Whether such titles
involve a real ascription of divinity, or are only an assertion of
kinship with the gods, or express nothing more than the adulation of
courtiers, it may not be easy always to determine; probably all these
conceptions have existed at various times. The conception that men are
akin to gods, that there is no difference of nature between the two
classes, is an old one, and the ascription of divinity to a king might
involve, in earlier stages of civilization or even in relatively
advanced stages, no break in the order of things. The custom once
established, it might continue to be observed, long accepted seriously
by the mass of the people, but coming gradually to be regarded by the
educated classes as a mere form.
+339+. The development of the custom appears most plainly in
_Egypt_.[626] The identification of the king with Horus (apparently the
ancient patron deity of Egypt) runs through the history down to the
Persian conquest: he is called "Horus" or "Golden Horus," and sometimes
(as, for example, Mentuhotep IV) "heir of Horus," or is said to sit on
the throne of Horus, and has a "Horus name," the affirmation of his
divine character; even the monotheistic reformer Amenhotep IV is called
"Golden Horus." At the same time he is styled the "son" of this or that
deity--Re, Min, Amon, Amon-Re, Osiris--according to the particular
patron adopted by him; the liberal interpretation of such filial
relation is illustrated by the title "son of the gods of the Northland"
given to one monarch. The king is "the good god"; at death he flies to
heaven (so, for instance, Totmose III, of the eighteenth dynasty).
+340+. The official honorific character of divine titles appears as
early as the fifteenth century, when Queen Hatshepsut is officially
declared to be the daughter of Amon. By such an official procedure
Alexander, though not akin to any Egyptian royal house, was declared to
be the son of Amon; Ptolemy Philadelphus became the son of the sun-god,
and his wife Arsinoë was made a goddess by a solemn ceremony. Possibly
the recognition of the divine title, in educated Egyptian circles, as a
conventional form began at a relatively early time--the easy way in
which a man was made a god may have been felt in such circles to be
incompatible with real divinity. Nevertheless the cult of the divinized
king was practiced seriously. In some cases the living monarch had his
temple and retinue of priests, and divine honors were paid him.[627]
+341+. The case was different in the _Semitic treatment of kings_ styled
divine. The custom of so regarding them is found only in early
Babylonia. The evidence that they were held to be divine consists in the
fact that the determinative for divinity (Sumerian _dingir_, Semitic
_an_) is prefixed to their names in the inscriptions.[628] It appears
that the determinative occurs at times during a period of about a
thousand years (ca. 3000-2000 B.C.--the chronology is uncertain), and is
then dropped. The data do not explain the reasons for this change of
custom; a natural suggestion is that there came a time when the
conception of the deity forbade an ascription of divinity to human
beings. However this may be, the nominal divinization of kings seems not
to have had any effect on the cultus. As far as the known evidence goes,
the king seems never to have been approached with divine worship.[629]
+342+. It may be doubted whether the Babylonian usage can properly be
called Semitic. As such a custom is found nowhere else in the Semitic
area, and as the early Babylonian Semites borrowed much from the
non-Semitic Sumerians (they borrowed their system of writing and some
literary material), it is conceivable that they adopted this practice
from them. There is, to be sure, no proof, except from the inscriptions,
that the practice was Sumerian; but, as it is found in some Asiatic
non-Semitic lands,[630] there is the possibility that it existed among
the Sumerians, of whose history, however, we unfortunately know little.
It is to be noted that the cessation of the practice appears to be
synchronous with the establishment of the first great Semitic dynasty at
Babylon.
+343+. No ascription of divinity to men is found among the _Hebrews_.
The Elohim-beings (called "sons of God" in the English translation of
the Bible) are gods. The code forbids men to curse God (not
"judges")[631]--judges are not called "gods." There is nothing going to
show that the old Hebrew kings were looked on as divine. Frazer's
hypothesis that the king was identified with the God Adonis[632] is not
supported by the statements of the Old Testament; the title 'my lord'
(_adoni_) given him is simply the ordinary expression of respect and
courtesy. He is "the anointed of Yahweh," as many ancient official
persons (kings and priests) were inducted into office by the pouring of
oil on their heads, but, as a mouthpiece and representative of the
deity, he is inferior to the prophet; at best, flattery, such as that of
the woman of Tekoa, might liken him to an angel.[633] The epithet _el
gibbor_ (English Bible, "mighty God"), applied to a Jewish prince, must
probably be rendered 'mighty hero.'[634] The title 'gods' has been
supposed to be given to men (judges) a couple of times in the
Psalter,[635] but the reference there seems to be to Greek deities
regarded as acting as judges.
+344+. The ascription of divinity to human beings is lacking in
_Arabia_ also and among Semitic Moslems generally. The Ismailic and
Babist dogmas of the incarnation of God in certain men are of Aryan
(Indian) origin.
+345+. The _Chinese_ conception of the all-pervading and absolute power
of the Universe naturally invests the emperor with divinity.[636] All
human beings are supposed to possess some portion of the divine essence,
but he alone, as head and representative of the nation, possesses it in
full measure. He is theoretically perfect in thought, word, and deed,
and is entitled not only to the reverence and obedience of his subjects,
but also to their religious homage. Larger acquaintance with other
peoples has doubtless led educated Chinese to regard him as only one
among several great kings in the world, but for the people at large he
is still practically a god. Other living men also are worshiped as
divine.
+346+. The _Japanese_ formal divinization of the emperor appears to have
begun with the establishment of the monarchy (in the sixth or seventh
century of our era), but, like the Chinese, goes back to the crude
conception of early times. It has been generally accepted seriously by
the people, but has not received philosophical formulation. It is now
practically given up by the educated classes, and will probably soon
vanish completely.[637]
+347+. Among the _Greeks_ and the _Romans_ the belief in the divinity of
living men and women was of a vague character. In Homer the epithet
_dios_ when applied to human beings (individuals or peoples) means
little more, if any more, than 'of exalted character' (except in the
case of mythical heroes, like Achilles, who were of actual divine
parentage). At a later time such divinization was sometimes treated
jestingly. If Plutarch may be accepted as authority,[638] Alexander did
not take his own godhead seriously, did not believe in it, but allowed
it merely for its effect on others. It was little more than a farce
when the Syrian-Greek Antiochus II, for services rendered to a city, was
called "Theos" by the grateful citizens;[639] it was the baldest
flattery when Herod's oration[640] was greeted by a tumultuous assembly
as the "voice of a god." Augustus, though he allowed temples and altars
to be consecrated to him in the provinces, did not permit it in Rome,
being, apparently, ashamed of such procedures.[641] The most infamous of
the early emperors, Caligula, received divine honors in his lifetime by
his own decree.[642] Apart from these particular cases, however, the
general conception of the possibility of a man's being divine had a
notable effect on the religious development in the Roman Empire.[643]
The custom, for example, of burning incense before the Emperor's statue
(which faithful Christians refused to do), while it strengthened the
idea of the presence of the divine in human life, doubtless debased it.
+348+. Deification of living men is not found in the great national
religions of _India_ and _Persia_. Mazdaism, like Hebraism, kept the
human distinctly apart from the divine: Ahura Mazda is virtually
absolute, and Zoroaster and the succeeding prophets, including the
savior Çaoshyanç, are men chosen and appointed by him.[644] Vedism
developed the nature-gods, and in Brahmanism the goal of the worshiper
was union with the divine, but not independent divinity; the muni by
ascetic observances might attain a power equal or superior to that of
the gods and feared by them,[645] but he remained (like the old
magician) a powerful man and did not receive divine worship.[646] In
recent times the followers of the Brahma-Samaj leader Sen are said to
have worshiped him as a god[647]--apparently an isolated phenomenon, the
origin of which is not clear. Buddha was purely human to himself and
his contemporaries. The ascription of divinity to the Tibetan Grand
Lamas is a product of the transformation of Buddhism under the influence
of a crude non-Aryan population that retained the old conception of the
essential identity of nature of men and gods.
+349+. When chiefs and kings are divinized, offerings are usually made
to them as to other gods; their cult becomes a part of the polytheistic
system. But it is rare that they displace the old local deities or equal
them in influence. Their worship passes with the passing of polytheism.
THE CULT OF THE DEAD
+350+. In the history of religion the veneration of the dead, as is
remarked above, is more widely diffused and more effective than that of
the living. We may distinguish between the cult of known historical
persons after death (which is closely related to that of living men),
the deification of mythical ancestors, and the worship of ghosts.
+351+. _Historical persons._ In simple communities commanding
personalities that have impressed the imagination of the people by
proofs of power and by conferring benefits on communities may not
unnaturally receive divine honors after death. Lyall reports a case of
this sort in recent times: the French officer Raymond in Hyderabad is
said to have been worshiped as a god.[648] Other cases are reported as
occuring in Samoa and in India.[649] Rivers mentions traditions among
the Todas of Southern India which, he thinks, may vouch for the worship
of gods who were originally men, but implicit reliance cannot be placed
on such traditions.[650] Two apparently definite instances of
deification are given by Ellis,[651] both of cruel kings (one dethroned
in 1818), to whom temples with complete rituals are dedicated; but the
deification in one of these cases (and probably in the other) was a
deliberate act of political leaders, and not a product of spontaneous
popular feeling. Two other local gods mentioned by Ellis were, according
to the tradition, two men who began the trade that made Whydah the chief
port of the west coast of Africa; but here also the tradition is not
perfectly trustworthy.
+352+. Egyptian kings were regularly deified after death, being
identified with Osiris; their cult, though not equal in sanctity to that
of the gods proper, was still prominent and important.[652] It is
probably to be regarded as a revision and magnification of the cult of
the dead kin, combined with the desire to honor great representative
men. No such custom is known to have existed among Semitic peoples, by
whom a sharp distinction was made between the divine and the human. In
India it was chiefly the ascetic sages that were religiously eminent,
and in the prevailing pantheistic system these (as is remarked above),
absorbing the divine essence, sometimes became as powerful as gods, but
passed after death into the cosmic All, and remained human. The Mazdean
faith, like the Israelite, made it impossible to accept a deceased man
as a god.
+353+. Examples of the occasional divinization of deceased men in the
Hellenic world are given below.[653] In Rome the custom arose at a
comparatively late period, and it was the work not of spontaneous Roman
thought but of political philosophy.[654] The deification of the Roman
emperors after death had its ground in the reconstruction of Roman life
undertaken by Augustus. He recognized a principle of unification in the
resuscitation of the old national religion, in which the people
believed, whether he himself did or not. Religion in Rome was largely an
affair of the state; the leaders of the public religion were great state
officials. Augustus was made pontifex maximus, and it was only one step
farther to elevate the chief magistrate to the rank of a god. The good
sense of the time generally forbade the bestowment of this honor during
the imperator's lifetime, but an apotheosis was in accord with the
veneration paid to the manes and with the exalted position of the
Emperor as absolute lord of the Western world.[655] Popular feeling
appears to have accepted this divinization without question and in
sincerity; educated circles accepted it as an act of political policy.
The elevation of Julius Cæsar and Augustus to the rank of gods
established the rule, and deceased emperors received divine honors up to
the triumph of Christianity.[656]
+354+. In China, Confucius was deified as the special exponent of the
state religion and the authoritative teacher of the principles of social
and political life. His religious cult is practiced by the government
(officially) and by the masses of the people; how far it is sincerely
accepted by the educated classes is uncertain. In China and in Japan the
gods of war are said to be historical persons deified.
+355+. The divinization of the Calif Ali by some Shiah sects was the
product of religious fanaticism under the guidance of Aryan conceptions
of the incarnation of the divine.[657]
+356+. _Mythical ancestors._ Mythical ancestors are usually eponymous;
the tendency in all ancient peoples was to refer their names and origins
to single persons. Such an eponym was the product of imagination, a
genealogical myth (Hellen, Ion, Dorus, Jacob, Israel), and was revered,
but was not always the object of a religious cult; such cults do not
appear among the Semites[658] or in the native Roman rites. Nor does the
custom seem to have originated in the earliest periods; it was rather a
creation of quasi-scientific reflection, the demand for definite
historical organization, and it appears first in relatively late
literary monuments.[659]
+357+. Still later arose the worship of these ancestral founders. In
Greece shrines were erected by various cities to their supposed
founders, and where, as in Athens, the tribes had their eponyms, these
received divine worship, though they never attained equal rank with the
gods proper. From Greece this cult was brought into Italy. It was
probably under Greek influence, and at a relatively late time, that
Romulus was created, made the immediate founder of Rome, and took his
place among the objects of worship;[660] on the other hand, Æneas (a
Greek importation), though he was accepted as original founder, never
received divine worship, doubtless because Romulus (nearer in name to
the city Roma) already held the position of divine patron. The cult of
eponyms tended naturally to coalesce with that of divine
'heroes'[661]--the two figures were alike in character, differing mainly
in function, and eponyms were styled 'heroes.'[662]
+358+. The inverse process, the reduction of divine beings to simple
human proportions, has gone on in early cults and in early attempts at
historical construction to a not inconsiderable degree. Thus, to take a
relatively late example, by Saxo Grammaticus and in the Heimskringla
(both of the thirteenth century) the god Odin is made into a human king
and the history of his exploits is given in detail.[663] It is, however,
especially in the treatment of the old divine heroes, originally true
gods, that the process of dedivinization appears. These figures, because
of their local character and for other reasons, entered into peculiarly
close relations with human societies, of which they thus tended to
become constituent parts, and the same feeling that gave the gods human
shapes converted the heroes into mere men, who are generally
reconstructers of society. Examples of this sort of anthropomorphizing
are found in myths all over the world: the Babylonian Gilgamesh; the
"mighty men" of Genesis vi, 4, originally demigods, the progeny of human
mothers and of the Elohim-beings (the Benë Elohim, 'sons of the gods,'
members, that is, of the divine circle); Heracles and Hercules; the
Scandinavian (apparently general Teutonic) Valkyrs, Nornas, and
Swan-maidens.[664]
+359+. The Sicilian Euhemeros (of the latter part of the fourth century
B.C.), after extensive travels to great places of worship, formulated
the theory that all the gods were deified men. Some grounds for his
theory he doubtless had, for, according to ancient opinion, gods might
and did die, and their places of burial were sometimes pointed out (the
grave of Zeus, for instance, in Crete). How far this view had been held
before the time of Euhemeros is uncertain, but he gave it vogue, and it
is called, after him, Euhemerism.[665] In recent times it has been
revived in part by Herbert Spencer and Allen, who derive all gods from
ghosts.[666] Similar to it is the rationalizing of myths, which has met
with favor at various times.
+360+. _The dead kin._ Apart from the special cases mentioned above, the
dead have been the objects of particular care in all parts of the world.
Some of the observances connected with them might perhaps, in themselves
considered, be ascribed to natural affection. It cannot be denied that
savages have some love of kindred, and this feeling, in conjunction with
the ideas concerning the future state, might lead the survivors to do
such things as it was believed would secure the comfort of the
deceased--decent burial in accordance with tribal customs, and provision
of food and attendants and other necessaries. But, while the existence
and influence of natural human kindliness need not be denied,
observation of savage life favors the conclusion that the greater part
of the early usages connected with the dead have their origin in the
desire to conciliate them, to avert their displeasure and gain their
aid, and thus come to constitute a cult of the dead that runs through
all phases of civilization.[667]
+361+. Such usages must be very ancient, for they are found in the
lowest tribes, and appear to be based on the earliest known conceptions
of the nature of departed souls.[668] These latter are held to have all
the ordinary affections of the living, but to be endowed with
extraordinary powers: they have their likes and dislikes, their
kindliness, jealousy, anger, revengefulness, all on the lower moral
grade of undeveloped life; they are, in many regards, not subject to the
ordinary limitations of the living--they are invisible, move swiftly
from place to place through obstacles impervious to the living, enter
their bodies, produce sickness and death, aid or destroy crops. On the
other hand, they need food and other necessities of ordinary life, and
for these things are dependent on the living. Hence the desirableness of
securing their good will by showing them respect and supplying their
needs, or else of somehow getting rid of them.
+362+. There are, then, two sorts of ghosts, or, more precisely, two
sorts of ghostly activity--the friendly and the unfriendly--and
corresponding to these are the emotions of love and fear which they call
forth. On account of paucity of data it is difficult to say which of
these emotions is the commoner among savages; probably the feeling is a
mixed one, compounded of fear and friendliness.[669] In general it is
evident that with the better organization of family life a gentler
feeling for the dead was called forth; but it is probable that in the
least-developed communities fear of the mysterious departed was the
prevailing emotion.
+363+. Though the accessible evidence does not enable us to determine
with certainty the motives of all savage customs connected with the
dead, there are some distinctions that may be made with fair
probability. To supply the dead with food and cooking-utensils may very
well be, as is remarked above, the impulse of affection, and even where
slaves and wives are slain that their ghosts may minister to the ghost
of the master and husband, this may not go beyond pious solicitude for
the comfort of the deceased. But the mourning-usages common with savages
are too violent to be merely the expression of love; the loud cries and
the wounding of the person are meant more probably to assure the
deceased of the high regard in which he is held;[670] in some cases, as
among the Central Australians, men gash themselves so severely as to
come near producing death.[671] These excessive demonstrations are
softened as general culture increases, and finally dwindle to an
apparatus of hired mourners. A similar explanation holds of the
restriction of food, the seclusion of the widow or the widower, and the
rule against mentioning the name of the deceased: abstinence and silence
are marks of respect.
+364+. Funeral feasts also testify respect:[672] they appear to be
extensions of the practice of providing food for the dead, feasts in
which the mourners, from motives of thriftiness, take part; the ghost
consumes only the invisible soul of the food, and it is proper that what
is left should furnish refreshment for the living.[673] The funeral
festivities are sometimes protracted, and become occasions of enjoyment
to the circle of kinsfolk, in some cases at a ruinous expense to the
family of the deceased, as is true now sometimes of Irish and other
wakes. The honor of the family is involved, and this fact, together with
the natural desire for pleasure, has contributed to the development of
the custom in savage as well as in civilized life. In general the
solemnity of the various ceremonies and other usages testifies to a
profound conviction of the necessity of keeping on good terms with the
dead.[674]
+365+. The reports of savage customs show a certain number of cases in
which the benevolent and the malevolent activities of the dead are
equally prominent: so, for example, among the Australian Kurnai,[675]
the New Zealanders,[676] the Melanesian peoples,[677] the Vezimbas of
Madagascar,[678] the Zulus,[679] the E[´w]e-speaking tribes on the west
coast of Africa.[680] It is probable that the list might be greatly
extended by exact observation. When we find two peoples, dwelling near
together and of the same grade of general culture, credited the one with
fear, the other with friendly feeling toward the dead, it seems likely
that different sets of usages have met the eyes of the observers; a
certain amount of accident must color such reports.
+366+. It is natural to suppose that fear of ghosts is commoner among
less-developed peoples, kindly feeling more usual in higher communities;
and when civilized peoples are taken into account this sort of
progression is obvious. But the reports of savages show such a mixture
of customs that it is difficult to see any line of progress. Dread of
ghosts is certified in Central Australia and North Queensland, in Tonga
(Polynesia), Central Africa, Central Asia, among the North American
Chippewas, Navahos, and Southwest Oregon Indians, and the South American
Araucanians; friendly feeling is found in Tasmania, Western Africa,
South Africa, California, and among the Iroquois and the Zuñi
Indians.[681] In such lists there is no clear sign of a division
according to general culture.
+367+. Friendly relations with the dead do not in themselves necessarily
involve worship, but a more or less definite _cult of ghosts_ is found
in various parts of the world. They are, or were, regarded as tutelary
spirits in Tasmania, Ashanti, and Dahomi (where shrines are dedicated to
them), and by the Zuñi Indians; prayers are addressed to them in Samoa
and the Hawaiian Islands (where there is a definite family worship), in
Yoruba, by the Banyas and the Zulus, by the Ossetes, the Veddahs of
Ceylon, and the North American Dakotas; offerings are made to
them--sometimes to influential persons, chiefs, and others, as in the
Gilbert Islands, in parts of Melanesia, in Borneo, and by the
Cakchiquels of Central America--sometimes to all the dead, as in the
Solomon Islands, the New Hebrides, Fiji, Torres Straits, and by the
Zulus, the Veddahs of Ceylon, the Kolarians of Bengal, and the
Ossetes.[682]
+368+. These lists include peoples of very different grades of culture;
the inference suggested is that the cult of the dead is of very early
origin--its basis is the same among all communities that practice it,
though the particular ceremonies of worship vary.
+369+. Besides forms of actual worship there are several usages that
involve religious veneration of the dead. Graves are regarded as asylums
by the Kafirs (graves of chiefs)[683] and in Tonga.[684] The Bedawin of
Arabia held (in pre-Islamic times), and still hold, graves sacred;[685]
they sometimes become shrines, and oaths are sworn by them. The custom
of swearing by the dead is widespread. In their character of powerful
spirits they are agents in processes of magic and divination. Parts of
dead bodies are used as charms. The skull especially is revered as an
oracle.[686]
+370+. Among the lower tribes, savage and half-civilized, it is chiefly
those who have died recently that are worshiped. A Zulu explained to
Callaway that his people forgot those who died long ago--they were
supposed to be not helpful--and hope of gain has always been the basis
of worship. Among the Kafirs of the Hindu Kush it is the custom to erect
an effigy to the memory of every adult one year after his decease.
Women, as well as men, are thus honored, and may be put on an equality
with men by being given a throne to sit on. No worship is offered to
these images, but it is believed that their presence brings prosperity;
bad weather is ascribed to their removal. There are solemn dances in
honor of the illustrious dead and sacrifices are offered to them.[687]
+371+. The worship of the dead in the great civilized communities,
though more elaborate and refined than the savage cult, is in substance
identical with it. The Egyptians provided the departed soul with food
and honored the dead man with laudatory notices of his earthly life; the
royal ancestor of a king, it was believed, might act as mediator between
him and the gods.[688] The Babylonians, while they lamented the
departure of men to the gloomy existence in the Underworld, recognized
the quasi-divine power of the dead and addressed prayer to them.[689]
The Hebrews offered food to the dead, had funeral feasts, and consulted
ghosts who were regarded as divine.[690] The Hindu "fathers," though
kept distinct from the gods, were yet conceived of as possessing godlike
powers and were worshiped as gods.[691] The Persian "forefathers"
(_fravashis_), particularly the manes of eminent pious men, were held to
be bestowers of all the blessings of life; offerings were made and
prayers addressed to them.[692]
+372+. Early notices of a cult of the dead among the Greeks are scanty.
There was the usual kindly provision of food, arms, and other
necessaries for them.[693] Odysseus in Hades pours out a libation
(honey, wine, water, to which meal is added) to all the dead, addresses
vows and prayers to them, and promises to offer to them a barren heifer
on his return to Ithaca, and a black sheep separately to Teiresias.[694]
From the sixth century onward the references in the literature show that
the worship of the dead (including children) was then general (and of
course it must have begun much earlier). The offerings made to them were
both vegetable and animal; the sacrificed animal was slaughtered in the
same way as in the sacrifices to chthonic deities--the dead were, in
fact, regarded as underground deities.[695] The flesh of the animals
offered was not eaten by the worshipers.
+373+. Among the dead thus honored is to be included one class of
heroes. A Greek "hero" was sometimes an eminent man, sometimes such a
man divinized, sometimes an old god reduced to human dimensions,
reckoned in some cases to belong to the circle of the gods proper.[696]
Such personages might be worshiped as gods, with the sacrifices
appropriate to the gods, or as departed men, with the sacrifices that
custom fixed for the dead. The hero-cult included many men of note
recently deceased, like Brasidas and those that fell at Marathon.[697]
+374+. The cults just mentioned dealt with the departed as friendly
souls, the protectors of the family, the clan, or the state. The state
cult of the dead was elaborate and solemn. The Greek citizen was
surrounded by a host of the eminent dead who kept him in touch with the
past and offered him ideals of life.[698] Another attitude toward the
dead is indicated by the great apotropaic spring festival, the
Anthesteria of Athens, the object of which was to rid the city of the
ghosts that then wandered about.[699] This double attitude is precisely
that of the savage tribes referred to above. The same difference of
feeling appears in the Roman cults: the _manes_ are the friendly or
doubtful souls of dead ancestors; the Parentalia is a festival in honor
of the dead kin; in the Lemuria, on the other hand, the father of the
family performs a ceremony at midnight intended to rid the house of
ghosts.[700]
+375+. Among modern peoples it is the Chinese that have organized the
worship of the dead in the completest way; it is for them the most
important part of the popular religion.[701] Similar veneration of
ancestors exists in Japan.[702]
+376+. The venerated dead stood apart, as a rule, from the
nature-spirits and the gods, but these different classes sometimes
coalesced, as has been remarked above, in popular usage. The powers and
functions of the dead were not essentially different from those of the
divinities proper, particularly in the simpler stages of society. They
were able to bestow all the blessings and to inflict all the misfortunes
of life. In process of time the advance of knowledge relegated them to a
subordinate place, but they long retained a considerable importance as
friends of families and states, as disseminators of disease, and as
predictors of human fortunes.
+377+. In the exercise of these functions they were often not to be
distinguished from the higher and lower deities. King Saul, on the eve
of a great battle, having failed to get an answer from the national
deity by the ordinary legitimate methods, had recourse to necromancy and
obtained from the ghost of Samuel the information that Yahweh had
refused to give.[703] The Greek _k[=e]res_ and the wandering ghosts of
West Africa do exactly what is ascribed to the malefic spirits of
Babylonia.[704] Examples of such identity of function between the
various superhuman Powers are found all over the world.
+378+. This fact does not show that these Powers have the same origin.
The savage accepts agents in human life wherever he can find them--in
beings inhabiting mountains, rocks, trees, caves, springs, and in the
souls of departed men. Doubtless he thinks of the forms of these various
actors as being all of the same sort, a sublimated manlike body; but he
keeps them in different categories, and in the course of time the
tendency is for ghosts and spirits to sink out of sight and for the gods
to absorb all extrahuman activities.
+379+. The ethical power of the cults so far discussed resides in the
human association to which they give rise and the sanctions they supply
to conduct. Of these two effects the former is the more important. The
moral character of a ghost or spirit or deity never rises above that of
its circle of worshipers: its approval or disapproval is the echo of
current usage, and has special efficiency only in the accompanying power
of reward or punishment; it appeals to the hopes and fears of men. This
police function is doubtless valuable in restraining from crime and
inciting to good conduct, but it has no regenerative power. The
enlargement of human association, on the other hand, increases sympathy
and coöperation among men, and paves the way to the cultivation of the
mutual respect and regard which is the basis of social virtue.
+380+. Among the lower cults ancestor-worship may be expected to take
the highest place, for the reason that it tends to strengthen family
unity and the solidarity of the clan, tribe, or nation; all such
knitting together of men makes for the increase of honesty and
kindliness. The data are lacking, however, for the determination of this
point. It may be said in general that the attitude toward the dead
becomes finer with advance in civilization; but before a specific moral
power in ancestor-worship can be proved, it will be necessary to have
exact details of moral ideas and conduct in all the lower tribes,
together with some information regarding the attitude of individuals
toward questions of conduct, and the motives that impel toward this or
that action. The question of ethical growth in society is a complicated
one, and the most that can be said for any element of social
constitution is that it tends to strengthen or weaken the individual's
confidence in and regard for his fellows.
+381+. The part played in religious history by the worship of the dead
is so important that some writers have derived all religion from
it.[705] This view is now generally rejected for the reason that it does
not accord with known facts; it is only by forced (though often
ingenious) interpretations that a plausible case is made out for it. To
reply in detail to the arguments advanced in its favor would be to go
over the whole ground of the origin of religious observances; the answer
is furnished by setting forth the nature of the various cults, as is
attempted in this and following chapters. If, for example, there is
reason to believe that savages have always regarded the lower animals as
powerful beings, there is no need, in accounting for the veneration
given them, to resort to the roundabout way of assuming a
misinterpretation of names of men derived from beasts.
+382+. Between Euhemerism and the theory that explains myths as a
"disease of language" there is little or no essential difference of
principle. Both theories assume that man, having devised certain
epithets, later came to misunderstand them and to build up histories on
the misunderstanding. Both thus rest the immense mass of human religious
customs and beliefs, which form so large a part of human history, on the
precarious foundation of passing fancy and inadvertence, and they must
be put into the same category with the naïve theory, once popular, that
religion is the invention of priests who sought to control men through
their fears.
+383+. Ancestor-worship is the feeling of kinship with the dead,
invested by religion with peculiar intensity and solemnity. It has been
one of the great constructive forces of society.
CULTS OF GENERATIVE POWERS
+384+. The origin of religion is not to be referred exclusively to any
one order of ideas; it springs out of man's total life. All objects and
processes have been included in men's construction of nature, and the
processes, when they have been held to bear on human well-being, have
been ascribed to a force inherent in things or to the activity of
supernatural beings.
+385+. The study of processes has gone hand in hand with the creation of
divine beings who are supposed to manifest themselves in the processes.
The great spectacle of nature's productivity has been especially
recognizable in the vegetable world and in the world of man; in both of
these life has been perpetually unfolding itself under men's eyes as a
mysterious process, which, by virtue of its mysteriousness, has become
religious material and has entered into systems of religious worship.
+386+. The relation of vegetable life to religious cults is referred to
elsewhere,[706] and a brief survey may now be given of usages and ideas
that have been connected with the production of human life.
+387+. It is obvious that not all customs that include the function of
generation are of the nature of religious observances. The promiscuity
that obtains in many savage communities before marriage is a naïve
unreflective animal procedure. Exchange of wives (as in Central
Australia) and the offering of a wife to a guest are matters of social
etiquette. Festivals in which sexual license is the rule are generally
merely the expression of natural impulses. Holidays, being times of
amusement, are occasions used by the people for the satisfaction of all
appetites: there is eating and drinking, buffoonery, disregard of
current conventions, unbounded liberty to do whatever exuberant
animalism prompts. Such festivities abound among existing savages,[707]
were not uncommon in ancient civilized times,[708] and have survived in
diminished form to the present day.[709] In the course of time they
often become attached to the worship of gods, are organized, explained
by myths, and sanctified. In such cases of coalescence we must
distinguish between the true worship offered to a divine being, and the
observances, generally originating in desire for animal amusement and
enjoyment, that have been attached to them.
+388+. _Cult of generative organs._ Men's attention must have been
directed very early to those organs that were believed to be connected
with the genesis of human life. At what stage this belief arose it is
hardly possible to say; there are peoples among whom it seems not to
exist;[710] but it is found over a great part of the world, and was
doubtless an outcome of popular observation.[711] As it was intimately
connected with life it passed naturally into the domain of religion, and
in process of time became a more or less prominent part of religious
observances; the organs in question, both male and female, became
objects of religious devotion.
+389+. Here again it must be noted that not all usages connected with
the organs of generation were religious of origin. It is pointed out
above[712] that the origin of circumcision and excision is to be sought
in another direction. Ithyphallic images are sometimes merely attempts
at realism in art; a nude figure (as in modern art) must be represented
in its full proportions. Such seems to be the nature of certain images
among the Western Bantu,[713] and this may have been the case with the
images of the Egyptian Khem and Osiris and similar deities. In general
this sort of representation in savage and ancient civilized communities
is often either simple realism or indecency. Folk-stories abound in
details that sound indecent to modern ears, but were for the authors
often merely copies of current usages.
+390+. All important members of the human body have been regarded as to
a greater or less extent sacred, their importance depending on their
subservience to man's needs. The head of an enemy gives the slayer
wisdom and strength; an oath sworn by the head or beard of one's father
is peculiarly binding; the heart, when eaten, imparts power; a solemn
oath may be sworn by the sexual organs. In no case does the sacredness
of an object necessarily involve its worship; whether or not it shall
receive a true cult depends on general social considerations.
+391+. Though phallic cults proper cannot be shown to be universal among
men, they have played a not inconsiderable part in religious history.
They appear to have passed through the usual grades of
development--simple at first, later more complicated. The attitude of
savages and low communities generally, non-Christian and Christian,
toward the phallus, suggests that in the earliest stage of the cult some
sort of worship was paid the physical object itself considered as a
creator of life; satisfactory data on this point, however, are lacking.
It was at so early a period that it was brought into cultic connection
with supernatural beings that its initial forms escape us.
+392+. It seems not to exist now among the lowest peoples. There are no
definite traces of it in the tribes of Oceania, Central Africa, Central
Asia, and America. The silence of explorers on this point cannot indeed
be taken as proof positive of its nonexistence; yet the absence of
distinct mention of it in a great number of carefully prepared works
leads us to infer that it does not play an important part in the
religious systems therein described.[714] It seems to require, for its
establishment, a fairly well-developed social and political
organization. Some of the tribes named above have departmental deities,
mostly of a simple sort, but apparently it has not occurred to them to
isolate this particular function, which they probably regarded as a
familiar part of the order of things and not needing special mention.
The gift of children was in the hands of the local god, a generally
recognized part of his duty as patron of the tribe, and all sexual
matters naturally might be referred to him. Also, as is remarked above,
in certain tribes there was no knowledge of the connection between the
birth of children and the union of the sexes,[715] and such tribes would
of course ascribe no creative power to the phallus.
+393+. The best example of a half-civilized phallic cult is that which
is now practiced in Yoruba and Dahomi, countries with definite
government and institutions. The cult is attached to the worship of a
deity (Elegba or Legba), who appears to be a patron of fertility; the
phallus occupies a prominent place on his temples, and its worship is
accompanied by the usual licentious rites.[716] These are expressions of
popular appetite, and it does not appear that the cult itself is
otherwise religiously significant.
+394+. In modern India the Çivaite phallicism is pronounced and
important. The linga is treated as a divine power, and, as producer of
fertility, is especially the object of devotion of women;[717] though
Çivaism has its rites of unbridled bestialism, the worship of the linga
by women is often free from impurity; it is practically worship of a
deity of fertility. The origin of the Indian cult is not clear. As it
does not appear in the earliest literature, it has been supposed to have
come into Aryan worship from non-Aryan tribes. Whatever its origin, it
is now widely observed in Aryan India, and has been adopted by various
outlying tribes.[718]
+395+. While it is, or was, well established in Japan, it apparently has
had no marked influence on the religious thought of the people. Phallic
forms abound[719] in the land, in spite of repressive measures on the
part of the government, but the cult partakes of the general looseness
of the Shinto organization of supernatural Powers. It is said to have
been adopted in some cases by Buddhists. It appears to have been
combined with Shinto at a very early (half-civilized) time, for which,
however, no records exist.
+396+. It is among the great ancient civilized peoples that the most
definite organization of phallic cults is found.
+397+. For Egypt there is the testimony of Herodotus,[720] who describes
a procession of women bearing small phallic images and singing hymns in
honor of a deity whom he calls Dionysos--probably Khem or Osiris or Bes;
such images are mentioned by Plutarch,[721] supposed by him to represent
Osiris. Both Khem and Osiris were great gods, credited with general
creative power, and popular ceremonies of a phallicistic nature might
easily be attached to their cults. Bes, a less important deity, seems to
have been fashioned largely by popular fancy. These ceremonies were
doubtless attended with license,[722] but they probably formed no part
of Egyptian serious worship. The phallus was essential in a realistic
image, but it appears to have been regarded simply as a physical part of
the god or as an emblem of him; there is no evidence that worship was
addressed to it in itself.
+398+. The evidence that has been adduced for a cult of the phallus
among Semitic peoples is of a doubtful nature. No ithyphallic images or
figures of gods have been found. Religious prostitution there was in all
North Semitic lands,[723] but this is a wholly different thing from a
phallicistic cult. It is supposed, however, by not a few scholars that
descriptions and representations of the phallus occur in so many places
as to make some sort of cult of the object probable. In a passage of the
Book of Isaiah, descriptive of a foreign cult practiced, probably, by
some Jews, the phallus, it is held, is named.[724] The passage is
obscure. The nature and origin of the cult referred to are not clear; it
is not elsewhere mentioned. The word (_yad_, usually 'hand') supposed to
mean 'phallus' is not found in this sense elsewhere in the Old Testament
or in later Hebrew literature. But, if the proposed rendering be
adopted, the reference will be not to a cult of the phallus but to
sexual intercourse, a figurative description of idolatry.
+399+. A distinct mention of phalli as connected with religious worship
occurs in Pseudo-Lucian's description of the temple of a certain goddess
at Hierapolis.[725] He gives the name to enormously high structures
standing in the propylæa of the temple, but mentions no details
suggesting a phallic cult. Twice a year, he says, a man ascends one of
them, on the top of which he stays seven days, praying, as some think,
for a blessing on all Syria--a procedure suggesting that the pillar was
simply a structure consecrated to the deity of the place (probably
Atargatis, who is often called "the Syrian goddess")[726]. However, if
there was a phallic cult there (the phallus being regarded as a symbol
of the productive function of the deity), it is not certain that it was
Semitic. Hierapolis had long been an important religious center in a
region in which Asiatic and Greek worships were influential, and foreign
elements might easily have become attached to the worship of a Semitic
deity. The cult of the Asian Great Mother (whom the Greeks identified
with their Leto) had orgiastic elements. Lucian's reference to a custom
of emasculation suggests Asian features at Hierapolis.[727]
+400+. In Babylonia and Palestine stones, held by some to be phalli,
have been found.[728] While the shape of some of these objects and their
occurrence at shrines may be supposed to lend support to this view, its
correctness is open to doubt. There is no documentary evidence as to the
character of the objects in question, and they may be explained
otherwise than as phalli. But, if they are phalli, their presence does
not prove a phallic cult--they may be votive objects, indicating that
the phallus was regarded as in some sort sacred, not that it was
worshiped. Decision of the question may be reserved till more material
has been collected. There is no sufficient ground for regarding the
stone posts that stood by Hebrew shrines as phallic symbols; they are
naturally explained as sacred stones, originally embodying a deity,
later attached to his shrines as traditional objects entitled to
veneration.[729]
+401+. In Asia Minor and the Hellenic communities (both in Ionia and in
Greece proper) the phallicistic material is extensive and complicated. A
symbolic signification appears to have been superimposed on early
realistic anthropomorphic figures that were simply images of
supernatural Powers. In various regions such figures came to be
associated with the generative force of nature in human birth, and the
tendency to specialization assigned these divine beings special
functions; of this nature, probably, were the local Athenian deities
Orthanes, Konisalos, and others.[730] At a later period such functions
were attributed to the well-developed gods of fertility; rituals sprang
up and were explained by myths, and various combinations and
identifications were made between the prominent gods.
+402+. The most interesting figure of this character is Priapos, an
ithyphallic deity of uncertain origin; his special connection was with
Lampsakos, and he may have been an Asian creation. From the variety of
his functions (he was patron of gardens and viticulture, of sailors and
fishermen, and in some places a god of war)[731] it may be surmised that
he was originally a local deity, charged with the care of all human
interests, in an agricultural community the patron of fertility, and at
some time, and under circumstances unknown to us, especially connected
with sexual life. Whatever his origin, his cult spread over Greece, he
was identified with certain Greek deities, licentious popular festivals
naturally attached themselves to his worship, and his name became a
synonym of sexual passion. In the later time the pictorial
representations of him became grossly indecent; his cult was an outlet
for popular and artistic license.[732] On the other hand, in the higher
thought he was made the representative of the production of universal
animal life, and rose to the rank of a great god.[733]
+403+. The Greek deities with whom Priapos was oftenest identified were
Dionysos and Hermes--both gods of fertility. They, as great gods of such
a nature, would naturally absorb lesser phallicistic figures; but they
were specialized in other directions, and Priapos remained as the
distinctest embodiment of phallicistic conceptions. Other such figures,
as Pan, Titans, Sileni, and Satyrs, were beings connected with fields,
woods, and mountains, products of a low form of civilization, to whom
realistic forms and licentious festivals naturally attached themselves.
+404+. Rome had its native ithyphallic deity, Mutunus Tutunus (or
Mutinus), a naïve symbol of generative power.[734] Little is known of
his cult beyond the fact that he figured in marriage ceremonies in a
peculiarly indecent way; by later writers he is sometimes identified
with Priapos.[735] The Romans adopted the cult of Priapos as well as
other phallicistic forms of worship; his original character appears in
his rôle of patron of gardens.
+405+. Phalli as amulets occur in all parts of the world; as symbols
and perhaps as abodes of deities, they have been held potent to ward off
all evils.[736]
+406+. The female organ (_yoni_, _kteis_) appears frequently in figures
of female deities, ordinarily without special significance, religious or
other, except as a sign of sex. In the rare cases in which it is the
object of religious veneration (as in India) it is subordinated to the
phallos[737]--there is little or no evidence for the existence of a
yonistic cult proper.[738] Female deities act as fully formed
anthropomorphic Powers, embodiments of the productive energies of
nature; they are generally treated as persons, without special reference
to bodily parts. The most definite formulation of this conception
appears in Çaktism, the worship of the female principle in nature as
represented by various goddesses, often accompanied, naturally, by
licentious rites.[739]
+407+. _Androgynous deities_ represent attempts to combine in a single
person the two sides of the productive power of nature. Such attempts
are relatively late, implying a considerable degree of reflection and
organization; how early they began we have not the data to determine.
They are not found among savage or half-civilized peoples.
+408+. In Semitic lands no artistic representations of a bisexual deity
are now known, but evidence is adduced to show that this conception
existed in early times. It has been sought in two old Babylonian
inscriptions published by the British Museum.[740] The first of these
(written in Sumerian) reads: "For [or, in honor of] the (divine) king of
countries, the (divine) Nana [Ishtar], the lady Nana, Lugaltarsi, king
of Kish, has constructed," etc. Barton takes the two titles "the divine
Ishtar" (='king of countries,' masculine) and "the lady Ishtar" to refer
to the same deity, in whose person would thus be united male and female
beings. If, however, the king of countries and Ishtar be taken to be two
different deities (as is possible), there is no bisexuality. The second
inscription, which is bilingual, has the expressions "the mother-father
Enlil," "the mother-father Ninlil" (Sumerian), rendered in Semitic "the
father-mother Enlil," "the father-mother Ninlil." These expressions
probably signify not that the two deities are bisexual, but that each of
them fulfills the guarding and nourishing functions of a father and a
mother.
The expression in a hymn to Ishtar that "she has a beard like the god
Ashur" may be satisfactorily explained as an astrological statement, the
meaning of which is that the planet Dilbat (Ishtar, Venus) at certain
times equals the sun (represented by Ashur) in brilliancy, her rays
being likened to a beard.[741] A similar astrological interpretation is
offered by Jastrow of a passage (to which attention was called by
François Lenormant) in which a female Dilbat and a male Dilbat are
spoken of. Other astrological texts indicate that the terms 'male' and
'female' are employed as expressions of greater or less brilliancy.[742]
Lajard's view, that all Babylonian and Assyrian deities were
androgynous, hardly needs discussion now.[743]
+409+. Of a more definite character are expressions in two Phoenician
inscriptions. In an inscription of Eshmunazzar II (probably early in the
fourth century B.C.) the great goddess of Sidon is called "Ashtart
_Shem_ Baal."[744] The word _shem_ means 'name,' and, if it be so
interpreted as to give the goddess the name of a male divinity, she may
be understood to have partly male form. But such change of name is
hardly probable, and this is not necessarily the natural force of the
phrase. In Hebrew to "call one's name on a person or thing" is to assert
ownership in it or close connection with it.[745] In the West Semitic
area some personal names signify simply 'name of such and such a deity,'
as, for example, Shemuel (Samuel), 'name of El,' Shemzebul, 'name of
(the god) Zebul,' denoting devotion or subordination to the deity in
question. "Shem Baal" as a title of Ashtart may then indicate her close
relation with the god, or, perhaps, if the expression be understood more
broadly, her equality with him in power (the name of a deity involves
his attributes)--he was the great god, but she, the expression would
say, is not less mighty than he; or, less probably, _baal_ may be taken
not as proper name but as title, the sense then being that the goddess
is the lord of the city.[746] Another proposal is to read "Ashtart
sham[=e] Baal," 'Ashtart of the heaven [sky] of Baal.'[747] There is a
Phoenician Baal-shamem, 'lord of the sky,' but nowhere else is the sky
described as the abode of a baal, and the transference of the local
city-goddess to that region would be strange; nor in the expression
'Baal-shamem' is Baal a proper name--it is merely a title.
+410+. Another phrase, occurring in many Carthaginian inscriptions,
makes mention of "Tanit face of Baal,"[748] an expression that may point
to a female body with male face. Its indefiniteness--it does not state
the nature of the face (it may point to a beard)--makes it difficult to
draw from it any conclusions as to the character of the deity
named.[749] But the probability is that it is identical in sense with
the one mentioned above. Tanit was the great goddess of Carthage; she is
called "Adon," 'lord,' and her equality with Baal is indicated by the
statement that she had his face, the word 'face' being here equivalent
to 'personality' and 'power.'[750]
+411+. At a later period (early in the fifth century of our era) two
authors, Servius and Macrobius, make definite statements concerning a
bisexual cult, apparently Semitic.[751] Both statements occur in
connection with Vergil's use of the masculine _deus_ (_ducente deo_) as
a title of Venus, in explanation of which the cases of supposed
bisexualism are cited.[752] What is said is that there was in Cyprus a
deity whose image was bearded--a god of virile nature, but dressed as a
woman, and regarded as being both male and female. Further, Philochorus
is quoted to the effect that men sacrificed to her in women's dress and
women in men's dress. This last remark does not necessarily point to an
androgynous deity, for exchange of dress between men and women sometimes
occurs where there is no question of the cult of such a deity.[753] But
the Cyprian deity is said also to have been called [Greek:
Aphroditon] (Aphroditos? or Aphroditon?)[754]--apparently a male
Aphrodite.
+412+. Leaving aside a few other notices that add nothing to our
knowledge of the point under consideration, we should naturally
conclude, if we give any credit to the statements of Servius and
Macrobius, that there was a report in their time of a bisexual deity in
Cyprus. As regards Vergil's "deus," that may be merely a poetical
expression of the eminence and potency of the goddess. But the
assertions of her bisexual character are distinct, even if the "beard"
be discarded. This latter may have come from a misunderstanding of some
appearance on the face of the statue; or, as has been suggested, there
may have been a false beard attached to it permanently or
occasionally,[755] and from this may have sprung the belief in the
twofold nature of the deity. We are not told, however, that such a
nature was ascribed to Aphrodite, or that a beard was attached to her
statue; and, if this was done, it is difficult to suppose that a popular
belief in the bisexuality of a deity could have arisen from such a
procedure. Some better ground for the statements of Servius and
Macrobius there seems to have been, though we do not know their
authorities. In any case it may be concluded that the cult in question,
if it existed, was late, popular, and without marked influence on the
Semitic religious development. No figures or other traces of a bisexual
deity have been discovered in Cyprus or elsewhere (unless the
Carthaginian Tanit be an exception), and all that is otherwise known of
the character and cult of the Babylonian Ishtar, the Phoenician
Ashtart, and the Carthaginian Tanit (=Ashtart) is against the
supposition of bisexuality. Ishtar, originally a deity of fertility,
became, through social growth, a patron of war and statecraft; but there
is no indication that an attempt was ever made to combine these two
characters in one figure.
+413+. The Phrygian figure Agdistis, represented in the myths as
androgynous[756] (the myths being based on cults), is connected with the
worship of the Great Mother, Kybele (the embodiment of the female
productive power of nature), with whom is associated Attis (the
embodiment of the male power).[757] The myths identify Agdistis on the
one hand with Kybele, on the other hand with Attis--he represents in his
own person the combination of the two generative powers. But it is
doubtful whether this was his significance in the actual worship, in
which he hardly appears; he was probably a divine figure of the same
character as Kybele and Attis, worked up by myth-makers and woven into
the larger myth. His self-castration reflects the practice of the
priests and other worshipers of Kybele.[758] Thus culturally he is of
little or no importance.
+414+. There is no evidence that this Phrygian figure was derived from
Semitic sources. A certain similarity between Phrygian and Syrian cults
of gods and goddesses of fertility is obvious, and the social relations
between Asia Minor, Syria, and Cyprus make borrowing in either direction
conceivable. But cults of such deities might grow up independently in
different regions,[759] and the supposition that the Phrygian worship
was native to Asia Minor is favored by the great elaboration of its
ceremonies and by their barbarous character. This character suggests
that the worship may have originated with savage peoples who preceded
the Aryans in the country.[760]
+415+. The most definite androgynous figure is the Greek Hermaphroditos.
It was only in Greece that such a compound name arose, and that the
composite form became established in art. It is not certain when the
Greek form was fixed. If the statement that Aristophanes used the term
"Aphroditos"[761] (or "Aphroditon") is to be relied on, it must be
concluded that the conception existed in Greece prior to the fifth
century, probably in that case as a popular usage that was unorganized
and unimportant, since it is not referred to in the existing literature.
But of this Aristophanes we know nothing, and the vague statements of
Servius and Macrobius may be neglected as being without significance for
the figure in question.
+416+. The name Hermaphroditos is said to occur for the first time in
the fourth or third century B.C.[762] This would indicate a gradual
formulation of the idea, the result being the combination of two divine
forms into a single form. Aphrodite would naturally be chosen for the
female side, and the ithyphallic Hermes is appropriate for the male
side--possibly the Hermes pillar with Aphrodite bust was the earliest
form.[763] The representations of Hermaphrodites show a male body with
female bust; the name Aphroditos would rather suggest a female body with
male additions. Other Greek bisexual figures are forms of Priapos and
Eros.
An historical connection between the Greek and the Phrygian forms is
possible, but is not proved. In India the bisexual form of Çiva, which
seems to be late,[764] connects itself with the licentious character of
his rites. Its historical origin is uncertain.
+417+. It does not appear that the cult of the Greek androgynous deities
entered seriously into the religious life of the people. In late
philosophic circles they were treated merely as symbols of the creative
power of nature, and thus lost their character as persons.
+418+. The starting-point for the development of the hermaphrodite
figure may perhaps be found in two facts, the interchange or change of
sexual characters[765] and the combination of two deities to express a
broader idea than either of them represents. The assumption of female
dress and sexual habits by males, and of male dress and habits by
females, has prevailed over a great part of the world.[766] The
embodiment of this fact in a composite divine form would be not
unnatural at a time when there was a disposition to give expression, in
the person of gods, to all human experiences. Such definite embodiment
is, however, rare in religious history, probably, as is suggested above,
because it involves a large generalization and a more or less distinct
symbolism. The first movement in this direction may have been naïvely
sensuous; later, as is remarked above, the symbolic conception became
predominant.
+419+. The association of certain _animals_ with certain phallic deities
(as the bull with Dionysos, the goat with Pan, the ass with Priapos) is
a part of the general connection between gods and animals, the grounds
of which are in many cases obscure.[767] Pan's rural character may
explain his relation to the goat; the bull, the ass, and many other
animals regarded as sacred, may have been brought into ritual connection
with gods by processes of subordination of divine beasts and through
collocation of cults. There is no evidence to show that the animals
connected with phallic gods were selected on account of their salacious
dispositions or their sexual power.
+420+. Phallicistic cults, attenuated by advance of refinement, survived
long, even into Christian times, under modified forms.[768] In such
cases they become merely devices of ignorant piety. When the aid of a
Christian saint is sought in order to secure fertility, the trust in the
phallus-symbol involves no unworthy desire; and what is true of medieval
European peoples may have been true of ancient peoples. In the ancient
world these cults took many forms, ranging from naïve faith to frank
obscenity on the one hand and philosophic breadth on the other hand.
They take their place as part of the general worship of the forces of
nature, and follow all the variations of human culture.