The God-Idea of the Ancients Part 5
Higgins thinks there is no subject on which more mistakes have been made than on that of the G.o.ddess Isis, both by ancients and moderns. He calls attention to the inconsistency of calling her the moon when in many countries the moon is masculine. He is quite positive that if Isis is the moon, Ceres, Proserpine, Venus, and all the other female G.o.ds were the same, which in view of the facts everywhere at hand cannot be true.
It is true, however, that "the planet called the moon was dedicated to her in judicial astrology, the same as a planet was dedicated to Venus or Mars. But Venus and Mars were not these planets themselves, though these planets were sacred to them."(33) Higgins then calls attention to her temple at Sais in Egypt, and to the inscription which declares that "she comprehends all that is and was and is to be," that she is "parent of the sun," and he justly concludes that Isis can not be the moon.
33) Anacalypsis, book vi., ch. ii.
Apuleius makes Isis say:
"I am the parent of all things, the sovereign of the elements, the primary progeny of time, the most exalted of the deities, the first of the heavenly G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses, whose single deity the whole world venerates in many forms, with various rites and various names. The Egyptians worship me with proper ceremonies and call me by my true name, Queen Isis."
Isis, we are told, is called Myrionymus, or G.o.ddess with 10,000 names.
She is the Persian Mithra, which is the same as Buddha, Minerva, Venus, and all the rest.
Faber admits that the female principle was formerly regarded as the Soul of the World. He says:
"Isis was the same as Neith or Minerva; hence the inscription at Sais was likewise applied to that G.o.ddess. Athenagoras informs us that Neith or the Athene of the Greeks was supposed to be Wisdom pa.s.sing and diffusing itself through all things. Hence it is manifest that she was thought to be the Soul of the World; for such is precisely the character sustained by that mythological personage."(34)
34) Pagan Idolatry, book i., p. 170.
The same writer says further:
"Ovid gives a similar character to Venus. He represents her as moderating the whole world; as giving laws to Heaven, Earth, and Ocean, as the common parent both of G.o.ds and men, and as the productive cause both of corn and trees. She is celebrated in the same manner by Lucretius, who ascribes to her that identical attribute of universality which the Hindoos give to their G.o.ddess Isi or Devi."(35)
35) Ibid.
It seems to be the general belief of all writers whose object is to disclose rather than conceal the ancient mysteries, that until a comparatively recent time the moon was never worshipped as Isis. Until the origin and meaning of the ancient religion had been forgotten, and the ideas underlying the worship of Nature had been lost, the moon was never regarded as representing the female principle.
When man began to regard himself as the only important factor in procreation, and when the sun became masculine and heat or pa.s.sion const.i.tuted the G.o.d-idea, the moon was called Isis. The moon represented the absence of heat, it therefore contained little of the recognized G.o.d-element. It was, perhaps, under the circ.u.mstances, a fitting emblem for woman.
In the sacred writings of the Hindoos there is an account of the moon, Soma, having been changed into a female called Chandra, "the white or silvery one."
While speaking of the moon, Kalisch says: "The whole ritual of the Phoenician G.o.ddess Astarte with whom that Queen of Heaven is identical, and who was the G.o.ddess of fertility seems to have been transferred to her."(36)
36) Historical and Critical Commentary of the Old Testament.
To such an extent, in the earlier ages of the world had the female been regarded as the Creator, that in many countries where her worship subsequently became identified with that of the moon, Luna was adored as the producer of the sun. According to the Babylonian creation tablets, the moon was the most important heavenly body. In later ages, the gender of the sun and the moon seems to be exceedingly variable. The Achts of Vancouver's Island worship sun and moon--the sun as female, the moon as male.(37) In some of the countries of Africa the moon is adored as female and sun-worship is unknown. Among various peoples the sun and the moon are regarded as husband and wife, and among others as brother and sister. In some countries, both are female. I can find no instance in which both are male. Hindoos and Aztecs alike, at one time, said that Luna was male and often that the sun was female.
37) Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. ii., p. 272.
The fact that among the Persians the moon as well as the sun was at a certain period regarded as a source of procreative energy and as influencing the generative processes, is shown by various pa.s.sages in the Avestas. In the Khordah Avesta, praise is offered to "the Moon which contains the seed of cattle, to the only begotten Bull, to the Bull of many kinds."
Perhaps the most widely diffused and universally adored representation of the ancient female Deity in Egypt was the Virgin Neit or Neith, the Athene of the Greeks and the Minerva of the Romans. Her name signifies "I came from myself." This Deity represents not only creative power, but abstract intelligence, Wisdom or Light. Her temple at Sais was the largest in Egypt. It was open at the top and bore the following inscription: "I am all that was and is and is to be; no mortal has lifted up my veil, and the fruit which I brought forth was the sun."
She was called also Muth, the universal mother. Kings were especially honored in the t.i.tle "Son of Neith."
To express the idea that the female energy in the Deity comprehended not alone the power to bring forth, but that it involved all the natural powers, attributes, and possibilities of human nature, it was portrayed by a pure Virgin who was also a mother. According to Herodotus, the worship of Minerva was indigenous in Lybia, whence it travelled to Egypt and was carried from thence to Greece. Among the remnants of Egyptian mythology, the figure of a mother and child is everywhere observed. It is thought by various writers that the worship of the black virgin and child found its way to Italy from Egypt.
The change noted in the growth of the religious idea by which the male principle a.s.sumes the more important position in the Deity may, by a close investigation of the facts at hand, be easily traced, and, as has before been expressed, this change will be found to correspond with that which in an earlier age of the world took place in the relative positions of the s.e.xes. In all the earliest representations of the Deity, the fact is observed that within the mother element is contained the divinity adored, while the male appears as a child and dependent on the ministrations of the female for existence and support. Gradually, however, as the importance of man begins to be recognized in human affairs, we find that the male energy in the Deity, instead of appearing as a child in the arms of its mother, is represented as a man, and that he is of equal importance with the woman; later he is identical with the sun, the woman, although still a necessary factor in the G.o.d-idea, being concealed or absorbed within the male. It is no longer woman who is to bruise the serpent's head, but the seed of the woman, or the son. He is Bacchus in Greece, Adonis in Syria, Christna in India. He is indeed the new sun which is born on the 25th of December, or at the time when the solar orb has reached its lowest position and begins to ascend. It is not perhaps necessary to add that he is also the Christ of Bethlehem, the son of the Virgin.
Nowhere, perhaps, is the growing importance of the male in the G.o.d-idea more clearly traced than in the history of the Arabians. Among this people are still to be found certain remnants of the matriarchal age--an age in which women were the recognized heads of families and the eponymous leaders of the gentes or clans. Concerning the worship of a man and woman as G.o.d by the early Arabians, Prof. Robertson Smith remarks:
"Except the comparatively modern Isaf and Naila in the sanctuary at Mecca where there are traditions of Syrian influence, I am not aware that the Arabs had pairs of G.o.ds represented as man and wife. In the time of Mohammed the female deities, such as Al-lat, were regarded as daughters of the supreme male G.o.d. But the older conception as we see from a Nabataean inscription in De Vogue, page 119, is that Al-lat is mother of the G.o.ds. At Petra the mother-G.o.ddess and her son were worshipped together, and there are sufficient traces of the same thing elsewhere to lead us to regard this as having been the general rule when a G.o.d and G.o.ddess were worshipped in one sanctuary."(38)
38) Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, ch. vi., p. 179.
As the worship of the black virgin and child is connected with the earliest religion of which we may catch a glimpse, the exact locality in which it first appeared must be somewhat a matter of conjecture, but that this idea const.i.tuted the Deity among the Ethiopian or early Cus.h.i.te race, the people who doubtless carried civilization to Egypt, India, and Chaldea, is quite probable.
If we bear in mind the fact that the G.o.ds of the ancients represented principles and powers, we shall not be surprised to find that Muth, Neith, or Isis, who was creator of the sun, was also the first emanation from the sun. Minerva is Wisdom--the Logos, the Word. She is Perception, Light, etc. At a later stage in the history of religion, all emanations from the Deity are males who are "Saviors."
That the office of the male as a creative agency is dependent on the female, is a fact so patent that for ages the mother principle could not be eliminated from the conception of a Deity, and the homage paid to Athene or Minerva, even after women had become only s.e.xual slaves and household tools, shows the extent to which the idea of female supremacy in Nature and in the Deity had taken root.
Notwithstanding the efforts which during numberless ages were made to dethrone the female principle in the G.o.d-idea, the Great Mother, under some one of her various appellations, continued, down to a late period in the history of the human race, to claim the homage and adoration of a large portion of the inhabitants of the globe. And so difficult was it, even after the male element had declared itself supreme, to conceive of a creative force independently of the female principle, that oftentimes, during the earlier ages of their attempted separation, great confusion and obscurity are observed in determining the positions of male deities.
Zeus who in later times came to be worshipped as male was formerly represented as "the great d.y.k.e, the terrible virgin who breathes out on crime, anger, and death." Grote refers to numerous writers as authority for the statement that Dionysos, who usually appears in Greece as masculine, and who was doubtless the Jehovah of the Jews, was indigenous in Thrace, Phrygia, and Lydia as the Great Mother Cybele. He was identical with Bacchus, who although represented on various coins as a "bearded venerable figure" appears with the limbs, features, and character of a beautiful young woman. Sometimes this Deity is portrayed with sprouting horns, and again with a crown of ivy. The Phrygian Attis and the Syrian Adonis, as represented in monuments of ancient art, are androgynous personifications of the same attributes. According to the testimony of the geographer Dionysius, the worship of Bacchus was formerly carried on in the British Islands in exactly the same manner as it had been in an earlier age in Thrace and on the banks of the Ganges.
In referring to the Idean Zeus in Crete, to Demeter at Eleusis, to the Cabairi in Samothrace, and Dionysos at Delphi and Thebes, Grote observes: "That they were all to a great degree a.n.a.logous, is shown by the way in which they necessarily run together and become confused in the minds of various authors."
Concerning Sadi, Sadim, or Shaddai, Higgins remarks:
"Parkhurst tells us it means all-bountiful--the pourer forth of blessings; among the Heathen, the Dea Multimammia; in fact the Diana of Ephesus, the Urania of Persia, the Jove of Greece, called by Orpheus the Mother of the G.o.ds, each male as well as female--the Venus Aphrodite; in short, the genial powers of Nature."
To which Higgins adds: "And I maintain that it means the figure which is often found in collections of ancient statues, most beautifully executed, and called the Hermaphrodite."
As in the old language there was no neuter gender, the G.o.ds must always appear either as female or male. For apparent reasons, in all the translations, through the p.r.o.nouns and adjectives used, the more important ancient deities have all been made to appear as males.
By at least two ancient writers Jupiter is called the Mother of the G.o.ds. In reference to a certain Greek appellation, Bryant observes that it is a masculine name for a feminine deity--a name which is said to be a corruption of Mai, the Hindoo Queen of Heaven.
In process of time, as the world became more and more masculinized, so important did it become that the male should occupy the more exalted place in the Deity, that even the Great Mother of the G.o.ds, as we have seen, is represented as male.
The androgynous or plural form of the ancient Phoenician G.o.d Aleim, the Creator referred to in the opening chapter of Genesis, is clearly apparent. This G.o.d, speaking to his counterpart, Wisdom, the female energy, says: "Let us make man in our own image, in our own likeness,"
and accordingly males and females are produced. By those whose duty it has been in the past to prove that the Deity here represented is composed only of the masculine attributes, we are given to understand that G.o.d was really "speaking to himself," and that in his divine cogitations excessive modesty dictated the "polite form of speech"; he did not, therefore, say exactly what he meant, or at least did not mean precisely what he said. We have to bear in mind, however, that as man had not at that time been created, if there were no female element present, this excess of politeness on the part of the "Lord" was wholly lost. Surely, in a matter involving such an enormous stretch of power as the creation of man independently of the female energy, we would scarcely expect to find the high and mighty male potentate which was subsequently worshipped as the Lord of the Israelites laying aside his usual "I the Lord," simply out of deference to the animals.
In Christian countries, during the past eighteen hundred years, the greatest care has been exercised to conceal the fact that sun-worship underlies all forms of religion, and under Protestant Christianity no pains has been spared in eliminating the female element from the G.o.d-idea; hence the ignorance which prevails at the present time in relation to the fact that the Creator once comprehended the forces of Nature, which by an older race were worshipped as female.
CHAPTER IV. THE DUAL G.o.d OF THE ANCIENTS A TRINITY ALSO.
Although the G.o.d of the most ancient people was a dual Unity, in later ages it came to be worshipped as a Trinity. When mankind began to speculate on the origin of the life principle, they came to worship their Deity in its three capacities as Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer or Regenerator, each of which was female and male. We have observed that, according to Higgins, when this Trinity was spoken of collectively, it was called after the feminine plural.