Part 26 (2/2)
We expect to find Ashur reflected in these three phases of a.s.syrian civilization. If we recognize him in the first place as a G.o.d of fertility, his other attributes are at once included. A G.o.d of fertility is a corn G.o.d and a water G.o.d. The river as a river was a ”creator” (p. 29), and Ashur was therefore closely a.s.sociated with the ”watery place”, with the ca.n.a.ls or ”rivers running round about his plants”. The rippling water-rays, or fertilizing tears, appear on the solar discs. As a corn G.o.d, he was a G.o.d of war. Tammuz's first act was to slay the demons of winter and storm, as Indra's in India was to slay the demons of drought, and Thor's in Scandinavia was to exterminate the frost giants. The corn G.o.d had to be fed with human sacrifices, and the people therefore waged war against foreigners to obtain victims. As the G.o.d made a contract with his people, he was a deity of commerce; he provided them with food and they in turn fed him with offerings.
In Ezekiel's comparison of a.s.syria to a mighty tree, there is no doubt a mythological reference. The Hebrew prophets invariably utilized for their poetic imagery the characteristic beliefs of the peoples to whom they made direct reference. The ”owls”, ”satyrs”, and ”dragons” of Babylon, mentioned by Isaiah, were taken from Babylonian mythology, as has been indicated. When, therefore, a.s.syria is compared to a cedar, which is greater than fir or chestnut, and it is stated that there are nesting birds in the branches, and under them reproducing beasts of the field, and that the greatness of the tree is due to ”the mult.i.tude of waters”, the conclusion is suggested that a.s.syrian religion, which Ashur's symbols reflect, included the wors.h.i.+p of trees, birds, beasts, and water. The symbol of the a.s.syrian tree--probably the ”world tree”
of its religion--appears to be ”the rod of mine anger ... the staff in their hand”; that is, the battle standard which was a symbol of Ashur.
Tammuz and Osiris were tree G.o.ds as well as corn G.o.ds.
Now, as Ashur was evidently a complex deity, it is futile to attempt to read his symbols without giving consideration to the remnants of a.s.syrian mythology which are found in the ruins of the ancient cities.
These either reflect the attributes of Ashur, or const.i.tute the material from which he evolved.
As Layard pointed out many years ago, the a.s.syrians had a sacred tree which became conventionalized. It was ”an elegant device, in which curved branches, springing from a kind of scroll work, terminated in flowers of graceful form. As one of the figures last described[378]
was turned, as if in act of adoration, towards this device, it was evidently a sacred emblem; and I recognized in it the holy tree, or tree of life, so universally adored at the remotest period in the East, and which was preserved in the religious systems of the Persians to the final overthrow of their Empire.... The flowers were formed by seven petals.”[379]
This tree looks like a pillar, and is thrice crossed by conventionalized bull's horns tipped with ring symbols which may be stars, the highest pair of horns having a larger ring between them, but only partly shown as if it were a crescent. The tree with its many ”sevenfold” designs may have been a symbol of the ”Sevenfold-one-are-ye” deity. This is evidently the a.s.syrian tree which was called ”the rod” or ”staff”.
What mythical animals did this tree shelter? Layard found that ”the four creatures continually introduced on the sculptured walls”, were ”a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle”.[380]
In Sumeria the G.o.ds were given human form, but before this stage was reached the bull symbolized Nannar (Sin), the moon G.o.d, Ninip (Saturn, the old sun), and Enlil, while Nergal was a lion, as a tribal sun G.o.d.
The eagle is represented by the Zu bird, which symbolized the storm and a phase of the sun, and was also a deity of fertility. On the silver vase of Lagash the lion and eagle were combined as the lion-headed eagle, a form of Nin-Girsu (Tammuz), and it was a.s.sociated with wild goats, stags, lions, and bulls. On a mace head dedicated to Nin-Girsu, a lion slays a bull as the Zu bird slays serpents in the folk tale, suggesting the wars of totemic deities, according to one ”school”, and the battle of the sun with the storm clouds according to another. Whatever the explanation may be of one animal deity of fertility slaying another, it seems certain that the conflict was a.s.sociated with the idea of sacrifice to procure the food supply.
In a.s.syria the various primitive G.o.ds were combined as a winged bull, a winged bull with human head (the king's), a winged lion with human head, a winged man, a deity with lion's head, human body, and eagle's legs with claws, and also as a deity with eagle's head and feather headdress, a human body, wings, and feather-fringed robe, carrying in one hand a metal basket on which two winged men adored the holy tree, and in the other a fir cone.[381]
Layard suggested that the latter deity, with eagle's head, was Nisroch, ”the word Nisr signifying, in all Semitic languages, an eagle ”.[382] This deity is referred to in the Bible: ”Sennacherib, king of a.s.syria, ... was wors.h.i.+pping in the house of Nisroch, his G.o.d”.[383]
Professor Pinches is certain that Nisroch is Ashur, but considers that the ”ni” was attached to ”Ashur” (Ashuraku or Ashurachu), as it was to ”Marad” (Merodach) to give the reading Ni-Marad = Nimrod. The names of heathen deities were thus made ”unrecognizable, and in all probability ridiculous as well.... Pious and orthodox lips could p.r.o.nounce them without fear of defilement.”[384] At the same time the ”Nisr” theory is probable: it may represent another phase of this process. The names of heathen G.o.ds were not all treated in like manner by the Hebrew teachers. Abed-_nebo_, for instance, became Abed-_nego_, _Daniel_, i, 7, as Professor Pinches shows.
Seeing that the eagle received prominence in the mythologies of Sumeria and a.s.syria, as a deity of fertility with solar and atmospheric attributes, it is highly probable that the Ashur symbol, like the Egyptian Horus solar disk, is a winged symbol of life, fertility, and destruction. The idea that it represents the sun in eclipse, with protruding rays, seems rather far-fetched, because eclipses were disasters and indications of divine wrath;[385] it certainly does not explain why the ”rays” should only stretch out sideways, like wings, and downward like a tail, why the ”rays” should be double, like the double wings of cherubs, bulls, &c, and divided into sections suggesting feathers, or why the disk is surmounted by conventionalized horns, tipped with star-like ring symbols, identical with those depicted in the holy tree. What particular connection the five small rings within the disk were supposed to have with the eclipse of the sun is difficult to discover.
In one of the other symbols in which appears a feather-robed archer, it is significant to find that the arrow he is about to discharge has a head shaped like a trident; it is evidently a lightning symbol.
When Ezekiel prophesied to the Israelitish captives at Tel-abib, ”by the river of Chebar” in Chaldea (Kheber, near Nippur), he appears to have utilized a.s.syrian symbolism. Probably he came into contact in Babylonia with fugitive priests from a.s.syrian cities.
This great prophet makes interesting references to ”four living creatures”, with ”four faces ”--the face of a man, the face of a lion, the face of an ox, and the face of an eagle; ”they had the hands of a man under their wings, ... their wings were joined one to another; ...
their wings were stretched upward: two wings of every one were joined one to another.... Their appearance was like burning coals of fire and like the appearance of lamps.... The living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning.”[386]
Elsewhere, referring to the sisters, Aholah and Aholibah, who had been in Egypt and had adopted unmoral ways of life Ezekiel tells that when Aholibah ”doted upon the a.s.syrians” she ”saw men pourtrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans pourtrayed with vermilion, girded with girdles upon their loins”.[387] Traces of the red colour on the walls of a.s.syrian temples and palaces have been observed by excavators. The winged G.o.ds ”like burning coals” were probably painted in vermilion.
Ezekiel makes reference to ”ring” and ”wheel” symbols. In his vision he saw ”one wheel upon the earth by the living creatures, with his four faces. The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the colour of beryl; and they four had one likeness; and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel.... As for their rings, they were so high that they were dreadful; and their rings were full of eyes round about them four. And when the living creatures went, the wheels went by them; and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up. Whithersoever the spirit was to go, they went, thither was their spirit to go; and the wheels were lifted up over against them; _for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels_....[388] And the likeness of the firmament upon the heads of the living creature was as the colour of terrible crystal, stretched forth over their heads above.... And when they went I heard the noise of their wings, like the noise of great waters, as the voice of the Almighty, the voice of speech, as the noise of an host; when they stood they let down their wings....”[389]
Another description of the cherubs states: ”Their whole body, and their backs, and their hands, and their wings, and the wheels, were full of eyes (? stars) round about, even the wheels that they four had. As for the wheels, it was cried unto them in my hearing, O wheel!”--or, according to a marginal rendering, ”they were called in my hearing, wheel, or Gilgal,” i.e. move round.... ”And the cherubims were lifted up.”[390]
It would appear that the wheel (or hoop, a variant rendering) was a symbol of life, and that the a.s.syrian feather-robed figure which it enclosed was a G.o.d, not of war only, but also of fertility. His trident-headed arrow resembles, as has been suggested, a lightning symbol. Ezekiel's references are suggestive in this connection. When the cherubs ”ran and returned” they had ”the appearance of a flash of lightning”, and ”the noise of their wings” resembled ”the noise of great waters”. Their bodies were ”like burning coals of fire”.
Fertility G.o.ds were a.s.sociated with fire, lightning, and water. Agni of India, Sandan of Asia Minor, and Melkarth of Phoenicia were highly developed fire G.o.ds of fertility. The fire cult was also represented in Sumeria (pp. 49-51).
In the Indian epic, the _Mahabharata_, the revolving ring or wheel protects the Soma[391] (ambrosia) of the G.o.ds, on which their existence depends. The eagle giant Garuda sets forth to steal it. The G.o.ds, fully armed, gather round to protect the life-giving drink.
Garuda approaches ”darkening the worlds by the dust raised by the hurricane of his wings”. The celestials, ”overwhelmed by that dust”, swoon away. Garuda afterwards a.s.sumes a fiery shape, then looks ”like ma.s.ses of black clouds”, and in the end its body becomes golden and bright ”as the rays of the sun”. The Soma is protected by fire, which the bird quenches after ”drinking in many rivers” with the numerous mouths it has a.s.sumed. Then Garuda finds that right above the Soma is ”a wheel of steel, keen edged, and sharp as a razor, revolving incessantly. That fierce instrument, of the l.u.s.tre of the blazing sun and of terrible form, was devised by the G.o.ds for cutting to pieces all robbers of the Soma.” Garuda pa.s.ses ”through the spokes of the wheel”, and has then to contend against ”two great snakes of the l.u.s.tre of blazing fire, of tongues bright as the lightning flash, of great energy, of mouth emitting fire, of blazing eyes”. He slays the snakes.... The G.o.ds afterwards recover the stolen Soma.
Garuda becomes the vehicle of the G.o.d Vishnu, who carries the discus, another fiery wheel which revolves and returns to the thrower like lightning. ”And he (Vishnu) made the bird sit on the flagstaff of his car, saying: 'Even thus thou shalt stay above me'.”[392]
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