But what was the character of the primitive Semitic deity? Bunsen seems to think that Plutarch in one passage alludes to the identity of Typhon (Seth) and Osiris.133This is a remarkable idea, and yet curiously enough Sir Gardner Wilkinson says that Typhon-Seth may have been derived from the pigmy Pthath-Sokari-Osiris,134who was clearly only another form of Osiris himself. In the Egyptian Book of theDead, Horus, the son of Osiris, is declared to be at the same time Set, “by the distinction made between them by Thoth.”135However that may be, the Phallic origin of Seth can be shown from other data. Thus it appears that the wordSetmeans, in Hebrew as in Egyptian, pillar, and, in a general sense, the erect, elevated, high.136Moreover, in a passage of the Book of the Dead, Set, according to Bunsen, is calledTet, a fact which intimates that Thoth inherited many of the attributes of Set.137They were, however, in some sense the same deities, it being through Thoth that Set was identified with Horus. We have here an explanation of the statement that Tet, the PhœnicianTaaut, was the snake-god, Esmun-Esculapius, the serpent being the symbol of Tet, as we have seen it to have been that of Seth also. In this we have a means of identifying the Semitic deity Seth with the Saturn of related deities of other peoples. Ewald says that “the common name for God,Eloah, among the Hebrews, as among all the Semites, goes back into the earliest times.”138Bryant goes further, and declares that El was originally the name of the supreme deity among all the nations of the East.139This idea is confirmed, so far as Chaldea is concerned, by later researches, which show that Il or El was at the head of the Babylonian Pantheon. With this deity must be identified the Il or Ilus of the Phœnicians, who was born the same as Cronus, who, again, was none other than the primevalSaturn, whose worship appears to have been at one period almost universal among European and Asiatic peoples. Saturn and El were thus the same deity, the latter, like the Semitic Seth, being, as is well known, symbolised by the serpent.140A direct point of contact between Seth and Saturn is found in the Hebrew idolKiyunmentioned by Amos, the planet Saturn being still calledKevanby Eastern peoples. This idol was represented in the form of a pillar, the primeval symbol of deity, which was common undoubtedly to all the gods here mentioned.141These symbolical pillars were calledbetyliorbetulia. Sometimes also the column was calledAbaddir, which, strangely enough, Bryant identifies with the serpent-god.142There can be no doubt that both the pillar and the serpent were associated with many of the sun-gods of antiquity.
Notwithstanding what has been said it is undoubtedly true, however, that all these deities, including the Semitic Seth, became at an early date recognised as sun-gods, although in so doing they lost nothing of their primitive character. What this was is sufficiently shown by the significant names and titles they bore. Thus, as we have seen,Set(Seth) itself meant theerect,elevated,high, his name on the Egyptian monuments being nearly always accompanied by a stone.143The name,KiyunorKevan, of this deity, said by Amos to have been worshipped in the wilderness, signifies “god of the pillar.” The idea expressed by the title is shown by the nameBaal Tamar, which means “Baal as a pillar,” or “Phallus,” consequently “the fructifying god.” The title “erect,” when given to a deity, seems always to imply a Phallic idea, and hence we have the explanation of theS. mouused frequently in the “Book of the Dead” in relation to Thoth or to Set.144There is doubtless a reference of the same kind in the Phœnician myth, that “Melekh taught men the special art of creating solid walls and buildings;” although Bunsen finds in this myth “the symbolical mode of expressing the value of the use of fire in building houses.”145That these myths embody a Phallic notion may be confirmed by reference to the PhœnicianKabiri. According to Bunsen, “the Kabiri and the divinities identified with them are explained by the Greeks and Romans as ‘the strong,’ ‘the great;’” while in the book of Job,Kabbîr, the strong, is used as an epithet of God. Again,Sydyk, the father of the Kabiri, is “the Just,” or, in a more original sense, the Upright; and this deity, with his sons, correspond to Ptah, the father of the Phœnician Pataikoi. Ptah, however, seems to be derived from a root which signifies in Hebrew “to open,” and Sydyk himself, therefore, may, says Bunsen, be described as “the Opener” of the Cosmic Egg.146The Phallic meaning of this title is evident from its application to Esmun-Esculapius, the son of Sydyk, who, as the snake-god, was identical with Tet, the Egyptian Thoth-Hermes.
The peculiar titles given to these deities, and their association with the sun, led to their original Phallic character being somewhat overlooked, and instead of being the Father-Gods of human-kind, they becamePowerfulGods,Lordsof Heaven. This was not the special attribute taken by other sun-gods. As was before stated, Hermes and his related deities were “gods of the country,” personifying the idea of general natural fecundity. Among the chief gods of this description were the PhœnicianSabazius, the GreekBacchus-Dionysos, the RomanPriapus, and the EgyptianKhem. All these deities agree also in being sun-gods, and as such they were symbolised by animals which were noted either for their fecundity or for their salaciousness. The chief animals thus chosen were thebulland thegoat(with which the ram147was afterwards confounded), doubtless because they were already sacred. The Sun appears to have been preceded by the Moon as an object of worship, but the moon-god was probably only representative of the primeval Saturn,148who finally became the sun-godElorIlof the Syrian and Semites and theRaof the Babylonians. The latter was the title also of the sun-god of Egypt, who was symbolised by the obelisk, and who, although his name was added to that of other Egyptian gods, is said to have been the tutelarydeity of the stranger kings of the eighteenth dynasty,149whom Pleyte, however, declares to have been Set (Sutech).150We are reminded here of the opposition of Seth and Osiris, which has already been explained as arising from the fact that these deities originally represented two different ideas,human fecundityand thefruitfulness of nature. When, however, both of these principles became associated with the solar body, they were expressed by the same symbols, and the distinction between them was in great measure lost sight of. A certain difference was, nevertheless, still observable in the attributes of the deities, depending on the peculiar properties and associations of their solar representatives. Thus the powerful deity of Phœnicia was naturally associated with the strong, scorching, summer sun, whoseheatwas the most prominent attribute. In countries such as Egypt, where the sun, acting on the moist soil left by inundations, caused the earth to spring into renewed life, the mild but energetic early sun was the chief deity.
When, considering the sacred bull of antiquity, the symbol of the fecundating force in nature, Osiris, the national sun-god of the Egyptians, was referred to as distinguished from the Semitic Seth (Set), who was identified with the detested shepherd race. The association of Osiris with Khem shows his Phallic character,151and, in fact, Plutarch asserts that he was everywhere represented with the phallus exposed.152The Phallic idea enters, moreover, into the character of all the chief Egyptian deities. Bunsen says: “The mythological system obviously proceeded from ‘the concealed god’ Ammon to the creating god. The latter appears first of all as the generative power of nature in the Phallic god Khem, who is afterwards merged in Ammon-ra. Then sprung up the idea of the creative power in Kneph. He forms the divine limbs of Osiris (the primeval soul) in contradiction to Ptah, who as the strictly demiurgic principle, forms the visible world. Neith is the creative principle, as nature represented under a feminine form. Finally, her son Ra, Helios, appears as the last of the series, in the character of father and nourisher of terrestrial beings. It is he, whom an ancient monument represents as the demiurgic principle, creating the mundane egg.”153The name of Ammon has led to the notion that he was an embodiment of the idea of wisdom. He certainly was distinguished by having the human form, but his hieroglyphical symbol of theobelisk, and his connection with Khem, show his true nature. He undoubtedly represented the primitive idea of a generative god, probably at a time when this notion of fecundity had not yet been extended to nature as distinguished from man, and thus he would form a point of contact between the later Egyptian sun-gods and the pillar gods of the Semites and Phœnicians.154Tothe Egyptians, as to these other peoples, the sun became the great source of deity. His fecundating warmth or his fiery destroying heat were, however, not the only attributes deified. These were the most important, but the Egyptians, especially, made gods out of many of the solar characters,155although the association of the idea of “intellect” with Amun-re must have been of late date, if the original nature of Amun was what has been above suggested.
As man, however, began to read nature aright, and as his moral and intellectual faculties were developed, it was necessary that the solar deities themselves should become invested with co-relative attributes, or that other gods should be formed to embody them. The perception oflight, as distinguished from heat, was a fertile source of such attributes. In the Chaldean mythology,Vul, the son ofAnu, was the god of the air, but his power had relation to the purely atmospheric phenomena rather than to light.156The only reference to light found in the titles of the early deities is in the character ascribed toVa-lua, the laterBurorNin-ip, who is said to “irradiate the nations like the sun, the light of the gods.”157But this deity was apparently the distant planet Saturn, if not originally the moon, and the perception of light as a divine attribute must be referred to the Aryan mind.158Thus the HinduDyaus(the GreekZeus) is the shining deity, the god of the bright sky. As such the sun-gods now also become the gods of intellectual wisdom, an attribute which also appears to have originated with the Aryan peoples, among whom the Brahmans were possessors of the highest wisdom, as children of the sun, and whose Apollo and Athené were noble embodiments of this attribute. The Chaldean gods,HéaandNebo, were undoubtedly symbolised by the wedge or arrow-head, which had especial reference to learning. In reality, however, this symbol merely shows that they were the patrons of letters or writing, and not of wisdom, in its purely intellectual aspect. If the form of the Assyrian alphabetical character was of Phallic origin,159we may have here the source of the idea of a connection between physical and mental knowledge embodied in the legend of the “fall.” In the PersianAhurô-mazdâo(the wise spirit) we have the purest representation of intellectual wisdom. The book of Zoroaster, the Avesta, is literally the “word,” the word or wisdom which was revealed in creation and embodied in the divine Mithra, who was himself the luminous sun-god.
The similarity between the symbols of the sun-gods of antiquity and the natural objects introduced into the Mosaic myth of the fall has been already referred to, and it is necessary now to consider shortly what influence the Phallic principle there embodied had over other portions of Hebraic theology. The inquiries of Dr. Faber have thrown great light on this question,although the explanation given by him of the myth of Osiris and of the kindred myths of antiquity is by no means the correct one. Finding a universal prevalence of Phallic ideas and symbolism, Dr. Faber refers it to the degradation of a primitive revelation of the Great Father of the Universe. The truth thus taught was lost sight of, and was replaced by the dual notion of a Great Father and a Great Mother—“the transmigrating Noah and the mundane Ark” of the universal Deluge. Noah was, however, only a reappearance of Adam, and the ark floating on the waters of the Deluge was an analogue of the earth swimming in the ocean of space.160There is undoubtedly a parallelism between the Adam and Noah of the Hebrew legends, as there is between the analogous personages of other phases of these legends, yet it is evident that, if the Deluge never happened, a totally different origin from the one supposed by Dr. Faber must be assigned to the great Phallic myth of antiquity. It is absolutely necessary, therefore, to any explanation (other than the Phallic one) of the origin of this myth, to establish the truth of the Noahic Deluge.161Accordingly, an American writer has framed an elaborate system of “Arkite symbolism,” founded on the supposed influence of the great Deluge over the minds of the posterity of those who survived its horrors. Mr. Lesley sees in this catastrophe the explanation of“phallism,” which, “converting all the older Arkite symbols into illustrations of its own philosophical conceptions of the mystery of generation, gave to the various parts and members of the human body those names which constitute the special vocabulary of obscenity of the present day.”162
But the priority of these symbols or conceptions is the question at issue. Did the development of “Arkism” precede or follow the superstitions referred to by Mr. Lesley asOphism,Mithraism, andPhallism, all of which have been shown to embody analogous ideas? If the question of priority is to be determined by reference to the written tradition which furnishes the real ground of belief in a great Deluge, it must clearly be given to the Phallic superstition; for it is shown conclusively, as I think, that almost the first event in the life of man there related is purely Phallic in its symbolism. Nor is the account of the fall the only portion of the Mosaic history of primitive man which belongs to this category. The Garden of Eden, with its tree of life and the river which divided into four streams, although it may have had a secondary reference to the traditional place of Semitic origin to which the Hebrews looked back with a regretful longing, has undoubtedly a recondite Phallic meaning. It must be so, if the explanation I have given of the myth of the fall be right, since the two are intimately connected, and the Garden163is essential to the succeeding catastrophe. That this opinion is correct can be proved moreover by reference to Hindu mythology. “The Hindu,” says Dr. Creuzer, “contemplates with love his mysterious Merou, a sacred mountain from whence the source of life spreads itself in the valleys and over the plains, which separates day from night, reunites heaven and earth, and finally on which the sun, the moon, and the stars each repose.”164But what is this mysterious mountain, the sacred Merou? It is shown by Dr. Creuzer’s own explanation. He says: “It is on the Mount Merou, the central point of the earth (which elevates itself as an immense phallus from the centre of an immense yoni amongst the islands with which the sea is sown), that the grand popular deity who presides over the Lingam,Sivaor Mahadeva, the father and master of nature, makes his cherished abode, spreading life to every part under a thousand diverse forms which he incessantly renews. Near him isBhavaniorParvati, his sister and his wife, the Queen of the mountains, the goddess of the Yoni, who carries in her bosom the germ of all things, and brings forth the beings whom she has conceived by Mahadeva. We have here the two great principles of nature, the one male and the other female, generators and regenerators, creators and at the same time destroyers; but they destroy only to renew; they only change the forms; life and death succeed in a perfect circle, and the substance remains in the midst of all these changes.” The sacred mountain is wanting to the Mosaic legend, but Dr. Faber justly sees165inthe Mount Merou, where resides Siva and Bhavani, the Hebrew Paradise, and we find that the Hindu myth affirms that the sacred river not only sprang from the roots of Jambu, a tree of a most extravagant size, which is thought to convey knowledge and to effect the accomplishment of every human wish, but also that, after passing through “the circle of the moon,” it divides it into “four streams, flowing towards the four cardinal points.”
The priority of the Phallic superstition over “Arkism” is further proved by the undoubted fact that, even in the traditions of the race to whom we are indebted for the precise details of the incidents accompanying the Deluge, the Phallic deities of the Hamitico-Semites are genealogically placed long before the occurrence of this event. The Semitic deity Seth is, according to one fable, the semi-divine first ancestor of the Semites. Bunsen has shown clearly also that several of the antediluvian descendants of the Semitic Adam were among the Phœnician deities. Thus, the Carthaginians had a god Yubal, Jubal, who would appear to have been the sun-god Æsculapius, called “the fairest of the gods and so, we read in a Phœnician inscription Ju-Baal—i.e., beauty of Baal, which Movers ingeniously interprets Æsculapius—Asmun-Jubal.” Here, then, adds Bunsen, “is another old Semitic name attached to a descendant of Lamekh, together with Adah, Zillah, and Naamah.”166Hadah, the wife of Lamekh, as well of Esau, the Phœnician Usov, is identified with the goddess, worshipped at Babylon as Hera (Juno), and, notwithstanding Sir Gardner Wilkinson’s dictum to the contrary, her names, Hera, Hadah, point to a connection with the EgyptianHer Her, orHathor, who was the daughter of Seb and Netpe, as Hera was the daughter of Chronos and Rhea. The name of the godKiyun, or Kevan, who was worshipped by the Hebrews, and who in Syria was said to devour children, seems, from its connection with the rootkun, to erect, to point to the antediluvian Kain or Kevan.Kon, derived from the same root, was, according to Bunsen, a Phœnician designation of Saturn.167Even the great Carthaginian sun-godMelekh, who was also “held in universal honour throughout Phœnicia,” seems, although Bunsen does not thus identify him, to be no other than Lamekh, the father of Noah, in one of the genealogies of Genesis. We may, perhaps, have in the sacrifices to the Phœnician deities, when the first-born sons of the people were offered on his altars, an explanation168of the passage in Genesis which has so much puzzled commentators, where Lamekh is made to declare that he has “slain a man for his wound, and a youth for his hurt,” for which, while Cain was avenged seven times, Lamekh should be avenged seventy times seven times.169The Phœnicians had a tradition that Kronos (Saturn) had sacrificed his own beloved son Yadid, and some ancient writers said that the human sacrifices to Moloch were in imitation of this act.170This reasonmay not be the correct one for the use of human sacrifices, but the seventy times seven times in which Lamekh was avenged may well refer to the abundance of the victims offered on the altar of the Phœnician deity.
The priority of the Phallic superstition over “Arkism,” or rather the existence of that superstition before the formation of the Deluge legend, is proved, moreover, by its agreement with the myth of Osiris and Isis. This agreement forms the central idea of the explanation of pagan idolatry given by Faber, and yet it conclusively proves that the Noachian Deluge was simply a myth, having, like that of Osiris, a Phallic basis. Bunsen says “the myth of Osiris and Typhon, heretofore considered as primeval, can now be authoritatively proved to be of modern date in Egypt—that is to say, about the thirteenth or fourteenth centuryB.C.”171But it isthisversion of the Osirian myth which is said to be founded on the Noachian catastrophe, Typhon or The Evil Being, the persecutor of Osiris, being the Waters of the Deluge. The very foundation of the Hebrew legend is thus cut away, and from the fact, moreover, that the Egyptians had no tradition of a great flood, we must seek for another origin for the legend of which different phases were held by so many of the peoples of antiquity. The fact of Typhon (Seth) having been venerated in Egypt to so late a date as the thirteenth centuryB.C.is a proof that the myth, according to which he was the cruel persecutor of his brother Osiris, must have been of a later origin.The primitive form of the myth is easily recognised when it is known that both Osiris and Typhon (Seth) were sun-gods. Thus, according to Bunsen, “the myth of Osiris typifies the solar year, the power of Osiris is the sun of the lower hemisphere, the winter solstice. The birth of Horus typifies the vernal equinox—the victory of Horus, the summer equinox—the inundation of the Nile. Typhon is the autumnal equinox—Osiris is slain on the seventeenth of Athyr (November).... The rule of Typhon lasts from the autumnal equinox to the middle of December. He reigns twenty-eight years, or lives as long.”172Thus the history of Osiris is “the history of the circle of the year,” and in his resurrection as Horus we see the sun resuscitating itself after its temporary eclipse during the winter solstice. Here Typhon is also a sun-god, his rule being at the autumnal equinox when the sun has its full power. This was the deity of the Semites and of the inhabitants of Lower Egypt, and his scorching force, doubtless, prepared the Egyptians, who venerated the milder Osiris, to look with abhorrence on Typhon-Seth, who had already, probably under the same influence, become a savage deity, delighting in burnt offerings and human sacrifices.173No wonder, therefore, that when the worshippers of the Semitic god were driven out of Egypt, the god himself was treated as an enemy. Thus we are told that the enemies of Egypt and their gods contended with the gods of Egypt, who veiled themselves under the heads of animals in order to save themselves from Typhon.Moreover, when this Semitic god was thus degraded and transformed into an Evil Being, he would naturally come to be looked upon as the enemy of Osiris, seeing that he was already identified with the autumn sun, which during the autumnal equinox triumphs over the sun of Osiris; and we can easily understand how, if the myth of a Deluge, and the consequent destruction of all mankind but the father of the renewed human race, was introduced, Typhon would be the destroying enemy and Osiris the suffering and restored man-god.
If, as Dr. Faber supposes, the Egyptian myth was a form of that which relates to the Noachian Deluge, we can only suppose them to have had a similar basis, a basis which, from the very circumstances of the case, must be purely “Phallic.” This explanation is the only one which is consistent with a peculiarity in the Hebrew legend which is an insurmountable objection to its reception as the expression of a literal fact. We are told by the Mosaic narrative that Jehovah directed Noah to take with him into the ark “of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort.” Now, according to the ordinary acceptation of the legend, this passage expresses a simple absurdity, even on the hypothesis of a partial Deluge. If, however, we read the narrative in a Phallic sense, and by the ark understand the sacredArghaof Hindu mythology, theYoniof Parvati, which, like the moon in Zoroastrian teaching, carries initselfthe “germs of all things,” we see the full propriety of what otherwise is incomprehensible. The Elohim “created” the heavens and the earth, and on its destructionthe seeds of all things were preserved in the ark to again cover the earth. Taken in this sense, we see the reason of the curious analogy which exists in various points between the Hebrew legends of the Creation and of the Deluge, this analogy being one of the grounds on which the hypothesis of the Great Father as the central idea of all mythologies has been based. Thus, the primeval ship, the navigation of which is ascribed to the mythological being, is not the ark of Noah or Osiris, or the vessel of the Phœnician Kabiri. It was the moon, the ship of the sun, in which his seed is supposed to be hidden until it bursts forth in new life and power. The fact that the moon was, in early mythologies, a male deity, almost necessitates, however, that there should have been another origin for the sacred vessel of Osiris. This we have in the Hastoreth-karnaim, the cow-goddess, whose horns represent the lunar ark, and who, without doubt, was a more primitive deity than the moon-goddess herself.174The most primitive type of all, however, is that of theArghaorYoniof the Indian Iswara, which from its name was supposed to have been turned into a dove.175Thus, in Noah and the ark, as in Osiris and the moon, we see simply the combination of the male and female elements as they are still represented in the Hindu lingam. The introduction of the dove into the myth is a curiousconfirmation of this view. For this bird, which, as “the emblem of love and fruitfulness,” was “consecrated to Venus, under all her different names, at Babylon, in Syria, Palestine, and Greece;176which was the national banner-sign of the Assyrians, as of the earlier Sythic empire, whose founders, according to Hindu tradition, took the name ofJonimorYoniyas, and which attended on Janus, a diluvian ‘god of opening and shutting;’ was simply a type of ‘the Yoni’ or Jonah, or Navicular feminine principle,” which was said to have assumed the form of a ship and a dove.177
In bringing this essay to a close, some mention should be made of what may be called themodernreligions, Brahminism, Buddhism, and Christianity, seeing that these still exist as the faiths of great peoples. As to the first of these, it may be thought that its real character cannot be ascertained from the present condition of Hindu belief. It is said that the religion of theVedasis very different from that of thePuranas, which have taken their place. It should be remembered, however, that these books profess to reproduce old doctrine, the word “Purana” itself meaningold, and that Puranas are referred to in one of the Upanishads, while theTantras, which contain the principles of theSacti Puja, and which are as yet almost unknown to Europeans, are considered by the Brahmins to be more ancient than the Puranas themselves.178Theorigin of the ideas contained in these books is a difficult question. The germs of both Vishnu-worship and Siva-worship appear to be found in the Vedas,179and the worship of the linga is undoubtedly referred to the Mahabharata.180It is more probable, as thought by Mr. Fergusson and other late writers, that they are only indirectly sprung from the primitive Hinduism. The similarity between Siva-ism and the Santal-worship of the Great Mountain pointed out by Dr. Hunter is very remarkable, and this analogy is strengthened by intermixture in both cases with river-worship.181There is no doubt that the Great Mountain is simply a name for the Phallic emblem, which is the chief form under which Siva is represented in the numerous temples at Benares dedicated to his honour. Considering the position occupied by the serpent as a symbol of life and indirectly of the male power, we should expect to find its worship connected to some extent with that of Siva. Mr. Fergusson, however, declares that it is not so, and, although this statement requires some qualification,182yet it is certain that the serpent is also intimately associated with Vishnu. In explanation of this fact, Mr. Fergusson remarks: “The Vaishnava religion is derived from a group of faiths in which the serpent always played an important part. The eldest branch of the family was the Naga worship, pure and simple; out of that arose Buddhism, ... and on its decline two faiths—at first very similar to one another—rose from its ashes, the Jaina and the Vaishnava.” The serpent is almost always found in Jaina temples as an object of worship, while it appears everywhere in Vaishnava tradition.183But elsewhere Mr. Fergusson tells us that, although Buddhism owed its establishment to Naga tribes, yet its supporters repressed the worship of the serpent, elevating tree-worship in its place.184It is difficult to understand how the Vaishnavas, who are worshippers of the female power,185and who hate thelingam, can yet so highly esteem the serpent which has indirectly, at least, reference to the male principle. Perhaps, however, we may find an explanation in Mr. Fergusson’s own remarks as to the character and development of Buddhism. According to him, Buddhism was chiefly influential among Naga tribes, and“was little more than a revival of the coarser superstitions of the aboriginal races,186purified and refined by the application of Aryan morality, and elevated by doctrines borrowed from the intellectual superiority of the Aryan races.187” As to its development, the sculptures on the Sanchi Tope show that at about the beginning of the Christian era, although thedagoba, thechakraor wheel, thetree, and other emblems, were worshipped, the serpent hardly appears; while at Amravati, three centuries later, this animal had become equal to Buddha himself.188Moreover, there can be no doubt that thelingamwas an emblem of Buddha, as was also thelotus, which represents the same idea—the conjunction of the male and female elements, although in a higher sense perfect wisdom.189The association of the same ideas is seen in the noted prayerOm mani padmi hum(“Oh, the Jewel in the Lotus”), which refers to the birth of Padmipani from the sacred lotus flower,190but also, there can be little doubt, to the phallus and the yoni. We may suppose, therefore, that whatever the moral doctrine taught by Gautama, he used the old Phallic symbols, although it may be with a peculiar application. If the opinion expressed by Mr. Fergusson as to the introduction into India of the Vaishnava faith by an early immigrant race be correct, it must have existed in the time of Gautama, and indeed the Ion-ism of Western Asia is traditionally connected with India itself at a very early date,191although probably the early centre of Ion-ism, the worship of the Dove or Yoni, was, as Bryant supposes, in Chaldea.192We see no trace, however, in Buddhism proper ofSacti Puja, and I would suggest that, instead of abolishing either, Gautama substituted for the separate symbols of the linga and the yoni, the association of the two in thelingam. If this were so, we can well understand how, on the fall of Buddhism, Siva-worship193may have retained this compound symbol, with many of the old Naga ideas, although with little actual reference to the serpent itself, other than as a symbol of life and power; while, on the other hand, the Vaishnavas may have reverted to the primitive worship of the female principle, retaining a remembrance of the early serpent associations in the use of theSesha, the heavenly naga with seven heads194figured on the Amravati sculptures. It is possible, however, that there may be another ground of opposition between the followers of Vishnu and Siva. Mr. Fergusson points out that, notwithstanding the peculiarly Phallic symbolism of the latter deity, “the worship of Siva is too severe, too stern for the softer emotions of love, and all his temples are quite free from any allusion to it.” Itis far different with the Vaishnavas, whose temples “are full of sexual feelings generally expressed in the grossest terms.”195Siva, in fact, is specially a god of intellect, typified by his being three-eyed, and although terrible as the resistless destroyer, yet the recreator of all things in perfect wisdom;196while Vishnu has relation rather to the lower type of wisdom which was distinctive of the Assyrians, among ancient peoples, and which has so curious a connection with the female principle. Hence theshellorconchis peculiar to Vishnu, while thelingabelongs to Siva.197Gautama combined the simpler feminine phase of religion with the more masculine intellectual type, symbolising this union by the lingam and other analogous emblems. The followers of Siva have, however, adopted the combined symbol in the place of the linga alone, thus approaching more nearly than the Vaishnavas to the idea of the founder of modern Buddhism. Gautama himself, nevertheless, was most probably only the restorer of an older faith, according to which perfect wisdom was to be found only in the typical combination of the male and female principles in nature. The real explanation of the connection between Buddhism and Siva-ism has perhaps, however, yet tobe given198. The worship of the serpent-god is not unknown, even at the present day, in the very stronghold of Siva-ism,199reminding us of the early spread of Buddhism among Naga tribes. In the “crescent surmounted by a pinnacle similar to the pointed end of a spear,” which decorates the roofs of the Tibetan monasteries,200we undoubtedly have a reproduction of the so-called trident of Siva. This instrument is given also toSani, the Hindu Saturn, who is represented as encompassed by two serpents,201and hence the pillar symbol of this primeval deity we may well suppose to be reproduced in the linga of the Indian Phallic god.202But the pillar symbol is not wanting to Buddhism itself. The columns said to have been raised by Asoka have a reference to the pillars of Seth. The remains of an ancient pillar supposed to be a BuddhistLatis still to be seen at Benares,203the wordLatbeing merely another form of the nameTet,Set, orSat, given to the Phœnician Semitic or deity. In the central pillar of the so-called Druidical circles we have doubtless a reference to the same primitive superstition, the idea intended to be represented being the combination of the male and female principles.204
In conclusion, it must be said that Christianity itself is certainly not without the Phallic element. Reference may be made to the important place taken in Christian dogma by the “fall,” which has been shown to have had a purely Phallic foundation, and to the peculiar position assigned to Mary, as the Virgin Mother of God.205It must not be forgotten, however, that, whatever may have been the primitive idea on which these dogmas are based, it had received a totally fresh aspect at the hands of those from whom the founders of Christianity received it.206As to symbols, too, these were employed by the Christians in the later signification given to them by the followers of the ancient faiths. Thus the fish and the cross symbols originally embodied the idea ofgeneration, but afterwards that oflife, and it was in this sense that they were applied to Christ.207The most evidently Phallic representation used by the Christian Iconographers is undoubtedly theaureole, orvesica piscis, which is elliptical in form and contained the figure of Christ—Mary herself, however, being sometimes represented in the aureole, glorified as Jesus Christ.208Probablythenimbusalso is of Phallic significance, for, although generally circular, it was sometimes triangular, square, &c.209The name of Jehovah is inscribed within a radiating triangle.210Didron gives an illustration of St. John the Evangelist with a circular nimbus, surmounted by two sun-flowers, emblems of the sun, an idea which, says Didron, “reminds us of the Egyptian figures, from the heads of which two lotus-flowers rise in a similar manner.”211There is also a curious representation in the same work of theDivine handwith the thumb and two forefingers outstretched, resting on a cruciform nimbus.212In Egypt the hand having the fingers thus placed was a symbol of Isis, and, from its accompaniments, there can be no doubt, notwithstanding the mesmeric character ascribed to it by Ennemoser,213that it had an essentially Phallic origin, although it may ultimately have been used to signify life. There can be no question, however, that, whatever may be thought as to the nature of its symbols,214the basis of Christianity is more emotional than that of any other religion now existing. Reference has been made to the presence in Hebraic theology of an idea of God—that of a Father—antagonistic to the Phœnician notion of the “Lord of Heaven.” We have the same idea repeated inChrist’s teaching, its distinctive characteristic being the recognition of God as the Universal Father—the Great Parent of mankind, who had sent His son into the world that he might reconcile it unto Himself. It is in the character of a forgiving parent that Christians are taught to view God, when He is not lost sight of in the presence of Christ, of whom the church is declared to be the bride. In Christianity we see the final expression of the primitive worship of the father as the head of the family—the generator—as the result of an instinctive reasoning process leading up from the particular to the universal—with which, however, the dogma of the “fall” and its consequences—deduced so strangely from a Phallic legend—have been incorporated.215As a religion of the emotions, the position of Christianity is perfectly unassailable. As a system of rational faith, however, it is otherwise; and the tendency of the present age is just the reverse of that which took place among the Hebrews—the substitution of a Heavenly King for a Divine Father. In fact, modern science is doing its best to effect for primitive fetishism, or demon-worship, what Christianity has done for Phallic-worship—generalise the powers of nature and make of God a Great Unknowable Being, who, like the Elohim, of the Mosaic Cosmogony, in some mysterious manner, causesall things to appear at a word. This cannot, however, be the real religion of the future. If God is to be worshipped at all, the Heavenly King and the Divine Father must be combined as a single term, and He must be viewed, not as the unknowable cause of being, but as the great source of all being, who may be known in nature—the expression of his life and energy, and in man who was “created” in his own image.
Note.—M. François Lenormant, in the seventh edition of his “Histoire ancienne de l’Orient” (T. i., p. 91), after considering the traditions of a great deluge preserved by various peoples, concludes that “the biblical deluge, far from being a myth, has been a real and historical fact, which has struck the ancestors of at least the Aryan or Indo-European, the Semitic or Syro-Arab, and the Hamitic or Kouschite races—that is, the three great civilised races of the ancient world, before the ancestors of these races were separated, and in the Asiatic country which they inhabited together.” The authority of M. Lenormant is great, but preference must be given on this point to the arguments of M. Dupuis, who, in his “Origine de tous des Cultes” (T. iii., p. 176,et seq.), has almost certainly proved the astronomical character of what he terms the “fiction sacerdotale,” which, however, may have originated with the common ancestors of the three races referred to by M. Lenormant.