Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism Part 11

72, 78.)

The linga is generally a tall, polished, cylindrical, black stone, apparently inserted into another stone formed like an elongated saucer, though in reality the whole is sculptured out of one block of basalt.

The outline of the frame, which reminds us of a Jew's harp (the conventional form of the female member), is termed _argha or yoni_. The former, or round perpendicular stone, the type of the virile organ, is the _linga_. The entire symbol, to which the name _lingyoni_ is given, is also occasionally called _lingam_. This representative of the union of the s.e.xes typifies the divine _sacti_, or productive energy, in union with the procreative, generative power seen throughout nature. The earth was the primitive _pudendum, or yoni_, which is fecundated by the solar heat, the sun, the primitive _linga_, to whose vivifying rays man and animals, plants and the fruits of the earth, owe their being and continued existence. These "lingas" vary in size from the tiny amulets worn about the neck, to the great monoliths of the temples. Thus the lingam is an emblem of the Creator, the fountain of all life, who is represented in Hindu mythology as uniting in Himself the two s.e.xes.

Another symbol, the _caduceus_, older than Greek and Roman art, in which it is a.s.sociated with Esculapius and Hermes, the G.o.ds of health and fertility, has precisely the same signification as the sistrum and the lingam. This is made clear enough in the following extract from a letter by Dr. C. E. Balfour, published in Fergusson's _Tree and Serpent Wors.h.i.+p_, 1878. "I have only once seen living snakes in the form of the Esculapian rod. It was at Ahmednuggar, in 1841, on a clear moonlight night. They dropped into the garden from the thatched roof of my house, _and stood erect_."

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"They were all cobras, and _no one could have seen them without at once recognising that they were in congress_. Natives of India consider that it is most fortunate to witness serpents so engaged, and believe that if a person can throw a cloth at the pair so as to touch them with it, the material becomes a representative form of Lakshmi,* of the highest virtue, and is preserved as such." The serpent, which casts its skin and seems to renew its youth every year, has been used from remotest times as a living symbol of generative energy, and of immortality; indeed, in the most ancient Eastern languages, the name for the serpent also signifies life.** It has been usually wors.h.i.+pped as the _Agathodoemon_, the G.o.d of good fortune, life, and health; though in the Hebrew scriptures, and elsewhere, we meet with a good and a bad serpent--Oriental dualism. The _Kakodoemon_, however, is usually represented as winged--the Dragon, as in the following example.

* The consort, or life-giving energy of Vishnu.

** As in French, the name for the male organ and for life is the same in sound, though not in spelling or gender.

In the remarkable Babylonian seal, Plate iv., Fig. 8, the deity is represented as uniting in himself the male and the female. On each side is a serpent, as the emblem of the life flowing from the Creator; that on the male side, having round his head the solar glory, is compared to the sun-G.o.d, as the active principle in creation; that on the female side, over whose head is the lunar crescent, to the moon- and earth- G.o.ddess, the pa.s.sive principle in creation. Both are attacked by a winged dragon, the kakodoemon, or the evil principle. This is according to the ancient Chaldean doctrine of two creations of living beings, the one good and the other malign. The Chinese still think that an eclipse is caused by the efforts of a furious dragon to destroy the sun and moon; and Apollo, the sun-G.o.d, destroying the serpent Python, has reappeared on our coin as St. George killing the dragon. Even Apollyon appears in old paintings with huge wings, like those of a bat.

Having thus explained what appears to be the key to a wide range of religious symbolism, and shown its application in many cases, we shall further apply it to unlock the famous object of a.s.syrian wors.h.i.+p.

Soon after the discoveries of Botta and Layard were published, it was conjectured that this strange object, so continually represented as being adored, might be the _asherah_ of the Hebrew scriptures, translated "grove" in the English version. How far the view was correct we shall now proceed to examine.

The religion of the East at a very remote period appears to have been the wors.h.i.+p of one G.o.d, under several names. The most primitive was _El, Il, or Al_, = the strong, the mighty one; or its plural _Elohim_, as expressing His many powers and manifestations. Another name was _Baal or Bel_,--the lord, which also had a plural form, _Baalim_. The first word is continually used in the Hebrew scriptures, and applied both to the true G.o.d and the G.o.ds of the nations. Baal is only once thus applied, Hosea ii. 16; yet Balaam, inspired by G.o.d, prophesies from the high places of Baal. This name, though so appropriate to the Almighty, became abhorrent to the Jews when it was so frequently a.s.sociated with idolatry, and a new cognomen, or "the Supreme," was adopted by them, viz., Jehovah, = the Eternal, the Ever-Living One, the Creator; see Exod. iii. 14. "Baal" was the supreme G.o.d of all the great Syro-Phoenician nations, with the insignificant exception of the Jews; and when the latter migrated into Canaan they were surrounded on all sides by his wors.h.i.+ppers. Towns, temples, men, including even a son of Saul, of David and of Jonathan, viz., Eshbaal, Meribbaal, and Beelida, were called after him. As the sun-G.o.d, Baal-Hammon, Song of Sol. viii.

11; 2 Kings xxiii. 5; he was wors.h.i.+pped on high places, Num. xxii. 41; and an image of the sun appeared over his altars, 2 Chron. x.x.xiv. 4. As the generative and productive power, he was wors.h.i.+pped under the form of the phallus, Baal-Peor; and youths and maidens, even of high birth, prost.i.tuted themselves in his honour or service; Num. xxv.; 2 Kings xxiii. 7. As the creator, he was represented to be of either or of both s.e.xes; and Arn.o.bius tells us that his wors.h.i.+ppers invoked him thus:

"Hear us, Baal! whether thou be a G.o.d or a G.o.ddess."

Though he is of the masculine gender in the Hebrew, the lord, yet Baal is called [------], = the lady, in the Septuagint; Hos. ii. 8; Zeph. i.

4; and in the New Testament, Romans xi. 4. At the licentious wors.h.i.+p of this androgyne, or two-s.e.xed G.o.d, the men on certain occasions wore female garments, whilst the women appeared in male attire, brandis.h.i.+ng weapons. Each of this G.o.d's names had a female counterpart; and the feminine form of _Baal was Beltis, Ishtar, and Ashtarte_. As he was the sun-G.o.d, she was the moon-G.o.ddess. Now, whilst the masculine name (as Bel or Bal, Baal, Baalim,) appears nearly one hundred times in the Hebrew Old Testament, the feminine equivalent is only found three times in the singular Ashtoreth, and six times in the plural Ashtaroth; always in a.s.sociation with Baal-wors.h.i.+p. Knowing, as we do, the immense diffusion of her wors.h.i.+p amongst the Babylonians, a.s.syrians, and Phoenicians, this appears strange. There is a word of the feminine gender occurring in the Hebrew twenty-four times, viz., Asherah or _Asharah_; plural, _Asharth_ translated in the Septuagint and Latin vulgate, a tree, or "grove," in which they have been followed by most modern versions, including the English. This supplies the void, for _Asharah_ may be regarded as another name for the G.o.ddess _Ashtoreth_, as is plainly seen by the following pa.s.sages: "They forsook Jehovah and served Baal and Ashtoreth;" Judges ii. 18; whilst in the following chapter we read, "They forgot Jehovah their G.o.d, and served the Baalim and the Asharoth;" iii. 7. What, then, was the _Asharah_? It was of wood, and of large size; the Jews were ordered to cut it down; Exod.

x.x.xiv. 18, etc.; and Gideon offered a bullock as a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the Asherah. Occasionally it was of stone. It was carved or graven as an image; 2 Kings xxi. 7. It often stood close to the altar of Baal; Judges vi. 25 and 80; 1 Kings xvi. 82, 88; 2 Chron. x.x.xiii.

8. Usually on high places and under shady trees; 1 Kings xiv. 28; Jer.

xvii. 2; but one was erected in the temple of Jehovah by Mana.s.seh; 2 Kings xxi. 7. It had priests; 1 Kings xviii. 19; and its wors.h.i.+p was as popular as that of Baal; for whilst the priests of "the Baal" were four hundred and fifty, those of "the Asherah" were four hundred, who ate at the table of Queen Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal, king of Sidon. It was sometimes surrounded with hangings, and was wors.h.i.+pped by both s.e.xes with licentious rites; 2 Kings xxiii. 7; Ezek. xvi. 16. As Baal was a.s.sociated with sun-wors.h.i.+p, so was the Asherah with that of the moon; 2 Kings xxi. 8; 2 Chron. x.x.xiv. 4.

Besides these Asheroth, female emblems of Baal, there were Asherim, male emblems of Baal, "symbolising his generative power" (Furst, Hebrew Lexicon), which are mentioned sixteen times in the Hebrew scriptures.

It is only found in the plural, and must have been a multiple representation of the singular, Asher, which means "to be firm, strong, straight, prosperous, happy," * and cognate with the Phoenician (Osir), "husband," "lord," an epithet of Baal.

* The lupanars at Pompeii were distinguished by a sign over the street door, representing the erect phallus, painted or carved, and having the words underneath, "Hie habitat felicitas."

Doubtless this was also identical with the Egyptian Osiris, = the sun, = the phallus. He was said to have suffered death like the sun; and Plutarch tells us that Isis, unable to discover all the remains of her husband, consecrated the phallus as his representative. Thus "the Asharim" were male symbols used in Baal-wors.h.i.+p, and sometimes consisted of multiple phalli, of which the branch carried by an a.s.syrian priest, in Plate iii. Fig. 4, is a conventional form. They were then counterparts of the "_multimammia_" of Greek and Roman wors.h.i.+p.* This is confirmed by a curious pa.s.sage, 1 Kings xv. 13 (repeated 2 Chron. xv.

16). We learn (xiv. 28) that the Jews, under Rehoboam, son of Solomon, having lapsed into idolatry, had "built them high places, images, and Asharim ("groves," A. V.) on every high hill, and under every green tree; and that there were also consecrated ones ("sodomites," A. V.) in the land." But Asa, his brother, on succeeding to the throne, swept away all these things, and (xv. 18) deposed the queen mother, Maachah, because she had made a _miphletzeth_ to an Asherah ("an idol in a grove," A. V.) _miphletzeth_, is rendered by the Vulgate "simulacrum Priapi." The word is derived from _palatz_, "to be broken," "terrified,"

or the cognate, _phalash, palash_, "to break or go through," "to open up a way;" a word or root found in the Hebrew, Phoenician, Syriac, and Ethiopie. Doubtless the Greek [------] _phallus_, was hence derived, since it has no independent meaning in Greek; and Herodotus and Diodorus expressly a.s.sert that the chief G.o.ds of Greece and their mysteries, especially the Dionysiac or Bacchic revels, in which the _phallus_ was carried in procession, were derived from the east. Compare also the Latin _pales_, English _pale, pole_, = May_pole_. A similar word, with a corresponding meaning, exists in the Sanscrit. Thus, then, according to the Hebrew scriptures, there were two chief symbols used in the wors.h.i.+p of Baal, one male, the other female.

See Figs. 15, 16.

We can now look upon the very symbols themselves, which were so used--perhaps the most remarkable in existence. It is well known that the Chaldeans, from whom all other nations derived their religion, astronomy, and science, gave the name of Bel or Baal to their chief G.o.d. In the most ancient inscription yet deciphered, written in the Babylonian and Arcadian languages, a king rules by "the favour of Bel."

Another name for Baal is a.s.sur, or Asher, from whom a.s.syria is named.

In the cuneiform inscriptions of Sennacherib, the great king of a.s.syria, Nineveh is called "the city of Bel," and "the city beloved by Ishtar."

In another inscription he says of the king of Egypt:--"the terror of Ashur and Ishtar overcame him and he fled." a.s.surbanipal thus commences his annals "The great warrior, the delight of a.s.sur and Ishtar, the royal offspring am I." In a cuneiform inscription of Nebobelzitri, we read:--"Nineveh the city, the delight of Ishtar, wife of Bel." Again, "Beltis, the consort of Bel." "a.s.sur and Beltis, the G.o.ds of a.s.syria."

Thus we see that Baal and Bel were identical with a.s.sur, and Ashur.

Doubtless, then, "_Asherah_" is the last name with the feminine termination (as Ish = man, Ishah=woman), and is identical with Ishtar, Ashteroth, Astarte and Beltis. The Septuagint has rendered "Asherah" by "Astarte," in 2 Chron. xv. 16, and the Vulgate by "Astaroth," in Judges iii. 7. Herodotus described (b.c. 450) the great temple of Belus at Babylon, and its seven stages dedicated to the sun, moon, and planets, on the top of which was the shrine. This contained no statue, but there was a golden couch, upon which a chosen female lay, and was nightly visited by the G.o.d. Now, therefore, that the palaces of the a.s.syrian kings, and their "chambers of imagery," have been by great good fortune laid open to us, we might expect to discover the long-lost symbolism of Baal-wors.h.i.+p. And so we have.

To commence with the simplest. The (Ashcrim) is seen as the mystic palm-tree, the tree of life, Fig. 99; the phallic pillar putting forth branches like flames, Fig. 65; and the tree with seven phalloid branches, so common on a.s.syrian and Babylonian seals, Plate xvii., Fig.

4. See also the remarkable Syrian medals, Plate xvii., Fig. 2, on which is represented Baal as the sun-G.o.d, holding the bow, and surrounded by phalli.

Or, least conventional of all, the simple phallus, of which there are two remarkable specimens in the British Museum. Each of these is about two and a half feet high, and once guarded the bounds of an estate.

Among the Greeks and Romans, boundaries were also marked by a phallic statue of Hermes, the G.o.d of fertility. These a.s.syrian emblems have doubtless often been honoured with rural sacrifice. Themselves the most expressive symbol of life, they are also covered with its conventional emblems.

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A back view of one is given, Figure 174. The body is mainly occupied with a full length portrait of the great king. For as the a.s.syrians represented the Deity, the source of all life, by the phallus, so the monarch was the G.o.d of this lower world, the incarnation of G.o.d on earth. He was the source of life to the empire, and as such was addressed--"O king, live for ever" (Dan. v. 10). He, like the G.o.ds, never dies. "_Le Roi est mort; Vive le Roi_" The ensigns of royalty were also those of the creator-G.o.d. Accordingly, his garments and crown are embroidered with that sacred emblem, the Asherah. He bears the strung-bow and arrows, emblems of virile power, borne afterwards by the sun-G.o.d Apollo, and the western son of Venus. An erect serpent occupies the other side, and ends with forky tongue near the orifice. The _glans_ is covered with symbols. On the summit is a triad of sun emblems; beneath are three altars, over two of which are the glans-shaped caps, covered with bulls' horns, always worn by the a.s.syrian guardian angels, and intense emblems of the male potency. For in ancient symbolism, _a part of a symbol stands for the whole_; as here, the horns represent the bull, and the glans the phallus. Above the third altar is a tortoise, whose protruded head and neck reminded the initiated of the phallus; and the altars are covered with a pattern drawn from the tortoise scales. We have, besides, a vase with a rod inserted, emblem of s.e.xual union, and a c.o.c.k, with wings and plumage ruffled, running after a hen in amorous heat. The glans only of the other is copied.

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Fig. 175. At the top are the sun-symbols, as before. Beneath is the horse-shoe-like head-dress of Isis, and there are two altars marked with the tortoise-emblem in front. Over both rises the erect serpent, and upon one lies the head of an arrow or a dart, both male symbols.

The _miphletzeth_ which Queen Maachah placed in or near the Asherah, probably resembled these a.s.syrian phalli, or the Asherim.

And now we come to the Asherah, a much more complex and difficult symbol than any other which we have named. This object has long puzzled antiquarians, and though it is continually recurring in the sculptures from Nineveh, it has not yet been fully explained. In Fig. 176 we see it wors.h.i.+pped by human figures, with eagles' heads and wings, who present to it the pine-cone, = the testis, and the basket, =the s.c.r.o.t.u.m (?), intense emblems of the male creator.

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Fig. 177 it is adored by the king and his son or successor, with their attendant genii. The kings present towards it a well-known symbol of life and good fortune, the fist with the forefinger extended, or "the phallic hand." Here, then, we have evidently the Asherah, or Ashtaroth-symbol, the female Baal, the life-producer, "the door" whence life issues to the world. As such the G.o.ddess is here symbolised as an arched door-way. In the Phonician alphabet, the fourth letter, _daleth_, = a door, has the shape of a tent-door, as on the Moabite stone, A, and also in the Greek [------] But another form, perhaps as ancient, is D, which, when placed in its proper position, would be [--], the very form of the Asherah.* In the plural, this word stands for the _l.a.b.i.a pudendi_, [--------], "because it shut not up the _doors_ of the womb,"

Job iii. 10.** We infer from Numbers xxv. 6-8, that in the rites of Baal-peor, the _Kadeshoth_, or women devoted to the G.o.d, offered themselves to his wors.h.i.+ppers each in a peculiar bower or small arched tent, called a _qubbah_. The part also through which Phinehas drove his spear (see Num. xxv. 8), the woman's v.u.l.v.a, is also called _qobbah_, the one word being derived from the other, according to Onkelos, Aquila, and others. Qubbah means, according to Furst, Heb. Lex., "something hollow and arched, an arched tent, like the Arabic El. Kubba, whence the Spanish _Al-cova_, and our _Alcove_." In the Latin also, the word _fornix_, a vault, an arch, meant a brothel, and from it was derived _fornicatio_. Qubbah is translated by the LXX., kaminos, "an oven or arched furnace" (Liddell and Scott); but it meant also the female parts.

See Herodotus v. 92 (7). Thus, then, the Alcove was itself a symbol of woman, as though a place of entrance and emergence, and whence new life issues to the world. And when the male wors.h.i.+pper of Baal entered to the _kadeshah_, the living embodiment of the G.o.ddess, the a.n.a.logy to the Asherah became complete, as we shall now show.

* The first letter, Aleph, = an ox, is, even on the Moabite stone, written thus, and has become the modern A. In the earlier hieroglyph it must have been thus V. The Egyptian hieroglyph for ten is [] Compare the Greek [--] and Latin Decem.

** The first of the Orphic Hymns is addressed to the G.o.ddess Artemisias (Prothnraia) or the Door-keeper, who presided over childbirths, like the Roman Diana Lucina.

The central object in the a.s.syrian "grove" is a male date-palm, which was well known as an emblem of Baal, the sun, the phallus, and life.

This remarkable tree, _Tamar_ in Phoenician and Hebrew, the _phoenix_ in Greek, was formerly abundant in Palestine and the neighbouring regions. The word _Phoenicia_ (Acts xi. 19, xv. 8) is derived from _phoinix_, as the country of palms; like the "_Idumeo palmo_" of Virgil.

Palmyra, the city of the sun, was called in the Hebrew _Tamar_ (1 Kings ix. 18). In Vespasian's famous coin, "_Judoa capta_," Judoa is represented as a female sitting under a palm-tree. The tree can at once be identified by its tall, straight, branchless stem, of equal thickness throughout, crowned at the top with a cl.u.s.ter of long, curved, feather-like branches, and by its singularly wrinkled bark. All these characteristics are readily recognised in the highly conventional forms of the religious emblem, even in the ornament on the king's robe, fig.

174. The date-palm is dioecious, the female trees, which are sometimes used as emblems, being always distinguished by the cl.u.s.ters of date fruit. "Thy stature is like to a palm-tree, thy b.r.e.a.s.t.s to cl.u.s.ters"

(Cant. vii. 7). "The righteous shall flourish like the palm-tree" (Ps.

xcii. 12), fruitful and ever green. "They are upright as the palm-tree, but speak not" (Jer. x. 8-5). The prophet is evidently describing the making of an Asherah. There was a Canaanite city called Baal-Tamar, = Baal, the palm-tree, designated so, it is probable, from the wors.h.i.+p of Baal there "under the form of a priapus-column," says Furst, Heb. Lex.

The real form was doubtless an "Asherim," a modified palm-tree, as we have already shown. Palm-branches have been used in all ages as emblems of life, peace, and victory. They were strewn before Christ.

Palm-Sunday, the feast of palms, is still kept. Even within the present century, on this festival, in many towns of France, women and children carried in procession at the end of their palm-branches a phallus made of bread, which they called, undisguisedly, "la pine," whence the festival was called "La Fete des Pinnes." The "pine" having been blest by the priest, the women carefully preserved it during the following year as an amulet. (Dulaure, _Hist, des differens Cultes._)

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Again, the Greek name for the palm-tree, _phoenix_, was also the name of that mythical Egyptian bird, sacred to Osiris, and a symbol of the resurrection. With some early Christian writers, Christ was "the Phoenix." The date-palm is figured as a tree of life on an Egyptian sepulchral tablet, older than the Exodus, now preserved in the museum at Berlin. Two arms issue from the top of the tree; one of which presents a tray of dates to the deceased, whilst the other gives him water, "the water of life." The tree of life is represented by a date-palm on some of the earliest Christian mosaics at Rome. Something very like the a.s.syrian Asherah, or sacred emblem, was sculptured on the great doors of Solomon's temple, by Hiram, the Tyrian (1 Kings vii. 18-21). We read "he carved upon them carvings of cherubims and palm-trees and open flowers, and spread gold upon the cherubims and palm-trees" (1 Kings vi. 82-35).

He also erected two phallic pillars in front of the Temple, Jachin and Boaz, = It stands--In strength. No wonder Solomon fell to wors.h.i.+p Astarte, Chemosh, and Milcom.

Although to our modern ideas the mystical tree, symbol of life and immortality, seems out of place in Judaism, yet no sooner did the Jews possess a national coinage under the Maccabees than the palm-tree reappears, _always with seven branches_ (like the golden candlestick, Ex. xxv.), as on the shekel represented Plate xvii., Fig. 4. The a.s.syrian tree has _always_ the same number, and the tufts of foliage (symbolising the entire female tree) which deck the margins of the mystic D--apt emblems of fertility--have also invariably seven branches.

This may remind us of the seven visible spheres that move around our earth "in mystic dance," and of Balak's offering, upon seven altars, seven bulls and seven rams (Num. xxiii. 1; Rev. ii. 1) The mystic door is also barred, like the Egyptian sistrum carried by the priestesses of Isis, to represent the inviolable purity and eternal perfection which were a.s.sociated with the idea of divinity. When Mary, the mother of Jesus, took the place in Christendom of "the great G.o.ddess," the dogmas which propounded her immaculate conception and perpetual virginity followed as a matter of course.

Thus, then, we explain the greatest symbol in Eastern wors.h.i.+p,--it is the "Tree of Life in the midst of the Garden," which has remained so long a mystery. To Dr. Inman belongs the distinguished merit of having first broken ground in the right direction. In his _Ancient Faiths_, vol. 1, 1868, he identified the a.s.syrian "Asherah" with the female "door of life," and pointed out its a.n.a.logy to the barred sistrum. We have seen that it is really much more complex, being precisely a.n.a.logous in meaning to the famous _crux ansata_ (Fig. 170), the central mystery of Egyptian wors.h.i.+p; to the lingam or lingyoni of India (Fig. 109), the great emblem of Siva-wors.h.i.+p; and to the caduceus of Greece and Rome. As represented on the a.s.syrian sculptures, it is always substantially the same. Probably this stereotyped form was the result of a gradual refinement upon some rude primitive type, perhaps as coa.r.s.e as that seen by Captain Burton in the African idol-temple.

To exhibit all the strange developments and modifications which this idea has a.s.sumed in the religious symbolism of Eastern and Western nations would require a large volume. But the subject is so rich in varied interest that we cannot conclude without taking a glance at it.

First, the simple O, barred, is reproduced with a contraction towards the base, as in the Indian "yoni," and the Egyptian sistrum, used in the wors.h.i.+p of Isis. Second, within the O was represented the G.o.ddess herself, as revealed within her own symbol. This is ill.u.s.trated in Plate xvii., Fig. 5, where Demeter or Ceres is thus depicted, with her cornucopia, from a bronze coin of Damascus. Thirdly, but much more commonly, the G.o.ddess holds in her hands emblems of the male potency in creation, and thus completes the symbol. As in the coin figured Plate xvii., Fig. 8, the G.o.ddess, standing within the O, the portico of her temple, holds in her right hand the cross, that most ancient emblem of the male and of life. In the beautiful Greek coin of Sidon next figured, the G.o.ddess--evidently Astarte, the moon-G.o.ddess, the Queen of Heaven--stands on a s.h.i.+p, the mystic Argha or Ark, holding in one hand a crozier, in the other the cross. (Plate xvii., Fig. 7.)

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