Austria and has also been accepted by the Czar of Russia. The subject of
this monument in Cappadocia is still considered as under question. There
is no explanation and there are no ancient books that can throw light
upon it. But the composition speaks for itself. We see here the great
goddess meeting the heroic god--whatever names they may have borne.
[Illustration: A LATER ASTARTE.]
[Illustration: A LEADEN IDOL.]
Marduk (or Melkarth or Bel or Baal) is a deity who rises to sovereignty
through his victory over the powers of evil, and the climax of his life
consists
[Illustration: ASTARTE IN CYPRUS.
From Ohnefalsch-Richter, _Kypros_.]
in his marriage. Can this great sculpture refer to any other topic than
the festive occasion of the victorious god’s marriage ceremonial when he
meets the great bridal goddess?[29]
The name Istar has been traced also in the Phenician word _Astarte_. The
goddess was held in high esteem in Phenicia and was regarded also as the
patroness of navigation. Coins represent her standing on the prow of a
ship, and, strange to say, very frequently she carries a Latin cross in
her arms. Beside the cross her emblems are also the moon and the
swastika, and the latter is frequently found on her dress, and in one
very archaic leaden figurine discovered by Schliemann in the ruins of
Troy, the swastika is placed on her body to indicate the mysterious
power of procreation. The idol was apparently intended to be carried in
the hand, for its lower part ends in a shapeless stick.
[Illustration: THE GODDESS OF NAVIGATION.
Sidonian coins reproduced from Calmet No. 6.]
From the excavations of Cyprus we reproduce
[Illustration: SARGENT’S ASTARTE.
Reproduction with the permission of Curtis and Cameron. Altered from
their copyright photograph.]
[Illustration: THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION.
By Murillo.]
the picture of a well-preserved statue of Astarte which must have been
the recipient of offerings before an altar in some of the ancient
temples (p. 106).
A beautiful modern picture of Astarte has been worked out by Sargent in
his frescoes on the walls of the Boston Public Library, and we can see
on this very picture her similarity to Murillo’s ideal of Mary in his
many paintings of the “Immaculate Conception.”
* * * * *
There is a counterpart of the western _Magna Dea_ in eastern Asia, but
we no longer know it in its primitive form and have it only as it is
represented in art in the shape of a Buddhist deity, a kind of female
Buddha, called in China Kwan-Yon and in Japan, Benten. Here again in
some cases we find that the fish is her symbol as it is that of the
Syrian goddess, and she frequently presents a remarkable similarity to
the Christian Virgin Mary. She is never pictured naked like the Greek
Aphrodite but is always dressed in the most scrupulously decent
fashion.[30]
One picture of Kwan-Yon with the fish bears an inscription which is a
poetical expression of wonder at the mystery of incarnation, and
following a literal translation we render it into English as follows:
[Illustration: KWAN-YON AND THE FISH.
In the Pei-lin at Singan-fu. After a Chinese color-print.]
“Untidy o’er her temples
Falls her disheveled hair.
The maid is easy-going--
In sooth she does not care.
Not decked in precious jewels
Nor dressed in gaudy lace,
She carries in her basket
A fish to the market place.
Who thinks that Buddha were
Made human form in her!”
[Illustration: A POEM ON KWAN-YON.
Paper impression of a carving in stone.]
The Chinese deity Kwan-Yon may, for all we know, be the _Magna Mater_ of
most primitive China. At least she was an ancient popular goddess. When
Buddhism was introduced into the Middle Kingdom she was too dear to the
people to be abandoned or degraded in rank, and so she was interpreted
to be a female incarnation of the Buddha himself. Some pictures or
statuettes represent her as denoting motherly love by holding a baby in
her arms, which
[Illustration: BENTEN, THE JAPANESE GODDESS OF DIVINE LOVE.
From a relief preserved in the Field Museum Chicago.]
[Illustration: KWAN-YON
By Li Lung-mien (11th cent.) From the original painting in the
collection of Charles L. Freer in Detroit.]
gives her an obvious resemblance to the Christian Mary, the mother of
Christ.
[Illustration: KWAN-YON AS THE BUDDHA.
In the Musée Guimet.]
The ancient Chinese were rich in divinities of all kinds and among them
there is a goddess who
[Illustration: T’IEN HOU, QUEEN OF HEAVEN.]
in one way or other might easily have developed into the Buddhist
Kwan-Yon. This is the Queen of Heaven or Holy Mother, who is worshiped
with great fervor in some localities. Emperor K’ang Hi bestowed upon her
the high title of _T’ien Hou_, that is, “Heaven’s Ruler,” but we may
very well assume that she did not originate in his days but existed
since older times. She, or some figure like her, must have been known
before the importation of Buddhism, and Kwan-Yon presupposes the
primitive existence of a female deity of love, charity and universal
goodwill.
* * * * *
The northern Venus, called Freya, the mother-goddess of the Teutons and
in fact of all the Teutonic races, did not share the fate of the Venus
of classical antiquity. She never deteriorated into the goddess of
sensuality. It is strange that we descendants of the Germanic nations
are better posted on the national gods of Greece and Rome than on those
of our own ancestors. These are mainly remembered from the names of the
week days and even there the god of war, Tiu, has become quite
unintelligible in Tuesday. Freya’s day, Friday, is easily recognizable
as the Latin _dies Veneris_ or _vendredi_, and it is peculiar that on
that very day Christian custom still retains the fish diet of the
ancient Astarte. The motive of course is changed, and the fish is no
longer thought of as the emblem of Astarte but is eaten in remembrance
of the death of Christ on the cross. Fish has become the diet of
fasting. Such is the logic of tradition, which persists after the reason
for it has gradually been forgotten.
H. A. Guerber in his _Myths of Northern Lands_ describes Freya as
follows:
“Although goddess of love, Freya was not soft and pleasure-loving, for
the ancient northern races said that she had very martial tastes, and
that as Valfreya[31] she often led the Valkyrs down to the
battle-fields, choosing and claiming one-half the heroes slain. She was
therefore often represented with corselet and helmet, shield and spear,
only the lower part of her body being clad in the usual flowing feminine
garb.
“Freya transported the chosen slain to Folkvang, where they were duly
entertained, and where she also welcomed all pure maidens and faithful
wives, that they might enjoy the company of their lovers and husbands
even after death. The joys of her abode were so enticing to the heroic
northern women that they often rushed into battle when their loved ones
were slain, hoping to meet with the same fate; or they fell upon their
swords, or were voluntarily burned on the same funeral pyre as the
beloved remains.
“As Freya was inclined to lend a favorable ear to lovers’ prayers, she
was often invoked by them, and it was customary to indite love songs in
her honor, which were sung on all festive occasions, her very name in
Germany being used for the formation of the verb _freien_, i. e., ‘to
woo.’”
[Illustration: FREYA.
From Guerber’s _Myths of Northern Lands_.]
When the conception of the mother goddess of antiquity began to decay, a
new faith spread and under a new name the old ideal was revived as Mary,
Mother of God, _Maria Theotokos_; the star of the sea, or _Stella
Maris_; and the Italian fishermen sing to her the beautiful lines,
“_O sanctissima, O piissima,_
_Dulcis mater amata._”
THE ORIGIN OF WOMAN.
The problem of womanhood has found different expressions in different
ages. In prehistoric times all great questions were answered
mythologically. Cosmogeny and anthropogeny, including gynecogeny, were
expressed in stories of gods, while in later periods the same facts
remained and found different solutions in religious dogmas and still
later in scientific investigations.
The same subjects have been treated in a different spirit during the
Christian era and again differently still under the influence of a
scientific world-conception. Socrates respected the gods but he no
longer believed in them as personalities. He explained them as
signifying some facts of experience. To him love found expression in a
belief in Aphrodite and in her powerful son, Eros. Further, his disciple
Plato explains to us the significance of love and devotes a special
dialogue to a discussion of its meaning in every aspect. This dialogue
of Plato’s, the Symposium, may truly be characterized as the most
poetical and most interesting discussion of Greek philosophy. It tells
of a banquet to which Agathon has invited his friends, among whom we
find the philosopher Socrates, the poet Aristophanes (the disciple of
Socrates), Pausanias, Phaedrus and some others. After dinner Phaedrus
proposes to make speeches in honor of love, and Pausanias begins by
drawing a distinction between heavenly and earthly love, extolling the
former and giving scant praise to the latter. Aristophanes is the next
speaker, but, being prevented by a severe hiccup from taking up the
discussion, gives precedence to Eryximachus, the physician. This speaker
approves the distinction made by Pausanias, but generalizes the
conception of love by regarding it as a universal principle, bringing
about the harmony that regulates nature in the course of the seasons in
its relations of moist and dry, hot and cold, etc., and whose absence is
marked by diseases of all sorts. Aristophanes, having recovered from his
hiccup, proposes to offer a new explanation setting forth a novel theory
of the origin of human nature. We quote extracts from the translation of
Jowett:
“Primeval man was round, his back and sides forming a circle; and he had
four hands and four feet, one head with two faces, looking opposite
ways, set on a round neck and precisely alike; also four ears, two privy
members and the remainder to correspond. He could walk upright as men
now do, backward and forward as he pleased, and he could also roll over
and over at a great pace, turning on his four hands and four feet,
eight in all, like tumblers going over and over with their legs in the
air; this was when he wanted to run fast.... Terrible was their might
and strength, and the thoughts of their hearts were great, and they made
an attack upon the gods; of them is told the tale of Otys and Ephialtes
who, as Homer says, dared to scale heaven, and would have laid hands
upon the gods. Doubt reigned in the celestial councils. Should they kill
them and annihilate the race with thunderbolts, as they had done the
giants, then there would be an end of the sacrifices and worship which
men offered to them; but, on the other hand, the gods could not suffer
their insolence to be unrestrained. At last, after a good deal of
reflection, Zeus discovered a way. He said: ‘Methinks I have a plan
which will humble their pride and improve their manners; men shall
continue to exist, but I will cut them in two and then they will be
diminished in strength and increased in numbers; this will have the
advantage of making them more profitable to us. They shall walk upright
on two legs, and if they continue insolent and will not be quiet, I will
split them again and they shall hop about on a single leg.’ He spoke and
cut men in two, like a sorb-apple which is halved for pickling, or as
you might divide an egg with a hair; and as he cut them one after
another, he bade Apollo give the face and half of the neck a turn in
order that the man might contemplate the section of himself: he would
thus learn a lesson of humility. Apollo was also bidden to heal their
wounds and compose their forms. So he gave a turn to the face and pulled
the skin from the sides all over that which in our language is called
the belly, like the purses which draw in, and he made one mouth at the
center which he fastened in a knot (the same which is called the navel);
he also moulded the breast and took out most of the wrinkles, much as a
shoemaker might smooth leather upon a last; he left a few, however, in
the region of the belly and navel, as a memorial of the primeval state.
After the division the two parts of man, each desiring his other half,
came together, and throwing their arms about one another, entwined in
mutual embraces, longing to grow into one, they were on the point of
dying from hunger and self-neglect, because they did not like to do
anything apart; and when one of the halves died and the other survived,
the survivor sought another mate, man or woman as we call them--being
the sections of entire men or women--and clung to that.”
This ingenious theory of primitive man as a union of two human creatures
is perhaps older than Plato and may not be original with him. At any
rate the Biblical passage in Gen. i. 27 and Gen. ii 21-22 may also have
been given the interpretation of man’s creation of Adam and Eve. The
oldest texts read plainly: “And God created man in his image, in the
image of God created he him, male and female created he them”; but it
has been pointed out that the same primitive man is here spoken of,
first in the singular as “him,” and then at the end of the verse in the
plural, “them.” The idea that originally Adam comprised in himself the
nature of Eve as well is suggested by the story that Eve was taken out
of the side of Adam and was formed from one of his ribs.
Obviously the idea expressed here in this passage of Genesis is
ultimately the same as that of the Greek poet Aristophanes, and from the
standpoint of modern physiology neither man nor woman is an individual,
but the combination of two, viz., the father and mother. Each one of
them, man alone or woman alone, is but a one-sided half of human
existence. Each, by itself alone, is doomed to die; both together are
immortal.
The Genesis story of the creation of woman is portrayed in many of the
artistic representations of the creation of Eve.
Suggestions made to explain the original story of the creation of man in
the sense suggested by Aristophanes in Plato’s Symposium, may not be
tenable but they are not altogether senseless.
We must consider that primitive legends have originated from curiosity
with regard to some problem that has presented itself to man in the
childhood of the race. In our present case we have to deal with the
question why the ribs of man’s chest do not entirely enclose the body,
but leave unprotected an opening in the middle, the so-called
procardium, where they turn upward. The primitive answer to this problem
was the story we have been discussing, and thence the notion seems
implied that before Eve, the feminine portion of man, had been taken out
of his side he must have been an androgynous being, and we will add that
there is a scientific truth underlying this primitive idea.
Living substance is originally asexual, or rather bisexual,[32] and in
its primitive state it is immortal. A moner does not experience what we
call death; unless it is crushed or destroyed by poison, it lives on and
grows. When it outgrows its proper size it divides into two parts. It
does not die; nor does it beget a young moner; it divides. There are two
new moners, but there is not a mother and a child; the two are
coordinate. Both are mothers and both are children. Death is not the
original lot of life. Death comes into the world by birth. Life in
itself can be destroyed by physical violence or by chemical means, but
if it is not thus destroyed it is unending; or, in other words,
immortality is a fact.
The differentiation of life into two sexes places a limit upon the
existence of the differentiated parts. Each individual grows to a
definite size and is limited to a definite span of duration: “The days
of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength
they be fourscore years, yet is their strength, labor and sorrow.”
The story of the garden of Eden was given a symbolical interpretation at
an early date. We read in Origen’s refutation of Celsus (Book IV,
Chapter XXXVIII):
“In the next place, as it is his object to slander our scriptures, he
[Celsus] ridicules the following statement: ‘And God caused a deep sleep
to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed
up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which he had taken from the
man, made he a woman,’ and so on; without quoting the words which would
give the hearer the impression that they are spoken with a figurative
meaning. He would not even have it appear that the words were used
allegorically, although he says afterward, that ‘the more modest among
Jews and Christians are ashamed of these things, and endeavor to give
them somehow an allegorical signification.’”
It is not an accident that the fruit of the tree of life was conceived
by Christians at an early date as an apple or pomegranate, the symbol of
Aphrodite. We must assume that the apples of the Hesperides which
Hercules was requested to obtain, and also the apples of Iduna bestowing
immortality upon the Teutonic gods, possess ultimately the same
significance as the apple of Eve.
* * * * *
We do not mean to gather here all the traditions about the origin of
woman, but we will quote two accounts from a modern book of Hindu tales,
called _A Digit of the Moon and Other Love Stories from the Hindu_, and
translated from the original manuscripts by F. W. Bain. Here we are told
of a king who falls in love with a princess when he sees her picture. He
leaves his kingdom in the hands of his ministers and travels out in
search of his love, accompanied by his faithful companion Rasakósha.[33]
The passage containing the story of the origin of woman reads thus:
“One day, as they rested at noon beneath the thick shade of a
_Kadamba_[34] tree, the King gazed for a long time at the portrait of
his mistress. And suddenly he broke silence, and said, ‘Rasakósha, this
is a woman. Now, a woman is the one thing about which I know nothing.
Tell me, what is the nature of women?’ Then Rasakósha smiled, and said:
‘King, you should certainly keep this question to ask the Princess; for
it is a hard question. A very terrible creature indeed is a woman, and
one formed of strange elements. _A propos_, I will tell you a story:
listen.
“‘In the beginning, when Twashtri[35] came to the creation of woman, he
found that he had exhausted his materials in the making of man, and that
no solid elements were left. In this dilemma, after profound meditation,
he did as follows: He took the rotundity of the moon, and the curves of
creepers, and the clinging of tendrils, and the trembling of grass, and
the slenderness of the reed, and the bloom of flowers, and the lightness
of leaves, and the tapering of the elephant’s trunk, and the glances of
deer, and the clustering of rows of bees,[36] and the joyous gaiety of
sunbeams, and the weeping of clouds, and the fickleness of the winds,
and the timidity of the hare, and the vanity of the peacock, and the
softness of the parrot’s bosom, and the hardness of adamant, and the
sweetness of honey, and the cruelty of the tiger, and the warm glow of
fire, and the coldness of snow, and the chattering of jays, and the
cooing of the _kókila_,[37] and the hypocrisy of the crane, and the
fidelity of the _chakrawáka_;[38] and compounding all these together, he
made woman and gave her to man. But after one week man came to him and
said: Lord, this creature that thou hast given me makes my life
miserable. She chatters incessantly, and teases me beyond endurance,
never leaving me alone: and she requires incessant attention, and takes
all my time up, and cries about nothing, and is always idle; and so I
have come to give her back again, as I cannot live with her. So Twashtri
said: Very well: and he took her back. Then after another week, man came
again to him, and said: Lord I find that my life is very lonely since I
gave back that creature. I remember how she used to dance and sing to
me, and look at me out of the corner of her eye, and play with me, and
cling to me; and her laughter was music, and she was beautiful to look
at, and soft to touch: so give her back to me again. So Twashtri said:
Very well: and gave her back again. Then after only three days, man came
to him again, and said: Lord, I know not how it is; but after all, I
have come to the conclusion that she is more of a trouble than a
pleasure to me: so please take her back again. But Twashtri said: Out on
you! Be off! I will have no more of this. You must manage how you can.
Then man said: But I cannot live with her. And Twashtri replied: Neither
could you live without her. And he turned his back on man and went on
with his work. Then man said: What is to be done? for I cannot live
either with or without her.’
“And Rasakósha ceased, and looked at the King. But the King remained
silent, gazing intently at the portrait of the Princess.”
Another story, of like character, is told in the same book, on pages
372-374, only with the difference that it points out a lesson for woman
that she must cleave to her husband because she possesses no
independent existence by herself. (The same, however, in the Indian
story is not true of man.) This is the explanation the faithful wife
Wanawallari gives to the Brahman who tempts her to leave her husband.
She says:
“Once there was a time when there were neither men nor women, but the
universe existed alone. And then one day, when the Creator was
meditating with a view to further creation, he said to himself:
‘Something is wanting to complete the creation which I have created. It
is blind, and unconscious of its own curious beauty and excellence.’
Thereupon he created a man. And instantly the creation became an object
of wonder and beauty, being reflected like a picture in the mirror of
the mind of the man. Then the man roamed alone in the world, wondering
at the flowers and the trees and the animals, and at last he came to a
pool. And he looked in and saw himself. Then full of astonishment, he
exclaimed: ‘This is the most beautiful creature of all.’ And he hunted
incessantly through the whole world to find it, not knowing that he was
looking for himself. But when he found that in spite of all his
endeavors he could never do more than see it on the surface of pools, he
became sad and ceased to care about anything. Then the Creator,
perceiving it, said to himself: ‘Ha! this is a difficulty which I never
foresaw, arising naturally from the beauty of my work. But now, what is
to be done? For here is this man, whom I made to be a mirror for my
world, snared in the mirror of his own beauty. So I must somehow or
other cure this evil. But I cannot make another man, for there would be
two centers to the circle of the universe. Neither can I add anything to
the circumference of nature, for it is perfect in itself. There is
necessary, therefore, some third thing: not real, for then it would
disturb the balance of the universe; nor unreal, for then it would be
nothing: but poised on the border between reality and nonentity.’ So he
collected the reflections on the surface of the pools, and made of them
a woman. But she, as soon as she was made, began to cry. And she said:
‘Alas! alas! I am, and I am not.’ Then said the Creator: ‘Thou foolish
intermediate creature, thou art a nonentity only when thou standest
alone. But when thou art united to the man, thou art real in
participation with his substance.’ And thus, O Brahman, apart from her
husband a woman is a nonentity and a shadow without a substance: being
nothing but the mirror of himself, reflected on the mirror of illusion.”
* * * * *
Early Christian art took little or no interest in the parents of
mankind. So far as we can discover neither the catacombs of Rome nor
Christian sarcophagi are adorned with representations of Adam and Eve.
Wherever they may occur they are rare exceptions. There is no trace of
them in the _fondi d’oro_ (gold-bottomed glasses), nor in the mosaics.
In painting they become more and more frequent in the beginning of the
Middle Ages, and we reproduce here, as one of the oldest representations
of the subject, a picture from the so-called Alcuin Bible preserved in
the British Museum.
[Illustration: ADAM AND EVE CALLED TO ACCOUNT.
From the so-called Alcuin Bible (9th cent.)]