Part 9 (2/2)
Adonis was probably, like Hadad, originally a sun-G.o.d; but the myths connected with him gave him, at any rate in the late Phoenician times, a very distinct and definite personality. He was made the son of Cinryas, a mythic king of Byblus,[1163] and the husband of Astarte or Ashtoreth.
One day, as he chased the wild boar in Lebanon, near the sources of the river of Byblus, the animal which he was hunting turned upon him, and so gored his thigh that he died of the wound. Henceforth he was mourned annually. At the turn of the summer solstice, the anniversary of his death, all the women of Byblus went in a wild procession to Aphaca, in the Lebanon, where his temple stood, and wept and wailed on account of his death. The river, which his blood had once actually stained, turned red to show its sympathy with the mourners, and was thought to flow with his blood afresh. After the ”weeping for Tammuz”[1164] had continued for a definite time, the mourning terminated with the burial of an image of the G.o.d in the sacred precinct. Next day Adonis was supposed to return to life; his image was disinterred and carried back to the temple with music and dances, and every circ.u.mstance of rejoicing.[1165] Wild orgies followed, and Aphaca became notorious for scenes to which it will be necessary to recur hereafter. The Adonis myth is generally explained as representing either the perpetually recurrent decay and recovery of nature, or the declension of the Sun as he moves from the summer to the winter constellations, and his subsequent return and reappearance in all his strength. But myths obtained a powerful hold on ancient imaginations, and the wors.h.i.+ppers of Adonis probably in most cases forgot the symbolical character of his cult, and looked on him as a divine or heroic personage, who had actually gone through all the adventures ascribed to him in the legend. Hence the peculiarly local character of his wors.h.i.+p, of which we find traces only at Byblus and at Jerusalem.
Sydyk, ”Justice,” or, the ”Just One,”[1166] whose name corresponds to the Hebrew Zadok or Zedek, appears in the Phoenician mythology especially as the father of Esmun and the Cabeiri. Otherwise he is only known as the son of Magus (!) and the discoverer of salt.[1167] It is perhaps his name which forms the final element in Melchizedek, Adoni-zedek,[1168] and the like. We have no evidence that he was really wors.h.i.+pped by the Phoenicians.
Esmun, on the other hand, the son of Sydyk, would seem to have been an object of wors.h.i.+p almost as much as any other deity. He was the special G.o.d of Berytus,[1169] but was honoured also in Cyprus, at Sidon, at Carthage, in Sardinia, and elsewhere.[1170] His name forms a frequent element in Phoenician names, royal and other:--e.g. Esmun-azar, Esmun-nathan, Han-Esmun, Netsib-Esmun, Abd-Esmun, &c. According to Damascius,[1171] he was the eighth son of Sydyk, whence his name, and the chief of the Cabeiri. Whereas they were dwarfish and misshapen, he was a youth of most beautiful appearance, truly worthy of admiration.
Like Adonis, he was fond of hunting in the woods that clothe the flanks of Lebanon, and there he was seen by Astronoe, the Phoenician G.o.ddess, the mother of the G.o.ds (in whom we cannot fail to recognise Astarte), who persecuted him with her attentions to such an extent that to escape her he was driven to the desperate resource of self-emasculation. Upon this the G.o.ddess, greatly grieved, called him Paean, and by means of quickening warmth brought him back to life, and changed him from a man into a G.o.d, which he thenceforth remained. The Phoenicians called him Esmun, ”the eighth,” but the Greeks wors.h.i.+pped him as Asclepius, the G.o.d of healing, who gave life and health to mankind. Some of the later Phoenicians regarded him as identical with the atmosphere, which, they said, was the chief source of health to man.[1172] But it is not altogether clear that the earlier Phoenicians attached to him any healing character.[1173]
The seven other Cabeiri, or ”Great Ones,” equally with Esmun the sons of Sydyk, were dwarfish G.o.ds who presided over navigation,[1174] and were the patrons of sailors and s.h.i.+ps. The special seat of their wors.h.i.+p in Phoenicia Proper was Berytus, but they were recognised also in several of the Phoenician settlements, as especially in Lemnos, Imbrus, and Samothrace.[1175] s.h.i.+ps were regarded as their invention,[1176] and a sculptured image of some one or other of them was always placed on every Phoenician war-galley, either at the stern or stem of the vessel.[1177]
They were also viewed as presiding over metals and metallurgy,[1178]
having thus some points of resemblance to the Greek Hephaestus and the Latin Vulcan. Pigmy and misshapen G.o.ds belong to that fetis.h.i.+sm which has always had charms for the Hamitic nations; and it may be suspected that the Phoenicians adopted the Cabeiri from their Canaanite predecessors, who were of the race of Ham.[1179] The connection between these pigmy deities and the Egyptian Phthah, or rather Phthah-Sokari, is unmistakable, and was perceived by Herodotus.[1180] Clay pigmy figurines found on Phoenician sites[1181] very closely resemble the Egyptian images of that G.o.d; and the coins attributed to Cossura exhibit a similar dwarfish form, generally carrying a hammer in the right hand.[1182] An astral character has been attached by some writers to the Cabeiri,[1183] but chiefly on account of their number, which is scarcely a sufficient proof.
Several Greek writers speak of a Phoenician G.o.ddess corresponding to the Grecian Athene,[1184] and some of them say that she was named Onga or Onca.[1185] The Phoenician remains give us no such name; but as Philo Byblius has an ”Athene” among his Phoenician deities, whom he makes the daughter of Il, or Kronos, and the queen of Attica,[1186] it is perhaps best to allow Onca to retain her place in the Phoenician Pantheon. Philo says that Kronos _by her advice_ shaped for himself out of iron a sword and a spear; we may therefore presume that she was a war-G.o.ddess (as was Pallas-Athene among the Greeks), whence she naturally presided over the gates of towns,[1187] which were built and fortified for warlike purposes.
The wors.h.i.+p of a G.o.ddess, called Tanath or Tanith, by the later Phoenicians, is certain, since, besides the evidence furnished by the name Abd-Tanith, i.e. ”Servant of Tanith,”[1188] the name Tanith itself is distinctly read on a number of votive tablets brought from Carthage, in a connection which clearly implies her recognition, not only as a G.o.ddess, but as a great G.o.ddess, the princ.i.p.al object of Carthaginian wors.h.i.+p. The form of inscription on the tablets is, ordinarily, as follows:--[1189]
”To the great [G.o.ddess], Tanith, and To our lord and master Baal-Hammon.
The offerer is ...., Son of ...., son of ....”
Tanith is invariable placed before Baal, as though superior to him, and can be no other than the celestial G.o.ddess (Dea coelestis), whose temple in the Roman Carthage was so celebrated.[1190] The Greeks regarded her as equivalent to their Artemis;[1191] the Romans made her Diana, or Juno, or Venus.[1192] Practically she must at Carthage have taken the place of Ashtoreth. Apuleius describes her as having a lunar character, like Ashtoreth, and calls her ”the parent of all things, the mistress of the elements, the initial offspring of the ages, the highest of the deities, the queen of the Manes, the first of the celestials, the single representative of all the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses, the one divinity whom all the world wors.h.i.+ps in many shapes, with varied rites, and under a mult.i.tude of names.”[1193] He says that she was represented as riding upon a lion, and it is probably her form which appears upon some of the later coins of Carthage, as well as upon a certain number of gems.[1194]
The origin of the name is uncertain. Gesenius would connect it at once with the Egyptian Neith (Nit), and with the Syrian Anatis or Tanatis;[1195] but the double identification is scarcely tenable, since Anatis was, in Egypt, not Neith, but Anta.[1196] The subject is very obscure, and requires further investigation.
Baaltis, or Beltis, was, according to Philo Byblius, the daughter of Ura.n.u.s and the sister of Asth.o.r.eth or Astarte.[1197] Il made her one of his many wives, and put the city of Byblus, which he had founded, under her special protection.[1198] It is doubtful, however, whether she was really viewed by the Phoenicians as a separate G.o.ddess, and not rather as Ashtoreth under another name. The word is the equivalent of {...}, ”my lady,” a very suitable t.i.tle for the supreme G.o.ddess. Beltis, indeed, in Babylonia, was distinct from Ishtar;[1199] but this fact must not be regarded as any sufficient proof that the case was the same in Phoenicia. The Phoenician polytheism was decidedly more restricted than the Babylonian, and did not greatly affect the needless multiplication of divinities. Baaltis in Phoenicia may be the Beltis of Babylon imported at a comparatively late date into the country, but is more probably an alternative name, or rather, perhaps, a mere honorary t.i.tle of Ashtoreth.[11100]
The chief characteristic of the third period of the Phoenician religion was the syncretistic tendency,[11101] whereby foreign G.o.ds were called in, and either identified with the old national divinities, or joined with them, and set by their side. Ammon, Osiris, Phthah, Pasht, and Athor, were introduced from Egypt, Tanith from either Egypt or Syria, Nergal from a.s.syria, Beltis (Baaltis) perhaps from Babylon. The wors.h.i.+p of Osiris in the later times appears from such names as Abd-Osir, Osir-shamar, Melek-Osir, and the like,[11102] and is represented on coins with Phoenician legends, which are attributed either to Malta or Gaulos.[11103] Osiris was, it would seem, identified with Adonis,[11104]
and was said to have been buried at Byblus;[11105] which was near the mouth of the Adonis river. His wors.h.i.+p was not perhaps very widely spread; but there are traces of it at Byblus, in Cyprus, and in Malta.[11106] Ammon was identified with Baal in his solar character,[11107] and was generally wors.h.i.+pped in conjunction with Tanith, more especially at Carthage.[11108] He was represented with his head encircled by rays, and with a perfectly round face.[11109] His common t.i.tle was ”Lord” {...}, but in Numidia he was wors.h.i.+pped as ”the Eternal King” {...}.[11110] As the giver of all good things, he held trees or fruits in his hands.[11111]
The Phoenicians wors.h.i.+pped their G.o.ds, like most other ancient nations, with prayer, with hymns of praise, with sacrifices, with processions, and with votive offerings. We do not know whether they had any regularly recurrent day, like the Jewish Sabbath, or Christian Sunday, on which wors.h.i.+p took place in the temples generally; but at any rate each temple had its festival times, when mult.i.tudes flocked to it, and its G.o.ds were honoured with prolonged services and sacrifices on a larger scale than ordinary. Most festivals were annual, but some recurred at shorter intervals; and, besides the festivals, there was an every day cult, which was a duty inc.u.mbent upon the priests, but at which the private wors.h.i.+pper also might a.s.sist to offer prayer or sacrifice. The ordinary sacrificial animals were oxen, cows, goats, sheep, and lambs; swine were not offered, being regarded as unclean;[11112] but the stag was an acceptable victim, at any rate on certain occasions.[11113] At all functions the priests attended in large numbers, habited in white garments of linen or cotton, and wearing a stiff cap or mitre upon their heads:[11114] on one occasion of a sacrifice Lucian counted above three hundred engaged in the ceremony.[11115] It was the duty of some to slay the victims; of others to pour libations; of a third cla.s.s to bear about pans of coal on which incense could be offered; of a fourth to attend upon the altars.[11116] The priests of each temple had at their head a Chief or High Priest, who was robed in purple and wore a golden tiara.
His office, however, continued only for a year, when another was chosen to succeed him.[11117]
Ordinarily, sacrifices were offered, in Phoenicia as elsewhere, singly, and upon altars; but sometimes it was customary to have a great holocaust. Large trees were dug up by the roots, and planted in the court of the temple; the victims, whether goats, or sheep, or cattle of any other kind, were suspended by ropes from the branches; birds were similarly attached, and garments, and vessels in gold and silver. Then the images of the G.o.ds belonging to the temple were brought out, and carried in a solemn procession round the trees; after which the trees were set on fire, and the whole was consumed in a mighty conflagration.[11118] The season for this great holocaust was the commencement of the spring-time, when the goodness of Heaven in once more causing life to spring up on every side seemed to require man's special acknowledgment.
Hymns of praise are spoken of especially in connection with this same Spring-Festival.[11119] Votive offerings were continually being offered in every temple by such as believed that they had received any benefit from any G.o.d, either in consequence of their vows, or prayers, or even by the G.o.d's spontaneous action. The sites of temples yield numerous traces of such offerings. Sometimes they are in the shape of stone _stelae_ or pillars, inscribed and more or less ornamented,[11120]
sometimes of tablets placed within an ornamental border, and generally accompanied by some rude sculptures;[11121] more often of figures, either in bronze or clay, which are mostly of a somewhat rude character.
M. Renan observes with respect to these figures, which are extremely numerous:--”Ought we to see in these images, as has been supposed, long series of portraits of priests and priestesses continued through several centuries? We do not think so. The person represented in these statues appears to us to be the author of a vow or of a sacrifice made to the divinity of the temple . . . Vows and sacrifices were very fleeting things; it might be feared that the divinity would soon forget them. An inscription was already recognised as a means of rendering the memory of a vow more lasting; but a statue was a momento still more--nay, much more efficacious. By having himself represented under the eyes of the divinity in the very act of accomplis.h.i.+ng his vow, a man called to mind, as one may say, incessantly the offering which he had made to the G.o.d, and the homage which he had rendered him. An idea of this sort is altogether in conformity with the materialistic and self-interested character of the Phoenician wors.h.i.+p, where the vow is a kind of business affair, a matter of debtor and creditor account, in which a man stipulates very clearly what he is to give, and holds firmly that he is to be paid in return . . . We have then, in these statues, representations of pious men, who came one after another to acquit themselves of their debt in the presence of the divinity; in order that the latter should not forget that the debt was discharged, they set up their images in front of the G.o.d. The image was larger or smaller, more or less carefully elaborated, in a more or less valuable material, according to the means of the individual who consecrated it.”[11122]
Thus far there was no very remarkable difference between the Phoenician religious system and other ancient Oriental wors.h.i.+ps, which have a general family likeness, and differ chiefly in the names and number of the deities, the simplicity or complication of the rites, and the greater or less power and dignity attached to the priestly office.
In these several respects the Phoenician religion seems to have leant towards the side of simplicity, the divinities recognised being, comparatively speaking, few, priestly influence not great, and the ceremonial not very elaborate. But there were two respects in which the religion was, if not singular, at any rate markedly different from ordinary polytheisms, though less in the principles involved than in the extent to which they were carried out in practice. These were the prevalence of licentious orgies and of human sacrifice. The wors.h.i.+p of Astarte was characterised by the one, the wors.h.i.+p of Baal by the other.
Phoenician mythology taught that the great G.o.d, Il or El, when reigning upon earth as king of Byblus, had, under circ.u.mstances of extreme danger to his native land, sacrificed his dearly loved son, Ieoud, as an expiatory offering. Divine sanction had thus been given to the horrid rite; and thenceforth, whenever in Phoenicia either public or private calamity threatened, it became customary that human victims should be selected, the n.o.bler and more honourable the better, and that the wrath of the G.o.ds should be appeased by taking their lives. The mode of death was horrible. The sacrifices were to be consumed by fire; the life given by the Fire G.o.d he should also take back again by the flames which destroy being. The rabbis describe the image of Moloch as a human figure with a bull's head and outstretched arms;[11123] and the account which they give is confirmed by what Diodorus relates of the Carthaginian Kronos. His image, Diodorus says,[11124] was of metal, and was made hot by a fire kindled within it; the victims were placed in its arms and thence rolled into the fiery lap below. The most usual form of the rite was the sacrifice of their children--especially of their eldest sons[11125]--by parents. ”This custom was grounded in part on the notion that children were the dearest possession of their parents, and, in part, that as pure and innocent beings they were the offerings of atonement most certain to pacify the anger of the deity; and further, that the G.o.d of whose essence the generative power of nature was had a just t.i.tle of that which was begotten of man, and to the surrender of their children's lives . . . Voluntary offering on the part of the parents was essential to the success of the sacrifice; even the first-born, nay, the only child of the family, was given up. The parents stopped the cries of their children by fondling and kissing them, for the victim ought not to weep; and the sound of complaint was drowned in the din of flutes and kettledrums. Mothers, according to Plutarch,[11126] stood by without tears or sobs; if they wept or sobbed they lost the honour of the act, and their children were sacrificed notwithstanding. Such sacrifices took place either annually or on an appointed day, or before great enterprises, or on the occasion of public calamities, to appease the wrath of the G.o.d.”[11127]
In the wors.h.i.+p of Astarte the prost.i.tution of women, and of effeminate men, played the same part that child murder did in the wors.h.i.+p of Baal.
”This practice,” says Dr. Dollinger,[11128] ”so widely spread in the world of old, the delusion that no service more acceptable could be rendered a deity than that of unchast.i.ty, was deeply rooted in the Asiatic mind. Where the deity was in idea s.e.xual, or where two deities in chief, one a male and the other a female, stood in juxtaposition, there the s.e.xual relation appeared as founded upon the essence of the deity itself, and the instinct and its satisfaction as that in men which most corresponded with the deity. Thus l.u.s.t itself became a service of the G.o.ds; and, as the fundamental idea of sacrifice is that of the immediate or subst.i.tutive surrender of a man's self to the deity, so the woman could do the G.o.ddess no better service than by prost.i.tution. Hence it was the custom [in some places] that a maiden before her marriage should prost.i.tute herself once in the temple of the G.o.ddess;[11129]
and this was regarded as the same in kind with the offering of the first-fruits of the field.” Lucian, a heathen and an eye-witness, tells us[11130]--”I saw at Byblus the grand temple of the Byblian Venus, in which are accomplished the orgies relating to Adonis; and I learnt the nature of the orgies. For the Byblians say that the wounding of Adonis by the boar took place in their country; and, in memory of the accident, they year by year beat their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and utter lamentations, and go through the orgies, and hold a great mourning throughout the land. When the weeping is ended, first of all, they make to Adonis the offerings usually made to a corpse; after which, on the next day, they feign that he has come to life again, and hold a procession [of his image] in the open air. But previously they shave their heads, like the Egyptians when an Apis dies; and if any woman refuse to do so, she must sell her beauty during one day to all who like. Only strangers, however, are permitted to make the purchase, and the money paid is expended on a sacrifice which is offered to the G.o.ddess.” ”In this way,” as Dr. Dollinger goes on to say, ”they went so far at last as to contemplate the abominations of unnatural l.u.s.t as a homage rendered to the deity, and to exalt it into a regular cultus. The wors.h.i.+p of the G.o.ddess [Ashtoreth] at Aphaca in the Lebanon was specially notorious in this respect.”[11131]
Here, according to Eusebius, was, so late as the time of Constantine the Great, a temple in which the old Phoenician rites were still retained.
”This,” he says, ”was a grove and a sacred enclosure, not situated, as most temples are, in the midst of a city, and of market-places, and of broad streets, but far away from either road or path, on the rocky slopes of Liba.n.u.s. It was dedicated to a shameful G.o.ddess, the G.o.ddess Aphrodite. A school of wickedness was this place for all such profligate persons as had ruined their bodies by excessive luxury. The men there were soft and womanish--men no longer; the dignity of their s.e.x they rejected; with impure l.u.s.t they thought to honour the deity. Criminal intercourse with women, secret pollutions, disgraceful and nameless deeds, were practised in the temple, where there was no restraining law, and no guardian to preserve decency.”[11132]
One fruit of this system was the extraordinary inst.i.tution of the Galli.
The Galli were men, who made themselves as much like women as they could, and offered themselves for purposes of unnatural l.u.s.t to either s.e.x. Their existence may be traced in Israel and Judah,[11133] as well as in Syria and Phoenicia.[11134] At great festivals, under the influence of a strong excitement, amid the din of flutes and drums and wild songs, a number of the male devotees would s.n.a.t.c.h up swords or knives, which lay ready for the purpose, throw off their garments, and coming forward with a loud shout, proceed to castrate themselves openly.
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