Part 26 (1/2)
The earliest germ of the Creation myth was the idea that night was the parent of day, and water of the earth. Out of darkness and death came light and life. Life was also motion. When the primordial waters became troubled, life began to be. Out of the confusion came order and organization. This process involved the idea of a stable and controlling power, and the succession of a group of deities--pa.s.sive deities and active deities. When the Babylonian astrologers a.s.sisted in developing the Creation myth, they appear to have identified with the stable and controlling spirit of the night heaven that steadfast orb the Polar Star. Anshar, like Shakespeare's Caesar, seemed to say:
I am constant as the northern star, Of whose true-fixed and resting quality There is no fellow in the firmament. The skies are painted with unnumbered sparks; They are all fire, and every one doth s.h.i.+ne; But there's but one in all doth hold his place.[360]
a.s.sociated with the Polar Star was the constellation Ursa Minor, ”the Little Bear”, called by the Babylonian astronomers, ”the Lesser Chariot”. There were chariots before horses were introduced. A patesi of Lagash had a chariot which was drawn by a.s.ses.
The seemingly steadfast Polar Star was called ”Ilu Sar”, ”the G.o.d Shar”, or Anshar, ”star of the height”, or ”Shar the most high”. It seemed to be situated at the summit of the vault of heaven. The G.o.d Shar, therefore, stood upon the Celestial mountain, the Babylonian Olympus. He was the ghost of the elder G.o.d, who in Babylonia was displaced by the younger G.o.d, Merodach, as Mercury, the morning star, or as the sun, the planet of day; and in a.s.syria by Ashur, as the sun, or Regulus, or Arcturus, or Orion. Yet father and son were identical.
They were phases of the One, the ”self power”.
A deified reigning king was an incarnation of the G.o.d; after death he merged in the G.o.d, as did the Egyptian Unas. The eponymous hero a.s.shur may have similarly merged in the universal Ashur, who, like Horus, an incarnation of Osiris, had many phases or forms.
Isaiah appears to have been familiar with the Tigro-Euphratean myths about the divinity of kings and the displacement of the elder G.o.d by the younger G.o.d, of whom the ruling monarch was an incarnation, and with the idea that the summit of the Celestial mountain was crowned by the ”north star”, the symbol of Anshar. ”Thou shalt take up this parable”, he exclaimed, making use of Babylonian symbolism, ”against the king of Babylon and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!... How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend unto heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of G.o.d; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, _in the sides of the north_; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.”[361] The king is identified with Lucifer as the deity of fire and the morning star; he is the younger G.o.d who aspired to occupy the mountain throne of his father, the G.o.d Shar--the Polar or North Star.
It is possible that the Babylonian idea of a Celestial mountain gave origin to the belief that the earth was a mountain surrounded by the outer ocean, beheld by Etana when he flew towards heaven on the eagle's back. In India this hill is Mount Meru, the ”world spine”, which ”sustains the earth”; it is surmounted by Indra's Valhal, or ”the great city of Brahma”. In Teutonic mythology the heavens revolve round the Polar Star, which is called ”Veraldar nagli”,[362] the ”world spike”; while the earth is sustained by the ”world tree”. The ”ded” amulet of Egypt symbolized the backbone of Osiris as a world G.o.d: ”ded” means ”firm”, ”established”;[363] while at burial ceremonies the coffin was set up on end, inside the tomb, ”on a small sandhill intended to represent the Mountain of the West--the realm of the dead”.[364] The Babylonian temple towers were apparently symbols of the ”world hill”. At Babylon, the Du-azaga, ”holy mound”, was Merodach's temple E-sagila, ”the Temple of the High Head”. E-kur, rendered ”the house or temple of the Mountain”, was the temple of Bel Enlil at Nippur. At Erech, the temple of the G.o.ddess Ishtar was E-anna, which connects her, as Nina or Ninni, with Anu, derived from ”ana”, ”heaven”. Ishtar was ”Queen of heaven”.
Now Polaris, situated at the summit of the celestial mountain, was identified with the sacred goat, ”the highest of the flock of night”.[365] Ursa Minor (the ”Little Bear” constellation) may have been ”the goat with six heads”, referred to by Professor Sayce.[366]
The six astral goats or goat-men were supposed to be dancing round the chief goat-man or Satyr (Anshar). Even in the dialogues of Plato the immemorial belief was perpetuated that the constellations were ”moving as in a dance”. Dancing began as a magical or religious practice, and the earliest astronomers saw their dancing customs reflected in the heavens by the constellations, whose movements were rhythmical. No doubt, Isaiah had in mind the belief of the Babylonians regarding the dance of their goat-G.o.ds when he foretold: ”Their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls (ghosts) shall dwell there, and _satyrs shall dance there_”.[367] In other words, there would be no people left to perform religious dances beside the ”desolate houses”; the stars only would be seen dancing round Polaris.
Tammuz, like Anshar, as sentinel of the night heaven, was a goat, as was also Nin-Girsu of Lagash. A Sumerian reference to ”a white kid of En Mersi (Nin-Girsu)” was translated into Semitic, ”a white kid of Tammuz”. The goat was also a.s.sociated with Merodach. Babylonians, having prayed to that G.o.d to take away their diseases or their sins, released a goat, which was driven into the desert. The present Polar Star, which was not, of course, the Polar star of the earliest astronomers, the world having rocked westward, is called in Arabic Al-Jedy, ”the kid”. In India, the goat was connected with Agni and Varuna; it was slain at funeral ceremonies to inform the G.o.ds that a soul was about to enter heaven. Ea, the Sumerian lord of water, earth, and heaven, was symbolized as a ”goat fish”. Thor, the Teutonic fertility and thunder G.o.d, had a chariot drawn by goats. It is of interest to note that the sacred Sumerian goat bore on its forehead the same triangular symbol as the Apis bull of Egypt.
Ashur was not a ”goat of heaven”, but a ”bull of heaven”, like the Sumerian Nannar (Sin), the moon G.o.d of Ur, Ninip of Saturn, and Bel Enlil. As the bull, however, he was, like Anshar, the ruling animal of the heavens; and like Anshar he had a.s.sociated with him ”six divinities of council”.
Other deities who were similarly exalted as ”high heads” at various centres and at various periods, included Anu, Bel Enlil, and Ea, Merodach, Nergal, and Shamash. A symbol of the first three was a turban on a seat, or altar, which may have represented the ”world mountain”. Ea, as ”the world spine”, was symbolized as a column, with ram's head, standing on a throne, beside which crouched a ”goat fish”.
Merodach's column terminated in a lance head, and the head of a lion crowned that of Nergal. These columns were probably connected with pillar wors.h.i.+p, and therefore with tree wors.h.i.+p, the pillar being the trunk of the ”world tree”. The symbol of the sun G.o.d Shamash was a disc, from which flowed streams of water; his rays apparently were ”fertilizing tears”, like the rays of the Egyptian sun G.o.d Ra. Horus, the Egyptian falcon G.o.d, was symbolized as the winged solar disc.
It is necessary to acc.u.mulate these details regarding other deities and their symbols before dealing with Ashur. The symbols of Ashur must be studied, because they are one of the sources of our knowledge regarding the G.o.d's origin and character. These include (1) a winged disc with horns, enclosing four circles revolving round a middle circle; rippling rays fall down from either side of the disc; (2) a circle or wheel, suspended from wings, and enclosing a warrior drawing his bow to discharge an arrow; and (3) the same circle; the warrior's bow, however, is carried in his left hand, while the right hand is uplifted as if to bless his wors.h.i.+ppers. These symbols are taken from seal cylinders.
An a.s.syrian standard, which probably represented the ”world column”, has the disc mounted on a bull's head with horns. The upper part of the disc is occupied by a warrior, whose head, part of his bow, and the point of his arrow protrude from the circle. The rippling water rays are V-shaped, and two bulls, treading river-like rays, occupy the divisions thus formed. There are also two heads--a lion's and a man's--with gaping mouths, which may symbolize tempests, the destroying power of the sun, or the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates.
Jastrow regards the winged disc as ”the purer and more genuine symbol of Ashur as a solar deity”. He calls it ”a sun disc with protruding rays”, and says: ”To this symbol the warrior with the bow and arrow was added--a despiritualization that reflects the martial spirit of the a.s.syrian empire”.[368]
The sun symbol on the sun boat of Ra encloses similarly a human figure, which was apparently regarded as the soul of the sun: the life of the G.o.d was in the ”sun egg”. In an Indian prose treatise it is set forth: ”Now that man in yonder orb (the sun) and that man in the right eye truly are no other than Death (the soul). His feet have stuck fast in the heart, and having pulled them out he comes forth; and when he comes forth then that man dies; whence they say of him who has pa.s.sed away, 'he has been cut off (his life or life string has been severed)'.”[369] The human figure did not indicate a process of ”despiritualization” either in Egypt or in India. The Horus ”winged disc” was besides a symbol of destruction and battle, as well as of light and fertility. Horus a.s.sumed that form in one legend to destroy Set and his followers.[370] But, of course, the same symbols may not have conveyed the same ideas to all peoples. As Blake put it:
What to others a trifle appears Fills me full of smiles and tears.... With my inward Eye, 't is an old Man grey, With my outward, a Thistle across my way.
Indeed, it is possible that the winged disc meant one thing to an a.s.syrian priest, and another thing to a man not gifted with what Blake called ”double vision”.
What seems certain, however, is that the archer was as truly solar as the ”wings” or ”rays”. In Babylonia and a.s.syria the sun was, among other things, a destroyer from the earliest times. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that Ashur, like Merodach, resembled, in one of his phases, Hercules, or rather his prototype Gilgamesh. One of Gilgamesh's mythical feats was the slaying of three demon birds.
These may be identical with the birds of prey which Hercules, in performing his sixth labour, hunted out of Stymphalus.[371] In the Greek Hipparcho-Ptolemy star list Hercules was the constellation of the ”Kneeler”, and in Babylonian-a.s.syrian astronomy he was (as Gilgamesh or Merodach) ”Sarru”, ”the king”. The astral ”Arrow”
(constellation of Sagitta) was pointed against the constellations of the ”Eagle”, ”Vulture”, and ”Swan”. In Phoenician astronomy the Vulture was ”Zither” (Lyra), a weapon with which Hercules (identified with Melkarth) slew Linos, the musician. Hercules used a solar arrow, which he received from Apollo. In various mythologies the arrow is a.s.sociated with the sun, the moon, and the atmospheric deities, and is a symbol of lightning, rain, and fertility, as well as of famine, disease, war, and death. The green-faced G.o.ddess Neith of Libya, compared by the Greeks to Minerva, carries in one hand two arrows and a bow.[372] If we knew as little of Athena (Minerva), who was armed with a lance, a breastplate made of the skin of a goat, a s.h.i.+eld, and helmet, as we do of Ashur, it might be held that she was simply a G.o.ddess of war. The archer in the sun disc of the a.s.syrian standard probably represented Ashur as the G.o.d of the people--a deity closely akin to Merodach, with p.r.o.nounced Tammuz traits, and therefore linking with other local deities like Ninip, Nergal, and Shamash, and partaking also like these of the attributes of the elder G.o.ds Anu, Bel Enlil, and Ea.
All the other deities wors.h.i.+pped by the a.s.syrians were of Babylonian origin. Ashur appears to have differed from them just as one local Babylonian deity differed from another. He reflected a.s.syrian experiences and aspirations, but it is difficult to decide whether the sublime spiritual aspect of his character was due to the beliefs of alien peoples, by whom the early a.s.syrians were influenced, or to the teachings of advanced Babylonian thinkers, whose doctrines found readier acceptance in a ”new country” than among the conservative ritualists of ancient Sumerian and Akkadian cities. New cults were formed from time to time in Babylonia, and when they achieved political power they gave a distinctive character to the religion of their city states. Others which did not find political support and remained in obscurity at home, may have yet extended their influence far and wide. Buddhism, for instance, originated in India, but now flourishes in other countries, to which it was introduced by missionaries. In the homeland it was submerged by the revival of Brahmanism, from which it sprung, and which it was intended permanently to displace. An instance of an advanced cult suddenly achieving prominence as a result of political influence is afforded by Egypt, where the fully developed Aton religion was embraced and established as a national religion by Akhenaton, the so-called ”dreamer”. That migrations were sometimes propelled by cults, which sought new areas in which to exercise religious freedom and propagate their beliefs, is suggested by the invasion of India at the close of the Vedic period by the ”later comers”, who laid the foundations of Brahmanism. They established themselves in Madhyadesa, ”the Middle Country”, ”the land where the Brahmanas and the later Samhitas were produced”. From this centre went forth missionaries, who accomplished the Brahmanization of the rest of India.[373]
It may be, therefore, that the cult of Ashur was influenced in its development by the doctrines of advanced teachers from Babylonia, and that Persian Mithraism was also the product of missionary efforts extended from that great and ancient cultural area. Mitra, as has been stated, was one of the names of the Babylonian sun G.o.d, who was also a G.o.d of fertility. But Ashur could not have been to begin with merely a battle and solar deity. As the G.o.d of a city state he must have been wors.h.i.+pped by agriculturists, artisans, and traders; he must have been recognized as a deity of fertility, culture, commerce, and law. Even as a national G.o.d he must have made wider appeal than to the cultured and ruling cla.s.ses. Bel Enlil of Nippur was a ”world G.o.d” and war G.o.d, but still remained a local corn G.o.d.
a.s.syria's greatness was reflected by Ashur, but he also reflected the origin and growth of that greatness. The civilization of which he was a product had an agricultural basis. It began with the development of the natural resources of a.s.syria, as was recognized by the Hebrew prophet, who said: ”Behold, the a.s.syrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches.... The waters made him great, the deep set him up on high with her rivers running round about his plants, and sent out her little rivers unto all the trees of the field. Therefore his height was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long because of the mult.i.tude of waters when he shot forth. All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations.
Thus was he fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches; for his root was by great waters. The cedars in the garden of G.o.d could not hide him: the fir trees were not like his boughs, and the chestnut trees were not like his branches; nor any tree in the garden of G.o.d was like unto him in his beauty.”[374]
a.s.shur, the ancient capital, was famous for its merchants. It is referred to in the Bible as one of the cities which traded with Tyre ”in all sorts of things, in blue clothes, and broidered work, and in chests of rich apparel, bound with cords, and made of cedar”.[375]
As a military power, a.s.syria's name was dreaded. ”Behold,” Isaiah said, addressing King Hezekiah, ”thou hast heard what the kings of a.s.syria have done to all lands by destroying them utterly.”[376] The same prophet, when foretelling how Israel would suffer, exclaimed: ”O a.s.syrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation. I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.”[377]