The Two Babylons
Alexander Hislop
Chapter II
Section III
The Mother of the Child
Now while the mother derived her glory in the
first instance from the divine character attributed to the child in her arms, the mother
in the long-run practically eclipsed the son. At first, in all likelihood, there
would be no thought whatever of ascribing divinity to the mother. There was an express
promise that necessarily led mankind to expect that, at some time or other, the Son of
God, in amazing condescension, should appear in this world as the Son of man. But there
was no promise whatever, or the least shadow of a promise, to lead any one to anticipate
that a woman should ever be invested with attributes that should raise her
to a level with Divinity. It is in the last degree improbable, therefore, that when the
mother was first exhibited with the child in her arms, it should be intended to give
divine honours to her. She was doubtless used chiefly as a pedestal for the upholding of
the divine Son, and holding him forth to the adoration of mankind; and glory enough it
would be counted for her, alone of all the daughters of Eve, to have given birth to the
promised seed, the world's only hope. But while this, no doubt, was the design, it is a
plain principle in all idolatries that that which most appeals to the senses must make the
most powerful impression. Now the Son, even in his new incarnation, when Nimrod was
believed to have reappeared in a fairer form, was exhibited merely as a child, without any
very particular attraction; while the mother in whose arms he was, was set off with all
the art of painting and sculpture, as invested with much of that extraordinary beauty
which in reality belonged to her. The beauty of Semiramis is said on one occasion to have
quelled a rising rebellion among her subjects on her sudden appearance among them; and it
is recorded that the memory of the admiration excited in their minds by her appearance on
that occasion was perpetuated by a statue erected in Babylon, representing her in the
guise in which she had fascinated them so much. *
* VALERIUS MAXIMUS. Valerius Maximus does not
mention anything about the representation of Semiramis with the child in her arms; but as
Semiramis was deified as Rhea, whose distinguishing character was that of goddess Mother,
and as we have evidence that the name, "Seed of the Woman," or Zoroaster,
goes back to the earliest times--viz., her own day (CLERICUS, De Chaldoeis), this
implies that if there was any image-worship in these times, that "Seed of the Woman"
must have occupied a prominent place in it. As over all the world the Mother and the child
appear in some shape or other, and are found on the early Egyptian monuments, that shows
that this worship must have had its roots in the primeval ages of the world. If,
therefore, the mother was represented in so fascinating a form when singly represented, we
may be sure that the same beauty for which she was celebrated would be given to her when
exhibited with the child in her arms.
This Babylonian queen was not merely in character
coincident with the Aphrodite of Greece and the Venus of Rome, but was, in point of fact,
the historical original of that goddess that by the ancient world was regarded as the very
embodiment of everything attractive in female form, and the perfection of female beauty;
for Sanchuniathon assures us that Aphrodite or Venus was identical with Astarte, and
Astarte being interpreted, is none other than "The woman that made towers or
encompassing walls"--i.e., Semiramis. The Roman Venus, as is well known, was the
Cyprian Venus, and the Venus of Cyprus is historically proved to have been derived from
Babylon. Now, what in these circumstances might have been expected actually took place. If
the child was to be adored, much more the mother. The mother, in point of fact, became the
favourite object of worship. *
* How extraordinary, yea, frantic, was the
devotion in the minds of the Babylonians to this goddess queen, is sufficiently proved by
the statement of Herodotus, as to the way in which she required to be propitiated. That a
whole people should ever have consented to such a custom as is there described, shows the
amazing hold her worship must have gained over them. Nonnus, speaking of the same goddess,
calls her "The hope of the whole world." (DIONUSIACA in BRYANT) It was the same
goddess, as we have seen, who was worshipped at Ephesus, whom Demetrius the silversmith
characterised as the goddess "whom all Asia and the world worshipped" (Acts
19:27). So great was the devotion to this goddess queen, not of the Babylonians only, but
of the ancient world in general, that the fame of the exploits of Semiramis has, in
history, cast the exploits of her husband Ninus or Nimrod, entirely into the shade.
In regard to the identification of Rhea or Cybele
and Venus, see note below.
To justify this worship, the mother was raised to
divinity as well as her son, and she was looked upon as destined to complete that bruising
of the serpent's head, which it was easy, if such a thing was needed, to find abundant and
plausible reasons for alleging that Ninus or Nimrod, the great Son, in his mortal life had
only begun.
The Roman Church maintains that it was not so
much the seed of the woman, as the woman herself, that was to bruise the
head of the serpent. In defiance of all grammar, she renders the Divine denunciation
against the serpent thus: "She shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise her
heel." The same was held by the ancient Babylonians, and symbolically represented in
their temples. In the uppermost story of the tower of Babel, or temple of Belus, Diodorus
Siculus tells us there stood three images of the great divinities of Babylon; and one of
these was of a woman grasping a serpent's head. Among the Greeks the same thing was
symbolised; for Diana, whose real character was originally the same as that of the great
Babylonian goddess, was represented as bearing in one of her hands a serpent deprived
of its head. As time wore away, and the facts of Semiramis' history became obscured,
her son's birth was boldly declared to be miraculous: and therefore she was called "Alma
Mater," * "the Virgin Mother."
* The term Alma is the precise term used
by Isaiah in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, when announcing, 700 years before the event,
that Christ should be born of a Virgin. If the question should be asked, how this Hebrew
term Alma (not in a Roman, but a Hebrew sense) could find its way to Rome, the
answer is, Through Etruria, which had an intimate connection with Assyria. The word
"mater" itself, from which comes our own "mother," is originally
Hebrew. It comes from Heb. Msh, "to draw forth," in Egyptian Ms,
"to bring forth" (BUNSEN), which in the Chaldee form becomes Mt, whence
the Egyptian Maut, "mother." Erh or Er, as in English (and
a similar form is found in Sanscrit), is, "The doer." So that Mater or Mother
signifies "The bringer forth."
It may be thought an objection to the above
account of the epithet Alma, that this term is often applied to Venus, who certainly was
no virgin. But this objection is more apparent than real. On the testimony of Augustine,
himself an eye-witness, we know that the rites of Vesta, emphatically "the virgin
goddess of Rome," under the name of Terra, were exactly the same as those of Venus,
the goddess of impurity and licentiousness (AUGUSTINE, De Civitate Dei). Augustine
elsewhere says that Vesta, the virgin goddess, "was by some called Venus."
Even in the mythology of our own Scandinavian
ancestors, we have a remarkable evidence that Alma Mater, or the Virgin Mother, had
been originally known to them. One of their gods called Heimdal, who is described in the
most exalted terms, as having such quick perceptions as that he could hear the grass
growing on the ground, or the wool on the sheep's back, and whose trumpet, when it blew,
could be heard through all the worlds, is called by the paradoxical name, "the son of
nine virgins." (MALLET) Now this obviously contains an enigma. Let the language in
which the religion of Odin was originally delivered--viz., the Chaldee, be brought to bear
upon it, and the enigma is solved at once. In Chaldee "the son of nine virgins"
is Ben-Almut-Teshaah. But in pronunciation this is identical with
"Ben-Almet-Ishaa," "the son of the virgin of salvation." That son was
everywhere known as the "saviour seed." "Zera-hosha" and his virgin
mother consequently claimed to be "the virgin of salvation." Even in the very
heavens the God of Providence has constrained His enemies to inscribe a testimony to the
great Scriptural truth proclaimed by the Hebrew prophet, that a "virgin should bring
forth a son, whose name should be called Immanuel." The constellation Virgo, as
admitted by the most learned astronomers, was dedicated to Ceres (Dr. JOHN HILL, in his Urania,
and Mr. A. JAMIESON, in his Celestial Atlas), who is the same as the great goddess
of Babylon, for Ceres was worshipped with the babe at her breast (SOPHOCLES, Antigone),
even as the Babylonian goddess was. Virgo was originally the Assyrian Venus, the mother
of Bacchus or Tammuz. Virgo then, was the Virgin Mother. Isaiah's prophecy was
carried by the Jewish captives to Babylon, and hence the new title bestowed upon
the Babylonian goddess.
That the birth of the Great Deliverer was to be
miraculous, was widely known long before the Christian era. For centuries, some say for
thousands of years before that event, the Buddhist priests had a tradition that a Virgin
was to bring forth a child to bless the world. That this tradition came from no Popish or
Christian source, is evident from the surprise felt and expressed by the Jesuit
missionaries, when they first entered Thibet and China, and not only found a mother and a
child worshipped as at home, but that mother worshipped under a character exactly
corresponding with that of their own Madonna, "Virgo Deipara," "The Virgin
mother of God," * and that, too, in regions where they could not find the least trace
of either the name or history of our Lord Jesus Christ having ever been known.
* See Sir J. F. DAVIS'S China, and
LAFITAN, who says that the accounts sent home by the Popish missionaries bore that the
sacred books of the Chinese spoke not merely of a Holy Mother, but of a Virgin
Mother. For further evidence on this subject, see note below.
The primeval promise that the "seed of the woman
should bruise the serpent's head," naturally suggested the idea of a miraculous
birth. Priestcraft and human presumption set themselves wickedly to anticipate the
fulfilment of that promise; and the Babylonian queen seems to have been the first to whom
that honour was given. The highest titles were accordingly bestowed upon her. She was
called the "queen of heaven." (Jer 44:17,18,19,25) *
* When Ashta, or "the woman," came to
be called the "queen of heaven," the name "woman" became the highest
title of honour applied to a female. This accounts for what we find so common among the
ancient nations of the East, that queens and the most exalted personages were addressed by
the name of "woman." "Woman" is not a complimentary title in our
language; but formerly it had been applied by our ancestors in the very same way as among
the Orientals; for our word "Queen" is derived from Cwino, which in the ancient
Gothic just signified a woman.
In Egypt she was styled Athor--i.e., "the
Habitation of God," (BUNSEN) to signify that in her dwelt all the "fulness of
the Godhead." To point out the great goddess-mother, in a Pantheistic sense, as at
once the Infinite and Almighty one, and the Virgin mother, this inscription was
engraven upon one of her temples in Egypt: "I am all that has been, or that is, or
that shall be. No mortal has removed my veil. The fruit which I have brought forth is the
Sun." (Ibid.) In Greece she had the name of Hesita, and amongst the Romans, Vesta,
which is just a modification of the same name--a name which, though it has been commonly
understood in a different sense, really meant "The Dwelling-place." *
* Hestia, in Greek, signifies "a house"
or "dwelling." This is usually thought to be a secondary meaning of the word,
its proper meaning being believed to be "fire." But the statements made in
regard to Hestia, show that the name is derived from Hes or Hese, "to cover, to
shelter," which is the very idea of a house, which "covers" or
"shelters" from the inclemency of the weather. The verb "Hes" also
signifies "to protect," to "show mercy," and from this evidently comes
the character of Hestia as "the protectress of suppliants." Taking Hestia as
derived from Hes, "to cover," or "shelter," the following statement of
Smith is easily accounted for: "Hestia was the goddess of domestic life, and the
giver of all domestic happiness; as such she was believed to dwell in the inner part of
every house, and to have invented the art of building houses." If
"fire" be supposed to be the original idea of Hestia, how could "fire"
ever have been supposed to be "the builder of houses"! But taking Hestia in the
sense of the Habitation or Dwelling-place, though derived from Hes, "to
shelter," or "cover," it is easy to see how Hestia would come to be
identified with "fire." The goddess who was regarded as the "Habitation of
God" was known by the name of Ashta, "The Woman"; while "Ashta"
also signified "The fire"; and thus Hestia or Vesta, as the Babylonian system
was developed, would easily come to be regarded as "Fire," or "the goddess
of fire." For the reason that suggested the idea of the Goddess-mother being a
Habitation, see note below.
As the Dwelling-place of Deity, thus is Hestia or
Vesta addressed in the Orphic Hymns:
"Daughter of Saturn,
venerable dame,
Who dwell'st amid great fire's eternal flame,
In thee the gods have fix'd their DWELLING-PLACE,
Strong stable basis of the mortal race." *
* TAYLOR'S Orphic Hymns: Hymn to Vesta.
Though Vesta is here called the daughter of Saturn, she is also identified in all
the Pantheons with Cybele or Rhea, the wife of Saturn.
Even when Vesta is identified with fire,
this same character of Vesta as "The Dwelling-place" still distinctly appears.
Thus Philolaus, speaking of a fire in the middle of the centre of the world, calls it
"The Vesta of the universe, The HOUSE of Jupiter, The mother of the gods." In
Babylon, the title of the goddess-mother as the Dwelling-place of God was Sacca, or in the
emphatic form, Sacta, that is, "The Tabernacle." Hence, at this day, the great
goddesses in India, as wielding all the power of the god whom they represent, are called
"Sacti," or the "Tabernacle." *
* KENNEDY and MOOR. A synonym for Sacca, "a
tabernacle," is "Ahel," which, with the points, is pronounced
"Ohel." From the first form of the word, the name of the wife of the god Buddha
seems to be derived, which, in KENNEDY, is Ahalya, and in MOOR'S Pantheon, Ahilya.
From the second form, in like manner, seems to be derived the name of the wife of the
Patriarch of the Peruvians, "Mama Oello." (PRESCOTT'S Peru) Mama was by
the Peruvians used in the Oriental sense: Oello, in all likelihood, was used in the same
sense.
Now in her, as the Tabernacle or Temple of God,
not only all power, but all grace and goodness were believed to dwell. Every quality of
gentleness and mercy was regarded as centred in her; and when death had closed her career,
while she was fabled to have been deified and changed into a pigeon, * to express the
celestial benignity of her nature, she was called by the name of "D'Iune," ** or
"The Dove," or without the article, "Juno"--the name of the Roman
"queen of heaven," which has the very same meaning; and under the form of
a dove as well as her own, she was worshipped by the Babylonians.
* DIODORUS SIC. In connection with this the
classical reader will remember the title of one of the fables in OVID'S Metamorphoses.
"Semiramis into a pigeon."
** Dione, the name of the mother of Venus, and
frequently applied to Venus herself, is evidently the same name as the above. Dione, as
meaning Venus, is clearly applied by Ovid to the Babylonian goddess. (Fasti)
The dove, the chosen symbol of this deified
queen, is commonly represented with an olive branch in her mouth (Fig. 25), as she herself in her human form also is
seen bearing the olive branch in her hand; and from this form of representing her, it is
highly probable that she has derived the name by which she is commonly known, for
"Z'emir-amit" means "The branch-bearer." *
* From Ze, "the" or
"that," emir, "branch," and amit, "bearer," in
the feminine. HESYCHIUS says that Semiramis is a name for a "wild
pigeon." The above explanation of the original meaning of the name Semiramis, as
referring to Noah's wild pigeon (for it was evidently a wild one, as the tame one would
not have suited the experiment), may account for its application by the Greeks to any
wild pigeon.
When the goddess was thus represented as the Dove
with the olive branch, there can be no doubt that the symbol had partly reference to the
story of the flood; but there was much more in the symbol than a mere memorial of that
great event. "A branch," as has been already proved, was the symbol of the
deified son, and when the deified mother was represented as a Dove, what could the meaning
of this representation be but just to identify her with the Spirit of all grace,
that brooded, dove-like, over the deep at the creation; for in the sculptures at Nineveh,
as we have seen, the wings and tail of the dove represented the third member of the
idolatrous Assyrian trinity. In confirmation of this view, it must be stated that the
Assyrian "Juno," or "The Virgin Venus," as she was called, was
identified with the air. Thus Julius Firmicus says: "The Assyrians and part of
the Africans wish the air to have the supremacy of the elements, for they have
consecrated this same [element] under the name of Juno, or the Virgin Venus." Why was
air thus identified with Juno, whose symbol was that of the third person of the
Assyrian trinity? Why, but because in Chaldee the same word which signifies the air
signifies also the "Holy Ghost." The knowledge of this entirely accounts
for the statement of Proclus, that "Juno imports the generation of soul." Whence
could the soul--the spirit of man--be supposed to have its origin, but from the Spirit of
God. In accordance with this character of Juno as the incarnation of the Divine Spirit,
the source of life, and also as the goddess of the air, thus is she invoked in the
"Orphic Hymns":
"O royal Juno, of majestic
mien,
Aerial formed, divine, Jove's blessed queen,
Throned in the bosom of caerulean air,
The race of mortals is thy constant care;
The cooling gales, thy power alone inspires,
Which nourish life, which every life desires;
Mother of showers and winds, from thee alone
Producing all things, mortal life is known;
All natures show thy temperament divine,
And universal sway alone is thine,
With sounding blasts of wind, the swelling sea
And rolling rivers roar when shook by thee." *
* TAYLOR'S Orphic Hymns. Every classical
reader must be aware of the identification of Juno with the air. The following,
however, as still further illustrative of the subject from Proclus, may not be out of
place: "The series of our sovereign mistress Juno, beginning from on high, pervades
the last of things, and her allotment in the sublunary region is the air; for air is a
symbol of soul, according to which also soul is called a spirit."
Thus, then, the deified queen, when in all
respects regarded as a veritable woman, was at the same time adored as the incarnation of
the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of peace and love. In the temple of Hierapolis in Syria, there
was a famous statue of the goddess Juno, to which crowds from all quarters flocked to
worship. The image of the goddess was richly habited, on her head was a golden dove, and
she was called by a name peculiar to the country, "Semeion." (BRYANT) What is
the meaning of Semeion? It is evidently "The Habitation"; * and the "golden
dove" on her head shows plainly who it was that was supposed to dwell in her--even
the Spirit of God.
* From Ze, "that," or "the
great," and "Maaon," or Maion, "a habitation," which, in the
Ionic dialect, in which Lucian, the describer of the goddess, wrote, would naturally
become Meion.
When such transcendent dignity was bestowed on
her, when such winning characters were attributed to her, and when, over and above all,
her images presented her to the eyes of men as Venus Urania, "the heavenly
Venus," the queen of beauty, who assured her worshippers of salvation, while giving
loose reins to every unholy passion, and every depraved and sensual appetite--no wonder
that everywhere she was enthusiastically adored. Under the name of the "Mother of the
gods," the goddess queen of Babylon became an object of almost universal worship.
"The Mother of the gods," says Clericus, "was worshipped by the Persians,
the Syrians, and all the kings of Europe and Asia, with the most profound religious
veneration." Tacitus gives evidence that the Babylonian goddess was worshipped in the
heart of Germany, and Caesar, when he invaded Britain, found that the priests of this same
goddess, known by the name of Druids, had been there before him. *
* CAESAR, De Bello Gallico. The name Druid
has been thought to be derived from the Greek Drus, an oak tree, or the Celtic Deru,
which has the same meaning; but this is obviously a mistake. In Ireland, the name for a
Druid is Droi, and in Wales Dryw; and it will be found that the connection of the Druids
with the oak was more from the mere similarity of their name to that of the oak, than
because they derived their name from it. The Druidic system in all its parts was evidently
the Babylonian system. Dionysius informs us, that the rites of Bacchus were duly
celebrated in the British Islands and Strabo cites Artemidorus to show that, in an island
close to Britain, Ceres and Proserpine were venerated with rites similar to the orgies of
Samothrace. It will be seen from the account of the Druidic Ceridwen and her child,
afterwards to be noticed (see Chapter IV, Section III), that there was a great analogy
between her character and that of the great goddess-mother of Babylon. Such was the
system; and the name Dryw, or Droi, applied to the priests, is in exact accordance with
that system. The name Zero, given in Hebrew or the early Chaldee, to the son of the great
goddess queen, in later Chaldee became "Dero." The priest of Dero, "the
seed," was called, as is the case in almost all religions, by the name of his god;
and hence the familiar name "Druid" is thus proved to signify the priest of
"Dero"--the woman's promised "seed." The classical Hamadryads
were evidently in like manner priestesses of "Hamed-dero,"--"the desired
seed"--i.e., "the desire of all nations."
Herodotus, from personal knowledge, testifies,
that in Egypt this "queen of heaven" was "the greatest and most worshipped
of all the divinities." Wherever her worship was introduced, it is amazing what
fascinating power it exerted. Truly, the nations might be said to be "made
drunk" with the wine of her fornications. So deeply, in particular, did the Jews in
the days of Jeremiah drink of her wine cup, so bewitched were they with her idolatrous
worship, that even after Jerusalem had been burnt, and the land desolated for this very
thing, they could not be prevailed on to give it up. While dwelling in Egypt as forlorn
exiles, instead of being witnesses for God against the heathenism around them, they were
as much devoted to this form of idolatry as the Egyptians themselves. Jeremiah was sent of
God to denounce wrath against them, if they continued to worship the queen of heaven; but
his warnings were in vain. "Then," saith the prophet, "all the men which
knew that their wives had burnt incense unto other gods, and all the women that stood by,
a great multitude, even all the people that dwelt in the land of Egypt, in Pathros,
answered Jeremiah, saying, As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of
the Lord, we will not hearken unto thee; but we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth
forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out
drink-offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our
princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then had we plenty
of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil" (Jer 44:15-17). Thus did the Jews, God's
own peculiar people, emulate the Egyptians in their devotion to the queen of heaven.
The worship of the goddess-mother with the child
in her arms continued to be observed in Egypt till Christianity entered. If the Gospel had
come in power among the mass of the people, the worship of this goddess-queen would have
been overthrown. With the generality it came only in name. Instead, therefore, of the
Babylonian goddess being cast out, in too many cases her name only was changed. She was
called the Virgin Mary, and, with her child, was worshipped with the same idolatrous
feeling by professing Christians, as formerly by open and avowed Pagans. The consequence
was, that when, in AD 325, the Nicene Council was summoned to condemn the heresy of Arius,
who denied the true divinity of Christ, that heresy indeed was condemned, but not without
the help of men who gave distinct indications of a desire to put the creature on a level
with the Creator, to set the Virgin-mother side by side with her Son. At the Council of
Nice, says the author of "Nimrod," "The Melchite section"--that is,
the representatives of the so-called Christianity of Egypt--"held that there were
three persons in the Trinity--the Father, the Virgin Mary, and Messiah their Son." In
reference to this astounding fact, elicited by the Nicene Council, Father Newman speaks
exultingly of these discussions as tending to the glorification of Mary. "Thus,"
says he, "the controversy opened a question which it did not settle. It discovered a
new sphere, if we may so speak, in the realms of light, to which the Church had not yet
assigned its inhabitant. Thus, there was a wonder in Heaven; a throne was seen far
above all created powers, mediatorial, intercessory, a title archetypal, a crown bright as
the morning star, a glory issuing from the eternal throne, robes pure as the heavens, and
a sceptre over all. And who was the predestined heir of that majesty? Who was that wisdom,
and what was her name, the mother of fair love, and far, and holy hope, exalted
like a palm-tree in Engaddi, and a rose-plant in Jericho, created from the beginning
before the world, in God's counsels, and in Jerusalem was her power? The vision is found
in the Apocalypse 'a Woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her
head a crown of twelve stars.'" *
* NEWMAN'S Development. The intelligent
reader will see at a glance the absurdity of applying this vision of the "woman"
of the Apocalypse to the Virgin Mary. John expressly declares that what he saw was a
"sign" or "symbol" (semeion). If the woman here is a literal woman,
the woman that sits on the seven hills must be the same. "The woman" in both
cases is a "symbol." "The woman" on the seven hills is the symbol of
the false church; the woman clothed with the sun, of the true church--the Bride, the
Lamb's wife.
"The votaries of Mary," adds he,
"do not exceed the true faith, unless the blasphemers of her Son came up to it. The
Church of Rome is not idolatrous, unless Arianism is orthodoxy." This is the very
poetry of blasphemy. It contains an argument too; but what does that argument amount to?
It just amounts to this, that if Christ be admitted to be truly and properly God, and
worthy of Divine honours, His mother, from whom He derived merely His humanity, must be
admitted to be the same, must be raised far above the level of all creatures, and be
worshipped as a partaker of the Godhead. The divinity of Christ is made to stand or fall
with the divinity of His mother. Such is Popery in the nineteenth century; yea, such is
Popery in England. It was known already that Popery abroad was bold and unblushing in its
blasphemies; that in Lisbon a church was to be seen with these words engraven on its
front, "To the virgin goddess of Loretto, the Italian race, devoted to her DIVINITY,
have dedicated this temple." (Journal of Professor GIBSON, in Scottish Protestant)
But when till now was such language ever heard in Britain before? This, however, is just
the exact reproduction of the doctrine of ancient Babylon in regard to the great
goddess-mother. The Madonna of Rome, then, is just the Madonna of Babylon. The "Queen
of Heaven" in the one system is the same as the "Queen of Heaven" in the
other. The goddess worshipped in Babylon and Egypt as the Tabernacle or Habitation
of God, is identical with her who, under the name of Mary, is called by Rome "The
HOUSE consecrated to God," "the awful Dwelling-place," * "the Mansion
of God" (Pancarpium Marioe), the "Tabernacle of the Holy Ghost" (Garden
of the Soul), the "Temple of the Trinity" (Golden Manual in Scottish
Protestant).
* The Golden Manual in Scottish
Protestant. The word here used for "Dwelling-place" in the Latin of this
work is a pure Chaldee word--"Zabulo," and is from the same verb as Zebulun (Gen
30:20), the name which was given by Leah to her son, when she said "Now will my
husband dwell with me."
Some may possibly be inclined to defend such
language, by saying that the Scripture makes every believer to be a temple of the Holy
Ghost, and, therefore, what harm can there be in speaking of the Virgin Mary, who was
unquestionably a saint of God, under that name, or names of a similar import? Now, no
doubt it is true that Paul says (1 Cor 3:16), "Know ye not that ye are the temple of
God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" It is not only true, but it is a
great truth, and a blessed one--a truth that enhances every comfort when enjoyed, and
takes the sting out of every trouble when it comes, that every genuine Christian has less
or more experience of what is contained in these words of the same apostle (2 Cor 6:16),
"Ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk
in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." It must also be
admitted, and gladly admitted, that this implies the indwelling of all the Persons of the
glorious Godhead; for the Lord Jesus hath said (John 14:23), "If a man love me, he
will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and WE will come unto him, and make our
abode with him." But while admitting all this, on examination it will be found that
the Popish and the Scriptural ideas conveyed by these expressions, however apparently
similar, are essentially different. When it is said that a believer is "a temple of
God," or a temple of the Holy Ghost, the meaning is (Eph 3:17) that "Christ
dwells in the heart by faith." But when Rome says that Mary is "The Temple"
or "Tabernacle of God," the meaning is the exact Pagan meaning of the
term--viz., that the union between her and the Godhead is a union akin to the hypostatical
union between the divine and human nature of Christ. The human nature of Christ is
the "Tabernacle of God," inasmuch as the Divine nature has veiled its glory in
such a way, by assuming our nature, that we can come near without overwhelming dread to
the Holy God. To this glorious truth John refers when he says (John 1:14), "The Word
was made flesh, and dwelt (literally tabernacled) among us, and we beheld His
glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." In
this sense, Christ, the God-man, is the only "Tabernacle of God." Now, it is
precisely in this sense that Rome calls Mary the "Tabernacle of God," or of the
"Holy Ghost." Thus speaks the author of a Popish work devoted to the exaltation
of the Virgin, in which all the peculiar titles and prerogatives of Christ are given to
Mary: "Behold the tabernacle of God, the mansion of God, the habitation, the city of
God is with men, and in men and for men, for their salvation, and exaltation, and eternal
glorification...Is it most clear that this is true of the holy church? and in like manner
also equally true of the most holy sacrament of the Lord's body? Is it (true) of every one
of us in as far as we are truly Christians? Undoubtedly; but we have to contemplate this
mystery (as existing) in a peculiar manner in the most holy Mother of our
Lord." (Pancarpium Marioe) Then the author, after endeavouring to show that
"Mary is rightly considered as the Tabernacle of God with men," and that in a
peculiar sense, a sense different from that in which all Christians are the "temple
of God," thus proceeds with express reference to her in this character of the
Tabernacle: "Great truly is the benefit, singular is the privilege, that the
Tabernacle of God should be with men, IN WHICH men may safely come near to God become
man." (Ibid.) Here the whole mediatorial glory of Christ, as the God-man in whom
dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, is given to Mary, or at least is shared
with her. The above extracts are taken from a work published upwards of two hundred years
ago. Has the Papacy improved since then? Has it repented of its blasphemies? No, the very
reverse. The quotation already given from Father Newman proves this; but there is still
stronger proof. In a recently published work, the same blasphemous idea is even more
clearly unfolded. While Mary is called "The HOUSE consecrated to God," and the
"TEMPLE of the Trinity," the following versicle and response will show in what
sense she is regarded as the temple of the Holy Ghost: "V. The Lord himself created
HER in the Holy Ghost, and POURED HER out among all his works. V. O Lady, hear,"
&c. This astounding language manifestly implies that Mary is identified with
the Holy Ghost, when it speaks of her "being poured out" on "all the
works of God"; and that, as we have seen, was just the very way in which the Woman,
regarded as the "Tabernacle" or House of God by the Pagans, was looked upon.
Where is such language used in regard to the Virgin? Not in Spain; not in Austria; not in
the dark places of Continental Europe; but in London, the seat and centre of the world's
enlightenment.
The names of blasphemy bestowed by the Papacy on
Mary have not one shadow of foundation in the Bible, but are all to be found in the
Babylonian idolatry. Yea, the very features and complexions of the Roman and Babylonian
Madonnas are the same. Till recent times, when Raphael somewhat departed from the beaten
track, there was nothing either Jewish or even Italian in the Romish Madonnas. Had these
pictures or images of the Virgin Mother been intended to represent the mother of our Lord,
naturally they would have been cast either in the one mould or the other. But it was not
so. In a land of dark-eyed beauties, with raven locks, the Madonna was always represented
with blue eyes and golden hair, a complexion entirely different form the Jewish
complexion, which naturally would have been supposed to belong to the mother of our Lord,
but which precisely agrees with that which all antiquity attributes to the goddess queen
of Babylon. In almost all lands the great goddess has been described with golden or yellow
hair, showing that there must have been one grand prototype, to which they were all made
to correspond. The "yellow-haired Ceres," might not have been accounted of any
weight in this argument if she had stood alone, for it might have been supposed in that
case that the epithet "yellow-haired" was borrowed from the corn that was
supposed to be under her guardian care. But many other goddesses have the very same
epithet applied to them. Europa, whom Jupiter carried away in the form of a bull, is
called "The yellow-haired Europa." (OVID, Fasti) Minerva is called by
Homer "the blue-eyed Minerva," and by Ovid "the yellow-haired"; the
huntress Diana, who is commonly identified with the moon, is addressed by Anacreon as
"the yellow-haired daughter of Jupiter," a title which the pale face of the
silver moon could surely never have suggested. Dione, the mother of Venus, is described by
Theocritus as "yellow-haired." Venus herself is frequently called "Aurea
Venus," the "golden Venus." (HOMER'S Iliad) The Indian goddess
Lakshmi, the "Mother of the Universe," is described as of "a golden
complexion." (Asiatic Researches) Ariadne, the wife of Bacchus, was called
"the yellow-haired Ariadne." (HESIOD, Theogonia) Thus does Dryden refer
to her golden or yellow hair:
"Where the rude waves in
Dian's harbour play,
The fair forsaken Ariadne lay;
There, sick with grief and frantic with despair,
Her dress she rent, and tore her golden hair."
The Gorgon Medusa before her transformation,
while celebrated for her beauty, was equally celebrated for her golden hair:
"Medusa once had charms: to
gain her love
A rival crowd of anxious lovers strove.
They who have seen her, own they ne'er did trace
More moving features in a sweeter face;
But above all, her length of hair they own
In golden ringlets waves, and graceful shone."
The mermaid that figured so much in the romantic
tales of the north, which was evidently borrowed from the story of Atergatis, the fish
goddess of Syria, who was called the mother of Semiramis, and was sometimes identified
with Semiramis herself, was described with hair of the same kind. "The
Ellewoman," such is the Scandinavian name for the mermaid, "is fair," says
the introduction to the "Danish Tales" of Hans Andersen, "and gold-haired,
and plays most sweetly on a stringed instrument." "She is frequently seen
sitting on the surface of the waters, and combing her long golden hair with a golden
comb." Even when Athor, the Venus of Egypt, was represented as a cow, doubtless to
indicate the complexion of the goddess that cow represented, the cow's head and neck
were gilded. (HERODOTUS and WILKINSON) When, therefore, it is known that the most
famed pictures of the Virgin Mother in Italy represented her as of a fair complexion and
with golden hair, and when over all Ireland the Virgin is almost invariably represented at
this day in the very same manner, who can resist the conclusion that she must have been
thus represented, only because she had been copied form the same prototype as the Pagan
divinities?
Nor is this agreement in complexion only, but
also in features. Jewish features are everywhere marked, and have a character peculiarly
their own. But the original Madonnas have nothing at all of Jewish form or feature; but
are declared by those who have personally compared both, entirely to agree in this
respect, as well as in complexion, with the Babylonian Madonnas found by Sir Robert Ker
Porter among the ruins of Babylon.
There is yet another remarkable characteristic of
these pictures worthy of notice, and that is the nimbus or peculiar circle of light
that frequently encompasses the head of the Roman Madonna. With this circle the
heads of the so-called figures of Christ are also frequently surrounded. Whence could such
a device have originated? In the case of our Lord, if His head had been merely surrounded
with rays, there might have been some pretence for saying that that was borrowed
from the Evangelic narrative, where it is stated, that on the holy mount His face became
resplendent with light. But where, in the whole compass of Scripture, do we ever read that
His head was surrounded with a disk, or a circle of light? But what will be
searched for in vain in the Word of God, is found in he artistic representations of the
great gods and goddesses of Babylon. The disk, and particularly the circle, were
the well known symbols of the Sun-divinity, and figured largely in the symbolism of the
East. With the circle or the disk the head of the Sun-divinity was encompassed. The same
was the case in Pagan Rome. Apollo, as the child of the Sun, was often thus represented.
The goddesses that claimed kindred with the Sun were equally entitled to be adorned with
the nimbus or luminous circle. From Pompeii there is a representation of Circe,
"the daughter of the Sun" (see Fig. 26)
with her head surrounded with a circle, in the very same way as the head of the Roman
Madonna is at this day surrounded. Let any one compare the nimbus around the head of
Circe, with that around the head of the Popish Virgin, and he will see how exactly they
correspond. *
* The explanation of the figure is thus given in Pompeii:
"One of them [the paintings] is taken from the Odyssey, and represents Ulysses
and Circe, at the moment when the hero, having drunk the charmed cup with impunity, by
virtue of the antidote given him by Mercury [it is well known that Circe had a 'golden
cup,' even as the Venus of Babylon had], draws his sword, and advances to avenge his
companions," who, having drunk of her cup, had been changed into swine. The goddess,
terrified, makes her submission at once, as described by Homer; Ulysses himself being the
narrator:
"Hence, seek the sty, there
wallow with thy friends,
She spake, I drawing from beside my thigh
My Falchion keen, with death-denouncing looks,
Rushed on her; she, with a shrill scream of fear,
Ran under my raised arm, seized fast my knees,
And in winged accents plaintive, thus began:
'Say, who art thou,'" &c.--COWPER'S Odyssey
"This picture," adds the author of Pompeii,
"is remarkable, as teaching us the origin of that ugly and unmeaning glory by which
the heads of saints are often surrounded...This glory was called nimbus, or aureola, and
is defined by Servius to be 'the luminous fluid which encircles the heads of the gods.' It
belongs with peculiar propriety to Circe, as the daughter of the Sun. The emperors, with
their usual modesty, assumed it as the mark of their divinity; and under this respectable
patronage it passed, like many other Pagan superstitions and customs, into the use of the
Church." The emperors here get rather more than a fair share of the blame due to
them. It was not the emperors that brought "Pagan superstition" into the Church,
so much as the Bishop of Rome. See Chapter VII, Section II.
Now, could any one possibly believe that all this
coincidence could be accidental. Of course, if the Madonna had ever so exactly resembled
the Virgin Mary, that would never have excused idolatry. But when it is evident that the
goddess enshrined in the Papal Church for the supreme worship of its votaries, is that
very Babylonian queen who set up Nimrod, or Ninus "the Son," as the rival of
Christ, and who in her own person was the incarnation of every kind of licentiousness, how
dark a character does that stamp on the Roman idolatry. What will it avail to mitigate the
heinous character of that idolatry, to say that the child she holds forth to adoration is
called by the name of Jesus? When she was worshipped with her child in Babylon of old,
that child was called by a name as peculiar to Christ, as distinctive of His glorious
character, as the name of Jesus. He was called "Zoro-ashta," "the seed of
the woman." But that did not hinder the hot anger of God from being directed against
those in the days of old who worshipped that "image of jealousy, provoking to
jealousy." *
* Ezekiel 8:3. There have been many speculations
about what this "image of jealousy" could be. But when it is known that the
grand feature of ancient idolatry was just the worship of the Mother and the child, and
that child as the Son of God incarnate, all is plain. Compare verses 3 and 5 with verse
14, and it will be seen that the "women weeping for Tammuz" were weeping close
beside the image of jealousy.
Neither can the giving of the name of Christ to
the infant in the arms of the Romish Madonna, make it less the "image of
jealousy," less offensive to the Most High, less fitted to provoke His high
displeasure, when it is evident that that infant is worshipped as the child of her who was
adored as Queen of Heaven, with all the attributes of divinity, and was at the same time
the "Mother of harlots and abominations of the earth." Image-worship in every
case the Lord abhors; but image-worship of such a kind as this must be peculiarly
abhorrent to His holy soul. Now, if the facts I have adduced be true, is it wonderful that
such dreadful threatenings should be directed in the Word of God against the Romish
apostacy, and that the vials of this tremendous wrath are destined to be outpoured upon
its guilty head? If these things be true (and gainsay them who can), who will venture now
to plead for Papal Rome, or to call her a Christian Church? Is there one, who fears God,
and who reads these lines, who would not admit that Paganism alone could ever have
inspired such a doctrine as that avowed by the Melchites at the Nicene Council, that the
Holy Trinity consisted of "the Father, the Virgin Mary, and the Messiah their
Son"? (Quarterly Journal of Prophecy, July, 1852) Is there one who would not
shrink with horror from such a thought? What, then, would the reader say of a Church that
teaches its children to adore such a Trinity as that contained in the following lines?
"Heart of Jesus, I adore
thee;
Heart of Mary, I implore thee;
Heart of Joseph, pure and just;
IN THESE THREE HEARTS I PUT MY TRUST." *
* What every Christian must Know and Do.
By the Rev. J. FURNISS. Published by James Duffy, Dublin. The edition of this Manual of
Popery quoted above, besides the blasphemy it contains, contains most immoral principles,
teaching distinctly the harmlessness of fraud, if only kept within due bounds. On this
account, a great outcry having been raised against it, I believe this edition has been
withdrawn from general circulation. The genuineness of the passage above given is,
however, beyond all dispute. I received myself from a fried in Liverpool a copy of the
edition containing these words, which is now in my possession, having previously seen them
in a copy in the possession of the Rev. Richard Smyth of Armagh. It is not in Ireland,
however, only, that such a trinity is exhibited for the worship of Romanists. In a Card,
or Fly-leaf, issued by the Popish priests of Sunderland, now lying before me, with the
heading "Paschal Duty, St. Mary's Church, Bishopwearmouth, 1859," the following
is the 4th admonition given to the "Dear Christians" to whom it is addressed:
"4. And never forget the acts of a good
Christian, recommended to you so often during the renewal of the Mission.
Blessed be Jesus, Mary, and
Joseph.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I give you my heart, my life, and my soul.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, assist me always; and in my last agony,
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, receive my last breath. Amen."
To induce the adherents of Rome to perform this
"act of a good Christian," a considerable bribe is held out. In p. 30 of
Furniss' Manual above referred to, under the head "Rule of Life," the following
passage occurs: "In the morning, before you get up, make the sign of the cross, and
say, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I give you my heart and my soul. (Each time you say this
prayer, you get an indulgence of 100 days, which you can give to the souls in
Purgatory)!" I must add that the title of Furniss' book, as given above, is the title
of Mr. Smyth's copy. The title of the copy in my possession is "What every
Christian must Know." London: Richardson & Son, 147 Strand. Both copies alike
have the blasphemous words given in the text, and both have the "Imprimatur" of
"Paulus Cullen."
If this is not Paganism, what is there that can
be called by such a name? Yet this is the Trinity which now the Roman Catholics of
Ireland from tender infancy are taught to adore. This is the Trinity which, in the latest
books of catechetical instruction is presented as the grand object of devotion to the
adherents of the Papacy. The manual that contains this blasphemy comes forth with the
express "Imprimatur" of "Paulus Cullen," Popish Archbishop of
Dublin. Will any one after this say that the Roman Catholic Church must still be called
Christian, because it holds the doctrine of the Trinity? So did the Pagan Babylonians, so
did the Egyptians, so do the Hindoos at this hour, in the very same sense in which Rome
does. They all admitted A trinity, but did they worship THE Triune Jehovah, the King
Eternal, Immortal, and Invisible? And will any one say with such evidence before him, that
Rome does so? Away then, with the deadly delusion that Rome is Christian! There
might once have been some palliation for entertaining such a supposition; but every day
the "Grand Mystery" is revealing itself more and more in its true character.
There is not, and there cannot be, any safety for the souls of men in "Babylon."
"Come out of her, my people," is the loud and express command of God. Those who
disobey that command, do it at their peril.
Notes
[Back] The Identification of Rhea or Cybele and Venus
In the exoteric doctrine of Greece and Rome, the
characters of Cybele, the mother of the gods, and of Venus, the goddess of love, are
generally very distinct, insomuch that some minds may perhaps find no slight difficulty in
regard to the identification of these two divinities. But that difficulty will disappear,
if the fundamental principle of the Mysteries be borne in mind--viz., that at bottom they
recognised only Adad, "The One God." Adad being Triune, this left room, when the
Babylonian Mystery of Iniquity took shape, for three different FORMS of divinity--the
father, the mother, and the son; but all the multiform divinities with which the Pagan
world abounded, whatever diversities there were among them, were resolved substantially
into so many manifestations of one or other of these divine persons, or rather of two, for
the first person was generally in the background. We have distinct evidence that this was
the case. Apuleius tells us, that when he was initiated, the goddess Isis revealed herself
to him as "The first of the celestials, and the uniform manifestation of the gods and
goddesses...WHOSE ONE SOLE DIVINITY the whole orb of the earth venerated, and under a
manifold form, with different rites, and under a variety of appellations"; and going
over many of these appellations, she declares herself to be at once "Pessinuntica,
the mother of the gods [i.e. Cybele], and Paphian Venus." Now, as this was the case
in the later ages of the Mysteries, so it must have been the case from the very beginning;
because they SET OUT, and necessarily set out, with the doctrine of the UNITY of the
Godhead. This, of course, would give rise to no little absurdity and inconsistency in the
very nature of the case. Both Wilkinson and Bunsen, to get rid of the inconsistencies they
have met with in the Egyptian system, have found it necessary to have recourse to
substantially the same explanation as I have done. Thus we find Wilkinson saying: "I
have stated that Amun-re and other gods took the form of different deities, which, though
it appears at first sight to present some difficulty, may readily be accounted for when we
consider that each of those whose figures or emblem were adopted, was only an EMANATION,
or deified attribute of the SAME GREAT BEING to whom they ascribed various characters,
according to the several offices he was supposed to perform." The statement of Bunsen
is to the same effect, and it is this: "Upon these premises, we think ourselves
justified in concluding that the two series of gods were originally identical, and that,
in the GREAT PAIR of gods, all those attributes were concentrated, from the development of
which, in various personifications, that mythological system sprang up which we have been
already considering."
The bearing of all this upon the question of the
identification of Cybele and Astarte, or Venus, is important. Fundamentally, there was but
one goddess--the Holy Spirit, represented as female, when the distinction of sex was
wickedly ascribed to the Godhead, through a perversion of the great Scripture idea, that
all the children of God are at once begotten of the Father, and born of the Spirit; and
under this idea, the Spirit of God, as Mother, was represented under the form of a dove,
in memory of the fact that that Spirit, at the creation, "fluttered"--for so, as
I have observed, is the exact meaning of the term in Genesis 1:2--"on the face of the
waters." This goddess, then, was called Ops, "the flutterer," or Juno,
"The Dove," or Khubele, "The binder with cords," which last
title had reference to "the bands of love, the cords of a man" (called in Hosea
11:4, "Khubeli Adam"), with which not only does God @mL3 continually, by
His providential goodness, draw men unto Himself, but with which our first parent
Adam, through the Spirit's indwelling, while the covenant of Eden was unbroken, was
sweetly bound to God. This theme is minutely dwelt on in Pagan story, and the evidence is
very abundant; but I cannot enter upon it here. Let this only be noticed, however, that
the Romans joined the two terms Juno and Khubele--or, as it is commonly pronounced,
Cybele--together; and on certain occasions invoked their supreme goddess, under the name
of Juno Covella--that is, "The dove that binds with cords."
If the reader looks, in Layard, at the triune
emblem of the supreme Assyrian divinity, he will see this very idea visibly embodied.
There the wings and tail of the dove have two bands associated with them instead of
feet (LAYARD'S Nineveh and its Remains, vol. ii. p. 418; see also accompanying
woodcut (Fig. 61), from BRYANT, vol. ii.
p. 216; and KITTO's Bib. Cyclop., vol. i. p. 425).
In reference to events after the Fall,
Cybele got a new idea attached to her name. Khubel signifies not only to "bind with
cords," but also "to travail in birth"; and therefore Cybele appeared as
the "Mother of the gods," by whom all God's children must be born anew or
regenerated. But, for this purpose, it was held indispensable that there should be a union
in the first instance with Rhea, "The gazer," the human "mother of
gods and men," that the ruin she had introduced might be remedied. Hence the
identification of Cybele and Rhea, which in all the Pantheons are declared to be only two
different names of the same goddess, though, as we have seen, these goddesses were in
reality entirely distinct. This same principle was applied to all the other deified
mothers. They were deified only through the supposed miraculous identification with them
of Juno or Cybele--in other words, of the Holy Spirit of God. Each of these mothers had
her own legend, and had special worship suited thereto; but, as in all cases, she was held
to be an incarnation of the one spirit of God, as the great Mother of all, the attributes
of that one Spirit were always pre-supposed as belonging to her. This, then, was the case
with the goddess recognised as Astarte or Venus, as well as with Rhea. Though there were
points of difference between Cybele, or Rhea, and Astarte or Mylitta, the Assyrian Venus,
Layard shows that there were also distinct points of contact between them. Cybele or Rhea
was remarkable for her turreted crown. Mylitta, or Astarte, was represented with a similar
crown. Cybele, or Rhea, was drawn by lions; Mylitta, or Astarte, was represented as
standing on a lion. The worship of Mylitta, or Astarte, was a mass of moral pollution
(HERODOTUS). The worship of Cybele, under the name of Terra, was the same (AUGUSTINE, De
Civitate).
The first deified woman was no doubt Semiramis,
as the first deified man was her husband. But it is evident that it was some time after
the Mysteries began that this deification took place; for it was not till after Semiramis
was dead that she was exalted to divinity, and worshipped under the form of a dove. When,
however, the Mysteries were originally concocted, the deeds of Eve, who, through her
connection with the serpent, brought forth death, must necessarily have occupied a
place; for the Mystery of sin and death lies at the very foundation of all religion, and
in the age of Semiramis and Nimrod, and Shem and Ham, all men must have been well
acquainted with the facts of the Fall. At first the sin of Eve may have been admitted in
all its sinfulness (otherwise men generally would have been shocked, especially when the
general conscience had been quickened through the zeal of Shem); but when a woman was to
be deified, the shape that the mystic story came to assume shows that that sin was
softened, yea, that it changed its very character, and that by a perversion of the name
given to Eve, as "the mother of all living ones," that is, all the regenerate,
she was glorified as the authoress of spiritual life, and, under the very name Rhea, was
recognised as the mother of the gods. Now, those who had the working of the Mystery of
Iniquity did not find it very difficult to show that this name Rhea, originally
appropriate to the mother of mankind, was hardly less appropriate for her who was
the actual mother of the gods, that is, of all the deified mortals. Rhea, in
the active sense, signifies "the Gazing woman," but in the passive it signifies
"The woman gazed at," that is, "The beauty," and thus, under one and
the same term, the mother of mankind and the mother of the Pagan gods, that is, Semiramis,
were amalgamated; insomcuh, that now, as is well known, Rhea is currently recognised as
the "Mother of gods and men" (HESIOD, Theogon). It is not
wonderful, therefore that the name Rhea is found applied to her, who, by the Assyrians,
was worshipped in the very character of Astarte or Venus.
____________________
[Back] The Virgin Mother of Paganism
"Almost all the Tartar princes," says
SALVERTE (Des Sciences Occultes), "trace their genealogy to a celestial
virgin, impregnated by a sun-beam, or some equally miraculous means." In India, the
mother of Surya, the sun-god, who was born to destroy the enemies of the gods, is
said to have become pregnant in this way, a beam of the sun having entered her womb, in
consequence of which she brought forth the sun-god. Now the knowledge of this widely
diffused myth casts light on the secret meaning of the name Aurora, given to the
wife of Orion, to whose marriage with that "mighty hunter" Homer refers (Odyssey).
While the name Aur-ora, in the physical sense, signifies also "pregnant with
light"; and from "ohra," "to conceive" or be
"pregnant," we have in Greek, the word for a wife. As Orion, according to
Persian accounts, was Nimrod; and Nimrod, under the name of Ninus, was worshipped as the son
of his wife, when he came to be deified as the sun-god, that name Aurora, as applied to
his wife, is evidently intended to convey the very same idea as prevails in Tartary and
India. These myths of the Tartars and Hindoos clearly prove that the Pagan idea of the
miraculous conception had not come from any intermixture of Christianity with that
superstition, but directly from the promise of "the seed of the woman." But how,
it may be asked, could the idea of being pregnant with a sunbeam arise? There is reason to
believe that it came from one of the natural names of the sun. From the Chaldean zhr,
"to shine," comes, in the participle active, zuhro or zuhre,
"the Shiner"; and hence, no doubt, from zuhro, "the Shiner,"
under the prompting of a designing priesthood, men would slide into the idea of zuro,
"the seed,"--"the Shiner" and "the seed," according to the
genius of Paganism, being thus identified. This was manifestly the case in Persia, where
the sun as the great divinity; for the "Persians," says Maurice, "called
God Sure" (Antiquities).
____________________
[Back] The Goddess Mother as a Habitation
What could ever have induced mankind to think of
calling the great Goddess-mother, or mother of gods and men, a House or Habitation?
The answer is evidently to be found in a statement made in Genesis 2:21, in regard to the
formation of the mother of mankind: "And the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall
upon Adam, and he slept, and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead
thereof. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made (margin, literally
BUILDED) he into a woman." That this history of the rib was well known to the
Babylonians, is manifest from one of the names given to their primeval goddess, as found
in Berosus. That name is Thalatth. But Thalatth is just the Chaldean form of the Hebrew
Tzalaa, in the feminine,--the very word used in Genesis for the rib, of which Eve was
formed; and the other name which Berosus couples with Thalatth, does much to confirm this;
for that name, which is Omorka, * just signifies "The Mother of the world."
* From "Am," "mother," and
"arka," "earth." The first letter aleph in both of these words is
often pronounced as o. Thus the pronunciation of a in Am,
"mother," is seen in the Greek a "shoulder." Am, "mother,"
comes from am, "to support," and from am, pronounced om,
comes the shoulder that bears burdens. Hence also the name Oma, as one of the names
of Bona Des. Oma is evidently the "Mother."
When we have thus deciphered the meaning of the
name Thalatth, as applied to the "mother of the world," that leads us at once to
the understanding, of the name Thalasius, applied by the Romans to the god of marriage,
the origin of which name has hitherto been sought in vain. Thalatthi signifies
"belonging to the rib," and, with the Roman termination, becomes Thalatthius or
"Thalasius, the man of the rib." And what name more appropriate than this for
Adam, as the god of marriage, who, when the rib was brought to him, said, "This is
now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was
taken out of man." At first, when Thalatth, the rib, was builded into a woman,
that "woman" was, in a very important sense, the "Habitation" or
"Temple of God"; and had not the Fall intervened, all her children would, in
consequence of mere natural generation, have been the children of God. The entrance of sin
into the world subverted the original constitution of things. Still, when the promise of a
Saviour was given and embraced, the renewed indwelling of the Holy Spirit was given too, not
that she might thereby have any power in herself to bring forth children unto God,
but only that she might duly act the part of a mother to a spiritually living
offspring--to those whom God of his free grace should quicken, and bring from death unto
life. Now, Paganism willingly overlooked all this; and taught, as soon as its votaries
were prepared for receiving it, that this renewed indwelling of the spirit of God in the
woman, was identification, and so it deified her. Then Rhea, "the gazer," the
mother of mankind, was identified with Cybele "the binder with cords," or Juno,
"the Dove," that is, the Holy Spirit. Then, in the blasphemous Pagan sense, she
became Athor, "the Habitation of God," or Sacca, or Sacta, "the
tabernacle" or "temple," in whom dwelt "all the fulness of the Godhead
bodily." Thus she became Heva, "The Living One"; not in the sense in which
Adam gave that name to his wife after the Fall, when the hope of life out of the midst of
death was so unexpectedly presented to her as well as to himself; but in the sense of the communicator
of spiritual and eternal life to men; for Rhea was called the "fountain of the
blessed ones." The agency, then, of this deified woman was held to be indispensable
for the begetting of spiritual children to God, in this, as it was admitted, fallen world.
Looked at from this point of view, the meaning of the name given to the Babylonian goddess
in 2 Kings 17:30, will be at once apparent. The name Succoth-benoth has very frequently
been supposed to be a plural word, and to refer to booths or tabernacles used in Babylon
for infamous purposes. But, as observed by Clericus (De Chaldoeis), who refers to
the Rabbins as being of the same opinion, the context clearly shows that the name must be
the name of an idol: (vv 29,30), "Howbeit every nation made gods of their own,
and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation
in their cities wherein they dwelt. And the men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth." It
is here evidently an idol that is spoken of; and as the name is feminine, that idol must
have been the image of a goddess. Taken in this sense, then, and in the light of the
Chaldean system as now unfolded, the meaning of "Succoth-benoth," as applied to
the Babylonian goddess, is just "The tabernacle of child-bearing." *
* That is, the Habitation in which the Spirit of
God dwelt, for the purpose of begetting spiritual children.
When the Babylonian system was developed, Eve was
represented as the first that occupied this place, and the very name Benoth, that
signifies "child-bearing," explains also how it came about that the Woman, who,
as Hestia or Vesta, was herself called the "Habitation," got the credit of
"having invented the art of building houses" (SMITH, "Hestia").
Benah, the verb, from which Benoth comes, signifies at once to "bring forth
children" and "to build houses"; the bringing forth of children being
metaphorically regarded as the "building up of the house," that is, of the
family.
While the Pagan system, so far as a
Goddess-mother was concerned, was founded on this identification of the Celestial
and Terrestrial mothers of the "blessed" immortals, each of these two divinities
was still celebrated as having, in some sense, a distinct individuality; and, in
consequence, all the different incarnations of the Saviour-seed were represented as born
of two mothers. It is well known that Bimater, or Two-mothered, is one of the
distinguishing epithets applied to Bacchus. Ovid makes the reason of the application of
this epithet to him to have arisen from the myth, that when in embryo, he was rescued from
the flames in which is mother died, was sewed up in Jupiter's thigh, and then brought
forth at the due time. Without inquiring into the secret meaning of this, it is sufficient
to state that Bacchus had two goddess-mothers; for, not only was he conceived by Semele,
but he was brought into the world by the goddess Ippa (PROCLUS in Timoeum). This is
the very same thing, no doubt, that is referred to, when it is said that after his mother
Semele's death, his aunt Ino acted the part of a mother and nurse unto him. The same thing
appears in the mythology of Egypt, for there we read that Osiris, under the form of
Anubis, having been brought forth by Nepthys, was adopted and brought up by the goddess
Isis as her own son. In consequence of this, the favourite Triad came everywhere to be the
two mothers and the son. In WILKINSON, the reader will find a divine Triad, consisting of
Isis and Nepthys, and the child of Horus between them. In Babylon, the statement of
Diodorus shows that the Triad there at one period was two goddesses and the son--Hera,
Rhea, and Zeus; and in the Capitol at Rome, in like manner, the Triad was Juno, Minerva,
and Jupiter; while, when Jupiter was worshipped by the Roman matrons as "Jupiter
puer," or "Jupiter the child," it was in company with Juno and the goddess
Fortuna (CICERO, De Divinatione). This kind of divine Triad seems to be traced up
to very ancient times among the Romans; for it is stated both by Dionysius Halicarnassius
and by Livy, that soon after the expulsion of the Tarquins, there was at Rome a temple in
which were worshipped Ceres, Liber, and Libera (DION. HALICARN and LIVY).
