Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

Now the Carthaginians had a God, YUBAL, Jubal. The name given him by Polybius (vii. 9. § 2, 3.) in the treaty between the Carthaginians and Philip of Macedon is Iolaus, who is mentioned in the Greek myth as Heros, together with Hercules. Esculapius is said to be "the fairest of the Gods," and so we read in a Phoenician. inscription, Ju-Baal73, i. e. beauty of Baal, which Movers ingeniously interprets Esculapius-Asmun-Jubal.74 There are also in Greek mythology manifest traces of the kosmical meaning of Iolaus-Jubal; at the festival of the resurrection (yepois) of Hercules, it is Iolaus who awakens him and heals his thigh.

Here, then, is another old Semitic name attached to a descendant of Lamekh, together with Adah, Zillah, and Naamah.

Now, according to Iamblichus and the Hermetic Books, the Egyptian name of Esculapius (in the correct reading) was Kameph.75

I have no doubt whatever that this is a transcript of the mysterious epithet of the Phallic God, "the husband of his mother," Kha-mu(t)f.

We now proceed to the Seven Kabiri genealogies.

[blocks in formation]

The Seven Sons

(I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII.),

the youngest of whom was snatched

young and numbered among the Gods.

away

when very

The Seven Primeval Forces of the visible Creation were perhaps identified afterwards with the Seven (six) Pleiades, but this is not the original myth.76

[blocks in formation]

76 The latter is Movers' explanation (i. 530.).

[blocks in formation]

75 Movers, p. 528.

III. THE RACE OF KRONOS AND BAALTIS (DIONE).

[blocks in formation]

Seven Daughters.

(I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII.)

Again the same idea prevails as in I., and essentially the same as in II. Here the astral system is totally at fault. Even Movers does not attempt to identify the Seven Sons with the constellation of the Great Bear. Nor has any one of these three genealogies anything to do with a representation of the seven planets and the kosmic spirit which forms their unity. The latter, however, may be symbolical of the septenarian number. The reason why the early Chaldeans laid great stress upon this number seven was the change of the moon every seven days, that is, the week; but this again is symbolical of the solar system, for "the Eighth" must be explained.

In the first of the above genealogies, we find the Powerful, the Giantess (Anoqah) associated with the Demiurg (El), and with her he creates the world. In the second genealogy, Dione-Baaltis, Venus Genetrix or Domina, the mother of Aphrodite, is the wife of the Demiurg. So in the myth of Kadmos, which has especial reference to Phoenicia, Harmonia is the wife of Kadmon, the Original or Highest.

VI.

THE CHILDREN OF KRONOS IN PEREA (MESOPOTAMIA).

(§ 17.)

THE designation "according to the Peræans" is very noteworthy. By the Peræans (the dwellers on the other side) a Phoenician could only understand those who lived on the other side the Euphrates: beyond the Jordan would convey no meaning to him. I have, in the

edition of Philo, proved that this is the original sense of Peræa. This genealogy of Bel being at variance with what follows, as the text stands, it must, even on that account, signify the Mesopotamian children of Bel. The following is the genealogy of that race:

[blocks in formation]

77 Movers has shown that these different gradations in the ideas entertained about Kronos-first as father of the Gods, then as the highest manifested God (Zeus), and lastly as Dionysos, really existed among the Semites. In respect to Apollon, however, he has not discovered anything exactly in point. There is a clue to it in a passage of Iamblichus in Julian (Orat. iv. in Solem, p. 150. l. 15.) about Apollo of Edessa, who is called Monimos, and who can hardly be any other than the above-mentioned Môymin, explained as the FirstBorn, Manifester. The name Monimus harmonizes with this perfectly (, the prototype, the ideal of the people, i. e. of the children of men, as the Hebrew , species, is a very appropriate form, as derived from ). In the above passage, therefore, there is merely the addition of an N: Mon-ymin. Not only is the general nature of the Kronida suitable to such a kosmical God, but also the singular representations of the Deity at Edessa, as given by the author of the treatise ascribed to Lucian, De Deâ Syriâ (§§ 36, 37.) (Comp. Macrob. Saturn. i. 17.): "With a pointed beard, a golden calathus on his head, a coat of mail, offering a flower, with the flowing Gorgon mantle, trimmed with serpents and embroidered with eagles; three women standing before him, the two outer of whom have a dragon twining around them. When he is about to deliver an oracle, he sets himself in motion, raises himself up to half his height, and then the priests lift him up the whole height. They then place him on their shoulders and jump about with him in a circle, he springing from one to the other." This jugglery was probably carried on by means of magnets. (Movers, pp. 655-657.)

Typhon is Zephon (ji), Tuqús, "the storm-wind:" the original meaning of Zephon is "north wind.'

[blocks in formation]

But the text places Pontus and Typhon before Nereus the father of Pontus. After that Nereus and Pontus overflow, inasmuch as the sea is introduced in three generations, whereas only two are represented: the primitive Sea of the unorganized World, and Poseidon, the God of the organized World. In Hesiod, Pontos is the father of Nereus: the Septuagint translates the tehom (abyssus) in Genesis by Pontos.

The account given in the following Kronos-mythology (cap. v. § 5.), proves that the whole of this system. belongs to Berytus. There can, therefore, be no question as to the tradition having any connexion with Aram. If it were attempted to make the two traditions harmonize, they would take something like the following shape:

[blocks in formation]

Here we have the natural sea, Heb. yam, which in Phoenician must have been vam or uam, the first letter being V instead of Yod: the Egyptian iuma would indicate uma as the original form.

[blocks in formation]

But who is the Phoenician Poseidon whose image and Greek name we find on Tyrian coins? Perhaps Dagon, the God of Askalon, who is represented as terminating in a fish. He was called Dagon, which we must not confound with Dagan, the God of the Wheat-field. In that case his sister Sidon would be a Phoenician Siren.78 Bochart already was on the right track as to the etymology. . Sada' means in Arabic to sing a song. The obscure Hebrew word siddah probably does not mean song, but rival either interpretation will do to justify

Philo's Siren.79 Thus the Siren is here connected with the calming Sea - God; as in the other, the raging North Wind is with the wild primeval sea.

The distinction between Pontos and Poseidon is, that one is the material sea, the waves; the other the God of the Sea, the ruler of it: again, therefore, Matter and Power; Consciousness but emanating from a process of physical development.

78 There is no Greek etymology for Zephy: the Hebrew root, sir, song, is sur in Sanskrit.

79 Siddah is a äñaş deyóμevov, Eccles. ii. 8. See Gesen. Thes.

« FöregåendeFortsätt »