The God-Idea of the Ancients Part 16

The marked resemblance between the characters of the Gothic Ymer and the Chaldean Omoroka, from each of whose bodies the universe is created, has been observed by various writers. After referring to Mallet's conclusions upon this subject, Faber remarks:

"They are indeed evidently the same person, not only in point of character, but, if I mistake not, in appellation: for Ymer or Umer is Omer-Oca expressed in a more simple form. The difference of s.e.x does by no means invalidate this opinion, which rests upon the perfect ident.i.ty of their characters: for the Great Mother, like the Great Father, was an hermaphrodite; or, rather, that person from whom all things were supposed to be produced, was the Great Father and the Great Mother united together in one compound being. Ymer and Omoroca are each the same as that hermaphrodite Jupiter of the Orphic theology."

We have observed, however, that in all the older traditions this hermaphrodite conception is accounted as female, it is the Great Mother within whom is contained the male; in later ages, however, it is represented as male, the female being concealed beneath convenient symbols.

The Trinity of the Goths was male; yet as Odin could not create independently of the female energy he is provided with a wife, Frigga, to whom "all fair things belonged, and who had priestesses among the early German tribes." Frigga when wors.h.i.+pped alone was both female and male. According to one German tradition, Tiw (Zeus), which in its earliest conception was female, was the parent of the first man. This man begat three sons who became the fathers of the three Deutsch tribes.

Ish (or Ash) was the parent of the Franks and Allemans; Ing was the progenitor of the Swedes, Angles, and Saxons; and Er, or Erman, was the eponymous leader of the tribes called by the Romans Hermiones.

The Kosmogony of the Chinese is similar in all respects to that of other countries. The first man, Puoncu, was born from an egg.

The Chinese say that this egg-born Puoncu, who is identical with Brahm, Noah, and Adam, is not the great Creator or G.o.d, but only the first man.

Their great G.o.d or Tien is a Unity which comprehends three, and their human triad--a triplicated being who is the parent of the human race--is a lower expression of the same power, and to him has finally been ascribed the office of Creator.

The Kosmogony of the j.a.panese begins with the opening of the sacred egg from which all things were produced. This egg is identical with the ark, and from it the diluvian patriarch was born. He was "Baal-Peor or the lord of opening; and, from an idea that the Ark was an universal mother, he was considered as the masculine principle of generation, and was adored by his apostate descendants with all the abominations of phallic wors.h.i.+p."

In the Theogony of Hesiod, Ura.n.u.s is represented as being the parent of three sons, and the same legend repeated in the story of Cronus portrays him also as a triplicated deity. According to the Peruvian Kosmogony all things sprang from Viracocha who is said to be identical with the Greek Aphrodite. Besides this superior G.o.d they venerated a triad which was closely connected with the sun. These G.o.ds were called Chuquilla, Catuilla, and Intyllapa. They say that as their ancestors journeyed from a remote country to the Northwest they bore the image of their G.o.d in a coifer or box made of reeds. To the four priests who had charge of this box or ark he communicated his oracles and directions. He not only gave them laws but taught them the ceremonies and sacrifices which they were to observe. "And even as the pillar of cloud and fire conducted the Israelites in their pa.s.sage through the wilderness, so this Spanish devil gave them notice when to advance forward, and when to stay."(94)

94) Faber, Pagan Idolatry, book i., ch. v.

According to Marsden, the New Zealanders believe that three G.o.ds created the first man, and that the first woman was made from one of his ribs.

Among the Otaheitans and various tribes of Indians, the belief prevails that all created things have proceeded from a triplicated deity who was saved from the ravages of a flood in an ark or s.h.i.+p.

The fact is observed that the Theogonies and Kosmogonies of all peoples have reference to a flood or to the renewal of life after the destruction of the world, and that the Great Father who is preserved, and who comes forth from an ark or s.h.i.+p with the seeds of a former world, represents the beginning of a new era. Adam with his three sons, Cain, Abel, and Seth, Noah with his triad, Shem, Ham, and j.a.pheth, Menu and his triple offspring, and so on, all mean exactly the same thing, namely, the renewal of life at the close of a cycle, or manwantara.

From the traditions extant in nearly every quarter of the globe, it would seem that, prior to the so-called flood in the time of Noah, man, as a Creator, had not to any extent been wors.h.i.+pped, but, on the contrary, that the great universal dual principle which pervades Nature and which is back of matter and force, for instance Tien among the Chinese, Iav among the Hebrews, and Aum among the Hindoos, had been the Deity adored; but with the decline of virtue and knowledge, this G.o.d was gradually abandoned for a lesser one, a deity better suited to the comprehension of "fallen" man.

In the Elohistic narrative of creation which appears in the first chapter of Genesis, a dual or triune G.o.d, female and male, says, Let us make man in our own image, and accordingly a male and a female are created. In the Jehovistic account, however, in the second chapter of the same book, a doc.u.ment of much later date, man is made first and afterward woman. In fact, in the latter narrative she appears as an afterthought and is created simply for his use; she is taken from his side and is wholly dependent upon him for existence. This fact is recognized by Bishop Colenso in the following words:

"Thus in the second account of creation, the man is APPARENTLY created first, and the woman is CERTAINLY created the last, of all living creatures; whereas, in the older story the man and woman are created last of all, as the crowning work of Elohim, and are created together--'and Elohim created man in His own image, in the image of Elohim created He him; male and female created He them.' This ancient Elohistic narrative, then, the Jehovist had before him; and he enlarged and enlivened it by introducing a number of pa.s.sages recording additional incidents in the lives of the patriarchs before and after the flood, and especially by inserting the second account of the creation, ii., 4-25."

Colenso observes that verse four of chapter second belongs to the Elohist, and that it was removed from its original position at the beginning of Gen. i., in order to form the commencement of the Jehovistic account of the creation.(95)

95) Lectures on the Pentateuch, p. 32.

Quoting from Bishop Browne in the New Bible Commentary, the same writer remarks that in the Elohistic account of the creation "we have that which was probably the ancient primeval record of the formation of the world."(96)

96) Ibid. p. 16.

The oldest or Elohistic portion of Genesis is, at the present time, seen to conceal great wisdom and a knowledge of Nature far surpa.s.sing that of later times.

According to Higgins, the first verse of the first chapter of Genesis, if properly translated, would not declare that in the beginning G.o.d created the heavens and the earth, but that Wisdom "formed" the earth and the planets. In none of the ancient Kosmogonies can there be a word found regarding the creation of matter. From the facts which have come down to us respecting the speculations of the ancients, it is plain that the original conception was, that within the primeval beginnings described in their Kosmogonies, in chaos or unorganized matter, was contained primeval force; no attempt, however, was made by them to account for the creation of either motion or matter.

As soon as human beings began to speculate on the attributes of their Deity; when the two principles composing it began to separate, and the idea was gaining ground that the male was the only important factor in reproduction, the sun became male, the earth and sea female. Still, even then the doctrine seems not to have been questioned, that the creative agency had proceeded from matter, or that it was developed in and through it. The belief that something can be made from nothing was reserved for a later age.

In the oldest Semitic Kosmogonies, we are a.s.sured that the self-conscious G.o.d who is manifested in the order of the universe, proceeded out of the great abyss, and out of unorganized, dark, primeval matter. During the earlier historic period, however, by both Jew and Gentile, the belief was entertained that spirit is material. It is the essence of fire--a substance akin to the galvanic or electric fluid.

This masculine element, the manifestation of which is desire, or heat, and which was finally set up as an eternal, self-existent, creative force, or G.o.d, was originally regarded as a manifestation of matter, and as having no independent existence. In an earlier age, this so-called creative agency is a.s.sociated with a force far superior to itself, namely, Light or Wisdom. Minerva, who is the first emanation from the Deity, "formed" all things. She it is who discriminates all things and gives laws to the universe. "She represented to the Greeks that spiritual element which lifts knowledge into wisdom, and talent into genius."(97) But with the importance which began to be a.s.sumed by man when he began to regard himself as a creator, and when through ignorance and sensuality the principles of a more enlightened race were forgotten, desire, or heat, was separated from matter and came to be regarded as an independent ent.i.ty, which itself had created matter out of nothing.

Thus is noticed the extent to which the G.o.d-idea has been developed in accordance with the relative positions of the s.e.xes.

97) L. T. Ives, Art Words.

According to the Grecian mythology, much of which was a comparatively late development, mortal woman was the handiwork of Vulcan the FireG.o.d, who, being commissioned by Jove to execute "a snare for G.o.ds and man,"

moulded the beauteous form of woman. This is a worthy example of the contempt and scorn shown by the Greeks for women during the later period of their career as a nation. That such contempt was a later development is shown in the fact that woman was originally the gift of Pallas Athene, or Wisdom. When she first appeared on the scene she was crowned by the G.o.ds, in fact she was the first object honored with a crown.

Concerning the conceptions regarding women as held at an earlier age, and those which came to prevail after she had become "the cause of evil in the world," we have the following from Tertullian:

"If there was a Pandora, whom Hesiod mentions as the first woman, hers was the first head the Graces crowned, for she received gifts from all the G.o.ds, whence she got her name Pandora. But Moses, a prophet, not a poet-shepherd, shows us the first woman Eve having her loins more naturally girt about with leaves than her temples with flowers. Pandora then is a myth."(98)

98) Tertullian, vol. i., p. 341.

Woman, who was originally the gift of Wisdom, or Minerva, and who when created was garlanded with flowers as the crown of creation, became, in course of time, an accursed and wicked thing who must henceforth cover herself with leaves to hide her shame. Tertullian, who, with the rest of the early fathers in the Christian church, had imbibed the latter doctrine concerning her, could not believe the tradition set forth by Hesiod; therefore Pandora was a myth, while the corrupted fable, that of Eve as the tempter, was accepted as a natural representation of womanhood.

When woman was created, "all the G.o.ds conferred a gifted grace."

"Round her fair brow the lovely-tressed Hours A garland twined of Spring's purpureal flowers: The whole attire Minerva's graceful art Disposed, adjusted, form'd to every part."(99)

99) Hesiod, Works and Days.

Later, however, Pandora herself becomes the pourer forth of ills on the head of defenceless man.

CHAPTER XI. FIRE AND PHALLIC WORs.h.i.+P.

"Know, first a spirit with an active flame Fills, feeds, and animates the mighty frame; Runs through the watery worlds and fields of air, The ponderous Earth and depths of Heav'n and there Burns in the Sun and Moon, and every brilliant Star Thus mingling in the ma.s.s, the general soul Lives in its parts and agitates the whole."

Although earth, air, water, and the sun were long venerated as objects of wors.h.i.+p, as containing the life principle, in process of time it is observed that fire attracted the highest regard of human beings, and on their altars the sacred flame, said to have been kindled from heaven, was kept burning uninterruptedly from year to year, and from age to age, by bends of priests "whose special duty it was to see that the sacred flame was never extinguished." The office of the vestal virgins in Rome was to preserve the holy fire. The Egyptians, and in fact all the earlier civilized nations, knew that force proceeds from the sun, hence the frequent appearance of this...o...b..among their symbols of life. Indeed there is not a country on the globe in which, at some time, divine honors have not been paid to fire and to light.

The Hindoos, "believing fire to be the essence of all active power in Nature, kept perpetual lamps burning in the innermost recesses of their paG.o.das and temples, and in the sacred edifices of the Greeks and Barbarians fires were preserved for the same reason."

The festival of lamps, which was once universal throughout Egypt, still prevails in China. On the evening of the fifteenth day of the first month in the year, every person is compelled to place before his door a lantern or light, such lights differing in size and expense according to the degree of wealth or poverty of those to whom they belong. Light was the symbol of Muth (Perceptive Wisdom). Among the Persians, the Egyptians, the Mexicans, the Jews, the Etruscans, the Greeks, and the Romans, fire was venerated as the essence of the Deity; and, at the present time, in Thibet, in China, in j.a.pan, and in portions of Africa, it still forms an important part of wors.h.i.+p. The Hebrew writings show conclusively that not only the Jews but all the surrounding nations were fire-wors.h.i.+ppers, and that their sacrifices were not infrequently to the G.o.d of Fire. Of this Forlong says:

"When Rome was rearing temples to the fame and wors.h.i.+p of Fire, we find the prophets of Israel occasionally denouncing the wickedness of its wors.h.i.+p by their own and the nations around them; nevertheless, even to Christ's time Molok always had his offerings of children."(100)

100) Rivers of Life and Faiths of Man in an Lands, vol. i., p. 325.