Part 11 (1/2)

”And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the _stone_ that he had put for his pillow, _and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it_.”[46:2]

This concluding portion to the story has evidently an allusion to _Phallic_[46:3] wors.h.i.+p. There is scarcely a nation of antiquity which did not set up these stones (as emblems of the reproductive power of nature) and wors.h.i.+p them. Dr. Oort, speaking of this, says:

Few forms of wors.h.i.+p were so universal in ancient times as the homage paid to sacred stones. In the history of the religion of even the most civilized peoples, such as the Greeks, Romans, Hindoos, Arabs and Germans, we find traces of this form of wors.h.i.+p.[46:4] The ancient _Druids_ of Britain also wors.h.i.+ped sacred stones, which were _set up on end_.[46:5]

Pausanias, an eminent Greek historian, says:

”The _Hermiac_ statue, which they venerate in Cyllene above other _symbols_, is an erect _Phallus_ on a pedestal.”[46:6]

This was nothing more than a smooth, oblong _stone_, set erect on a flat one.[46:7]

The learned Dr. Ginsburg, in his ”Life of Levita,” alludes to the ancient mode of wors.h.i.+p offered to the heathen deity Hermes, or Mercury.

A ”Hermes” (_i. e._, a _stone_) was frequently set up on the road-side, and each traveller, as he pa.s.sed by, paid his homage to the deity by either throwing a stone on the heap (which was thus collected), or by _anointing_ it. This ”Hermes” was the symbol of Phallus.[46:8]

Now, when we find that _this form of wors.h.i.+p was very prevalent among the Israelites_,[47:1] that these sacred stones which were ”set up,”

were called (by the heathen), BaeTY-LI,[47:2] (which is not unlike BETH-EL), and that _they were anointed with oil_,[47:3] I think we have reasons for believing that the story of Jacob's _setting up_ a stone, _pouring oil upon it_, and calling the place _Beth-el_, ”has evidently an allusion to Phallic wors.h.i.+p.”[47:4]

The male and female powers of nature were denoted respectively by an upright and an oval emblem, and the conjunction of the two furnished at once the altar and the _Ashera_, or grove, against which the Hebrew prophets lifted up their voices in earnest protest. In the kingdoms, both of Judah and Israel, the rites connected with these emblems a.s.sumed their most corrupting form. Even in the temple itself, stood the _Ashera_, or the upright emblem, on the circular altar of Baal-Peor, the Priapos of the Jews, thus reproducing the _Linga_, and _Yoni_ of the Hindu.[47:5] For this symbol, the women wove hangings, as the Athenian maidens embroidered the sacred peplos for the s.h.i.+p presented to Athene, at the great Dionysiac festival. This _Ashera_, which, in the authorized English version of the Old Testament is translated ”_grove_,” was, in fact, a pole, or stem of a tree. It is reproduced in our modern ”Maypole,” around which maidens dance, as maidens did of yore.[47:6]

FOOTNOTES:

[42:1] See Chambers's Encyclo., art. ”Transmigration.”

[42:2] Chambers's Encyclo., art. ”Transmigration.” Prichard's Mythology, p. 213, and Prog. Relig. Ideas, vol. i. p. 59.

[42:3] Ibid. Ernest de Bunsen says: ”The first traces of the doctrine of Transmigration of souls is to be found among the Brahmins and Buddhists.” (The Angel Messiah, pp. 63, 64.)

[42:4] Prichard's Mythology, pp. 213, 214.

[43:1] Gross: The Heathen Religion. Also Chambers's Encyclo., art.

”Transmigration.”

[43:2] Ibid. Mallet's Northern Antiquities, p. 13; and Myths of the British Druids, p. 15.

[43:3] Chambers's Encyclo.

[43:4] Ibid.

[43:5] Ibid. See also Bunsen: The Angel-Messiah, pp. 63, 64. Dupuis, p.

357. Josephus: Jewish Antiquities, book xviii. ch. 13. Dunlap: Son of the Man, p. 94; and Beal: Hist. Buddha.

[43:6] Chambers, art. ”Transmigration.”

[44:1] See The Religion of Israel, p. 18.

[44:2] Malachi iv. 5.

[44:3] Matthew xvii. 12, 13.