The God-Idea of the Ancients Part 7
The history of the catastrophe known as the deluge, which, it is claimed, took place either in Armenia, at Cashgar, or at some other place in the East, is observed, in later ages, to furnish a covering beneath which have been veiled the mythical doctrines of the priests. Of the catastrophes which from time to time have visited our planet, and of the belief which has come to be entertained by ecclesiastics that the earth will be destroyed by fire, Celsus writes:
"The belief has spread among them, from a misunderstanding of the accounts of these occurrences, that after lengthened cycles of time, and the returns and conjunctions of planets, conflagrations, and floods are wont to happen, and because after the last flood, which took place in the time of Deucalion, the lapse of time, agreeably to the vicissitude of all things, requires a conflagration; and this made them give utterance to the erroneous opinion that G.o.d will descend, bringing fire like a torturer."(44)
44) Origen against Celsus, book iv., ch. xi.
The mythologies of all nations are largely founded upon the "religious history" of a flood. The doctrine of a triplicated G.o.d saved from destruction by a storm-tossed ark which rested on some local mountain answering to Ararat, and which was filled with the natural elements of reproduction, is found amongst the traditions of every country of the globe. In Egypt, the destructive agency drives the G.o.d into the ark--or into the fish's belly, where he is obliged to remain until the flood subsides. In other words, at the time of the destruction of the world, the creative agency is forced within the womb of Nature, there to remain until it again comes forth to recreate the world; nor does the symbolism end here, for this G.o.d--the sun, or the reproductive power within it, which every year is put to death by the cold of winter, must for a season remain lifeless, but, at the proper time, will come forth with healing in his wings. This G.o.d must issue forth to life through female Nature.
The G.o.d-man, Noah, who appears under one appellation or another in all extant mythologies, was slain, or shut up in a box, ark, or chest in which he or his seed was preserved from the ravages of a mighty flood, or from destruction by the calamity which had befallen the rest of mankind. In one sense he represents a Savior, in another sense he is the saved, for he is the seed of a former world and is born again from a boat, a symbol which always represents the female energy. Sometimes he is shut up in a wooden cow, from which he issues forth to new life.
Again this storm tossed mariner is born from a cave, or the door of a rocky cavern, within which he had been preserved from some terrible catastrophe, caused either by water or fire.
Sir W. Jones, Faber, Higgins, and many others who have investigated this subject are confident that the Noah of Genesis is identical with Menu, the law-giver of India, and that both are Adam, a man who appears with his three sons at the end of each cycle, or six hundred years, to renovate the world. In the six hundred and first year of Noah's life, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from the earth. The drying of the waters, and the beginning anew just at the close of the six hundred years, are thought to refer to the end of the cycle of the Neros. A year of Menu or Buddha had expired and a new dynasty or Mamwantara was to begin.
Regarding this trinity, Faber remarks:
"Brahm then at the head of the Indian triad is Menu at the head of his three sons. But that by the first Menu we are to understand Adam, is evident, both from the remarkable circ.u.mstance of himself and his consort bearing the t.i.tles of Adima and Iva, and from the no less remarkable tradition that one of his three sons was murdered by his brother at a sacrifice. Hence it will follow, that Brahm at the head of the Indian triad is Adam at the head of his three sons, Cain, Abel, and Seth. Each Menu with his triple offspring is only the reappearance of a former Menu with his triple offspring; for, in every such manifestation at the commencement of each Mamwantara, the Hindoo Trimurti, or triad, becomes incarnate, by transmigrating from the human bodies occupied during a former incarnation; Brahm or the Unity appearing as the paternal Menu of a new age, while the triad, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, is exhibited in the person of his three sons.... But the ark-preserved Menu--Satyavrata and his three sons are certainly Noah and his three sons, Shem, Ham, and j.a.phet."
Hesiod teaches that, after the flood, Chaos, Night, and black Erebus first appeared.(45) At this time, when there was no Earth, no Heaven, and no Air, an egg floated on the face of the deep, which, being parted, brought forth Love, or Cupid. Out of Chaos this G.o.d created or formed all things. Now Cupid is the same as the Greek Phanes, and Phanes is Noah, the egg being the ark or female principle from which he was produced. The Greek G.o.d Phanes is the same as the Egyptian Osiris, who was driven into the ark by the "wind that blasts," or by the evil principle.
45) The Theogony.
"As Cupid is indifferently said to have been produced from an egg at a time when the whole world was in disorder, and from the womb of the marine G.o.ddess Venus, the egg and the womb of that G.o.ddess must denote the same thing. Accordingly we shall find that, on the one hand, Venus is immediately connected with the symbolical egg; and, on the other hand, that she is identical with Derceto and Isis, and is declared to be that general receptacle out of which all the hero-G.o.ds were produced.
Now there can be little doubt in what sense we are to understand this expression, when we are told that the peculiar symbol of Isis was a ship; and when we learn that the form a.s.sumed at the period of the deluge, by the Indian Isi or Bhavani, who is clearly the same as the Egyptian Isis, was the ship Argha, in which her consort Siva floated securely on the surface of the ocean. Venus, therefore, or the Great Mother, the parent of Cupid from whom all mankind descended, must be the Ark: consequently, the egg, with which she is connected, must be the Ark also. Aristophanes informs us that the egg out of which Love was born, was produced by Night in the bosom of Erebus. But the G.o.ddess Night, as we learn from the Orphic poet, was the very same person as Venus; and he celebrates her as the parent of the Universe, and as the general mother both of the hero-G.o.ds and of man. The egg therefore produced by Night was produced by Venus: but Venus and the egg meant the same thing: even that vast floating machine, which was esteemed an epitome of the world, and from which was born that Deity who is also literally said to have been set afloat in an ark. Sometimes the order of production was inverted; and, instead of the egg being produced by Night or Venus, Venus herself was fabled to have been produced from the egg. There is a remarkable legend of this sort which ascribes Venus and her egg to the age of Typhon and Osiris, in other words, to the age in which Noah was compelled by the deluge to enter into the ark."(46)
46) Origin of Pagan Idolatry, book i., ch. iv.
The Preserver of the Persians, who is seated on a rainbow in front of their rock temples, is Mithras, who is identical with Noah. Sometimes this ancient mariner is represented as riding on the back of a fish, and again as floating in a boat. The G.o.d of Hindostan, like the cla.s.sical Dionysos, was enclosed in an ark and driven into the sea. According to the Gothic traditions as recorded in the Eddas, there once existed a beautiful world, which was destroyed by fire. Another was created, which, with all its inhabitants save a giant and his three sons, who were saved in a ship, were destroyed by water. With this triad, which originally sprang from a mysterious cow, the new world began. This new world, which represents the present system, will in time be devoured by flames; but another earth will arise from the ocean,--an earth far more beautiful than this, upon which all kinds of grain and delicious fruits will grow without cultivation. Veda and Vile will be there, for the conflagration will have been powerless to destroy them. While the flames are devouring all things, two human beings, a female and a male, will be concealed under a hill, where they will feed upon dew, and will propagate so abundantly that the earth will soon be peopled with a new race of beings. During the catastrophe, the sun will be devoured by a wolf, but before her death she will give birth to a daughter as resplendent as herself, who will go in the same path formerly trodden by her mother.
The doctrines of the Gothic philosophers, as they appear in the Eddas, concerning the eternity of matter, the renewal or succession of worlds, and reincarnation are the same as those taught by Pythagoras, the Stoics, and other Greek schools of thought.
Brahme or Vishnu, resting on the bottom of the sea--a G.o.ddess who was symbolized by the self-generating lotus--was in later ages the mysterious Cow of the Goths.
After the natural truths concealed beneath their religious symbolism were wholly forgotten, and human nature through the over-stimulation of the animal instincts had become corrupted, Adam and Eve, names which doubtless for ages represented the two fecundating principles throughout Nature, with their sons, Cain, Abel, and Seth, comprehended the G.o.d-idea. The fact has been observed that just six hundred years from the creation of Adam, or at the close of the cycle, Noah appears with his three sons to save or perpetuate the race.
It is now believed that this account of Noah and his three sons is an allegory beneath which are concealed the religious doctrines, or perhaps I should say, the philosophical speculations of an older race. The G.o.d of the ancients was identified with the life of man individually and with that of mankind collectively. As men die each day, and as every day men are born, this Deity is said to die and to be renewed each day; and as he is the sun, or the incarnation of the sun, the rising and setting of this luminary depict the constantly dying and regenerating G.o.d of Nature, the same as do the changing seasons. A similar idea reappears in their system of the renewal of worlds and reincarnation.
Regarding the doctrine of the eternity of matter held by the ancients, Origen mentions a belief of the Egyptians that the
"world or its substance was never produced, but that it has existed from all eternity. Neither is there any such thing as death. Those who perish about us every day are simply changed, either they take on other forms or are removed to some other place. G.o.d cannot be destroyed, and as all things are parts of the Deity everything lives and has always lived, seeming death being simply change. Remnants of these doctrines are found in every portion of the globe; among the Mexicans of the west as well as among the rude mountaineers of the Burman Empire."
While contemplating the philosophical speculations of an ancient race Bailly gave expression to the belief, that a "profoundly learned race of people existed previous to the formation of any of our systems." The wiser among the Greek philosophers, those who, it is believed, borrowed their philosophical doctrines from the East, declare that "there is no production of anything which was not before; no new substance made which did not really pre-exist." Equally with matter was spirit indestructible. "Our soul," says Plato, "was somewhere, before it came to exist in this present form; whence it appears to be immortal.... Who knows whether that which is demonstrated living, be not indeed rather dying, and whether that which is styled dying be not rather living?"
To one who has given attention to the various legends relative to the destruction of the world by a flood, and a storm-tossed mariner saved in an ark or boat, it is plain that they all have the same significance, all are but different versions of the same myth, which in an early age was used to conceal the philosophical doctrines of an ancient people.
That the early historic nations understood little concerning the origin and true meaning of the legends which they had inherited from an older race is quite evident. The ignorance of the Greeks regarding the significance of these legends is shown by the following: When Solon, wishing to acquaint himself with the history of the oldest times, inquired of an Egyptian priest concerning the time of the flood, and the age of Deucalion or Phroneous or Noah, this functionary replied:
"O Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always children, nor is there an old man among you! Having no ancient traditions nor any acquaintance with chronology, you are as yet in a state of intellectual infancy. The true origin of such mutilated fables as you possess is this. There have been and shall again be in the course of many revolving ages, numerous destructions of the human race; the greatest of them by fire and water, but others in an almost endless succession of shorter intervals."(47)
47) Quoted by Plato; also by Clement of Alexandria.
We have observed that the symbol of the universe was an egg. The egg was also the symbol of the earth and of the ark, which meant universal womanhood. From the mundane egg the triplicated Deity sprang. There can be little doubt at the present time that Adam, Noah, Menu, Osiris, and Dionysos all represent the fructifying power of the sun. In process of time they each came to figure as male reproductive energy, and during certain periods of the earth's history they have each in turn been worshipped as the Deity. That not only the ark was female, but that the G.o.d element or reproductive principle within the ark was both female and male, is a fact which has been lost sight of during the historic period, or during those ages of the world in which the attempt has been made to prove Nature motherless.
All the germs and living creatures which were within the ark, and which were to reanimate the earth, were in pairs, females and males; and, besides, the Dove (female), the emblem of peace, was also present. Even Noah himself was produced from an egg, which, as we have seen, is the symbol of Venus, or universal womanhood. In after ages the female principle was not mentioned, but, on the contrary, was concealed beneath convenient symbols; and as the philosophical ideas underlying natural religion were lost or forgotten, and mankind had become too ignorant to perceive that a dual force, female and male which was also a Trinity, pervades Nature, the notion came gradually to prevail that the creative agency, which is spirit, is altogether male. Hence the formulation of the inconceivable doctrine of a Trinity composed of a Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
CHAPTER V. SEPARATION OF THE FEMALE AND HALE ELEMENTS IN THE DEITY.
Glimpses of antiquity as far back as human ken can reach reveal the fact that in early ages of human society the physiological question of s.e.x was a theme of the utmost importance, while various proofs are at hand showing that throughout the past the question of the relative importance of the female and male elements in procreation has been a fruitful source of religious contention and strife. These struggles, which from time to time involved the entire habitable globe, were of long duration, subsiding only after the adherents of the one s.e.x or the other had gained sufficient ascendancy over the opposite party to successfully erect its altars and compel the worship of its own peculiar G.o.ds, which worship usually included a large share of the temporal power. Only since the male s.e.x has gained sufficient influence to control not only human action, but human thought as well, have these contentions subsided.(48)
48) At the present time, through causes which are not difficult to understand, the question of the relative importance of the two s.e.xes is again a.s.suming a degree of importance indicative of the changes which are taking place in human thought, and for the reason that we are just witnessing the dawn of an intellectual age, the problems to be solved will admit of no answers other than those based upon a scientific foundation.
That religious wars have not been confined to more modern times, and that among an early race the attempt to exalt the male principle met with obstinate resistance which involved mankind in a conflict, the violence of which has never been exceeded, are facts which seem altogether probable. Indeed, there is much evidence going to show that the cause of the original dispersion of a primitive race was the contention which arose respecting their religious faith or regarding the physiological question of the relative importance of the s.e.xes in the function of reproduction; and that the general war indicated in the Puranas, which began in India and extended over the entire habitable globe, and which was celebrated by the poets as "the basis of Grecian mythology," originated in this conflict over the precedence of one or the other of the s.e.x-principles contained in the Deity. Although there are no records of these wars in extant history, accounts of them are still preserved in the traditions and religious monuments of oriental countries. In Egypt, in India, and to a greater or less extent in other Eastern countries, these physiological contests have been disguised under a veil of allegory, the true significance of which it is no longer difficult to understand. With the light which more recent investigation has thrown upon the subject of the separation of the original s.e.x-elements contained in the Deity, the significance of the following legend in the Servarasa is at once apparent.
When Parvati (Devi) was united in marriage to Mahadeva (Siva), the divine pair had once a dispute on the comparative influence of the s.e.xes in producing animated beings, and each resolved by mutual agreement to create a new race of men. The race produced by Mahadeva were very numerous, and devoted themselves exclusively to the worship of the male Deity, but their intellects were dull, their bodies feeble, their limbs distorted, and their complexions of many different hues. Parvati had at the same time created a mult.i.tude of human beings, who adored the female power only, and were well shaped, with sweet aspects and fine complexions. A furious contest ensued between the two nations, and the Lingajas, or adorers of the male principle, were defeated in battle, but Mahadeva, enraged against the Yonigas (the worshippers of the female element), would have destroyed them with the fire of his eye if Parvati had not interposed and appeased him, but he would spare them only on condition that they should instantly leave the country with a promise to see it no more, and from the Yoni, which they adored as the sole cause of their existence, they were named Yavanas.
The fact has been noticed in a previous work(49) that, according to Wilford, the Greeks were the descendants of the Yavanas of India, and that when the Ionians emigrated they adopted the name to distinguish themselves as adorers of the female, in opposition to a strong sect of male worshippers which had been driven from the mother country. We are taught by the Puranas that they settled partly on the borders of Varaha-Dwip, or Europe, where they became the progenitors of the Greeks; and partly in the two Dwipas of Cusha, Asiatic and African. In the Asiatic Cusha-Dwip they supported themselves by violence and rapine.
Parvati, however, or their tutelary G.o.ddess, Yoni, always protected them; and at length, in the fine country which they occupied, they became a flourishing nation.(50) Wilford relates that there is a sect of Hindoos who, attempting to reconcile the two systems, declare in their allegorical style that "Parvati and Mahadeva found their concurrence essential to the perfection of their offspring, and that Vishnu, at the request of the G.o.ddess, effected a reconciliation between them."(51)
49) See The Evolution of Women, p. 303.
50) Asiatic Researches, vol. iii., pp. 125-132.
51) Asiatic Researches, "Egypt and the Nile," vol. iii., pp. 361-363.
The people who were dominant in Asia long before the rise of the late a.s.syrian monarchy, are said to be those whom scriptural writers represent as Cushim, and the Hindoos as Cushas. They were the descendants of Cush, or Cuth, and were believed to have been the architects of the Tower of Babel. Epiphanius, Eusebius, and others a.s.sert that at the time of the building of this tower there existed two rival beliefs, the one demonstrated as Scuthism, the other as Ionism, or h.e.l.lenism, the latter of which embodied the worship of the Great Mother, or the female element, which was worshipped in the shape of the mystic "Iona or Dove." The Scuths, on the other hand, believed in the pre-eminence of a Great Father, or, perhaps I should say, in a Deity composed of a triad containing the elements of a male parent. Upon this subject the learned Faber remarks: "I am much mistaken if some dissension on these points did not prevail at Babel itself; and I think there is reason for believing that the altercation between the rival sects aided the confusion of languages in producing the dispersion."(52)
52) Pagan Idolatry, book vi., ch. ii.
Those who believed in the superiority of the male in the processes of reproduction, adored the male element in the Deity, while those who held that the female is the more important, worshipped the female energy throughout Nature under one or another of its symbols, sometimes as a woman with her child and sometimes as a dove, but oftener as an ark, box, or chest.
It is evident from the sacred writings of the Hindoos that in India, during a period of several thousand years, there existed various sects, those who worshipped the male as the only creative force, others who adored the female as the origin of life, and those who paid homage to both, as alike important in the office of reproduction.