Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions Part 11

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

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

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

Pausanias, an eminent Greek historian, says:

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

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

The learned Dr. Ginsburg, in his "Life of Levita," alludes to the ancient mode of worship offered to the heathen deity Hermes, or Mercury.

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

Now, when we find that _this form of worship was very prevalent among the Israelites_,[47:1] that these sacred stones which were "set up,"

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

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

FOOTNOTES:

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

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

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

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

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

"Transmigration."

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

[43:3] Chambers's Encyclo.

[43:4] Ibid.

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

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

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

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

[44:2] Malachi iv. 5.

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

[44:4] See Bonwick: Egyptian Belief, p. 78.

[44:5] Faber: Orig. Pagan Idol, vol. iii. p. 612; in Anacalypsis, vol.

i. p. 210.

[45:1] Indian Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 202.

[45:2] Contra Celsus, lib. vi. c. xxii.

[45:3] Tylor: Primitive Culture, vol. i. p. 324.

[45:4] Ibid.

[45:5] Indian Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 262.

[45:6] Dupuis: Origin of Religious Beliefs, p. 344.

[45:7] Volney's Ruins, p. 147, _note_.

[45:8] See Child's Prog. Relig. Ideas, vol. i. pp. 160, 162.

[46:1] Genesis xxviii. 12, 13.

[46:2] Genesis xxviii. 18, 19.

[46:3] "Phallic," from "Phallus," a representation of the male generative organs. For further information on this subject, see the works of R. Payne Knight, and Dr. Thomas Inman.

[46:4] Bible for Learners, vol. i. pp. 175, 276. See, also, Knight: Ancient Art and Mythology; and Inman: Ancient Faiths, vol. i. and ii.

[46:5] See Myths of the British Druids, p. 300; and Higgins: Celtic Druids.

[46:6] Quoted by R. Payne Knight: Ancient Art and Mythology, p. 114, _note_.

[46:7] See Ill.u.s.trations in Dr. Inman's Pagan and Christian Symbolism.

[46:8] See Inman: Ancient Faiths, vol. i. pp. 543, 544.

[47:1] Bible for Learners, vol. i. pp. 177, 178, 317, 321, 322.

[47:2] Indian Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 356.

[47:3] Ibid.

[47:4] We read in Bell's "Pantheon of the G.o.ds and Demi-G.o.ds of Antiquity," under the head of BAELYLION, BAELYLIA or BAETYLOS, that they are "_Anointed Stones_, worshiped among the Greeks, Phrygians, and other nations of the East;" that "these Baetylia were greatly venerated by the ancient Heathen, many of their idols being no other;" and that, "in reality no sort of idol was more common in the East, than that of oblong stones _erected_, and hence termed by the Greeks _pillars_." The Rev.

Geo. W. c.o.x, in his Aryan Mythology (vol. ii. p. 113), says: "The erection of these stone columns or pillars, the forms of which in most cases tell their own story, are common throughout the East, some of the most elaborate being found near Ghizni." And Mr. Wake (Phallism in Ancient Religions, p. 60), says: "Kiyun, or Kivan, the name of the deity said by Amos (v. 26), to have been worshiped in the wilderness by the Hebrews, signifies G.o.d OF THE PILLAR."

[47:5] We find that there was nothing gross or immoral in the worship of the male and female generative organs among the ancients, when the subject is properly understood. Being the most intimately connected with the reproduction of life on earth, the _Linga_ became the symbol under which the _Sun_, invoked with a thousand names, has been worshiped throughout the world _as the restorer of the powers of nature_ after the long sleep or death of winter. But if the _Linga_ is the Sun-G.o.d in his majesty, the _Yoni_ is the earth who yields her fruit under his fertilizing warmth.

The _Phallic tree_ is introduced into the narrative of the book of Genesis: but it is here called a tree, not of life, but of the knowledge of good and evil, that knowledge which dawns in the mind with the first consciousness of difference between man and woman. In contrast with this tree of carnal indulgence, tending to death, is the tree of life, denoting the higher existence for which man was designed, and which would bring with it the happiness and the freedom of the children of G.o.d. In the brazen serpent of the Pentateuch, the two emblems of the _cross_ and _serpent_, the quiescent and energising Phallos, are united.