Moon Lore Part 4

Our collection of lunar legends is now on exhibition. No thoughtful person will be likely to dispute the dictum of Sir John Lubbock that "traditions and myths are of great importance, and indirectly throw much light on the condition of man in ancient times." [102] But they serve far more purposes than this. They are the raw material, out of which many of our goodly garments of modern science and religion are made up. The illiterate negroes on the cotton plantation, and the rude hunters in the jungle or seal fishery, produce the staple, or procure the skins, which after long labour afford comfort and adornment to proud philosophers and peers. The golden cross on the saintly bosom and the glittering crown on the sovereign brow were embedded as rough ore in primeval rocks ages before their wearers were born to boast of them. We shall esteem our treasures none the less because their origin is known, as we love "the Best of men"

none the less because he was born of a woman. We closed our series of moon myths with a vision of a beautiful country, ornamented with groves of fruitful trees, whose seeds had been carried thither by white-winged doves; and carried thither because "some accident"

had destroyed the trees in their native isles on earth. Thus the lunar world had become a desirable scene of superior and surpa.s.sing loveliness. Who can reflect upon this dream of human childhood, and not recall some dreams of later years? Who can fail to discern slight touches of the same hand which we see displayed in other designs? "Happily for historic truth," says Mr. Tylor, "mythic tradition tells its tales without expurgating the episodes which betray its real character to more critical observation." [103] Who is not led on from Tahiti to Greece, and to the Isles of the Blessed, the Elysium which abounds in every charm of life, and to the garden of the Hesperides, with its apples of gold; thence to the Meru of the Hindoos, the sacred mountain which is perpetually clothed in the rays of the sun, and adorned with every variety of plants and trees; thence again to the Heden of the Persians, of matchless beauty, where ever flourishes the tree Hom with its wonderful fruit; on to the Chinese garden, near the gate of heaven, whose n.o.blest spring is the fountain of life, and whose delightful trees bear fruits which preserve and prolong the existence of man? [104] Thence an easy entrance is gained to the Hebrew Paradise, with its abounding trees "pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden"; and finally arises a sight of the "better land" of the Christian poetess, the incorruptible and undefiled inheritance of the Christian preacher, the prospect which is "ever vernal and blooming,--and, best of all, amid those trees of life there lurks no serpent to destroy,--the country, through whose vast region we shall traverse with untired footsteps, while every fresh revelation of beauty will augment our knowledge, and holiness, and joy." [105]

Who will travel on such a pilgrimage of enlarged thought, and not come to the conclusion that if one course of development has been followed by all scientific and spiritual truth, then "almost the whole of the mythology and theology of civilized nations maybe traced, without arrangement or co-ordination, and in forms that are undeveloped and original rather than degenerate, in the traditions and ideas of savages"? [106] Such a conclusion may diminish our self-esteem, if we have supposed ourselves the sole depositaries of Divine knowledge; but it will exalt our conception of the generosity of the Father of all men, who never left a human soul without a witness of His invisible presence and ineffable love.

MOON WORs.h.i.+P.

I. INTRODUCTION.

We have now to show that the moon has been in every age, and remains still, one of the princ.i.p.al objects of human wors.h.i.+p. Even among certain nations credited with pure monotheism, it will be manifested that there was the practice of that primitive polytheism which adored the hosts of heaven. And, however humiliating or disappointing the disclosure may prove, it will be established that some of the foremost Christian peoples of the world maintain luniolatry to this day, notwithstanding that they have the reproving light of the latest civilization. We are so p.r.o.ne to talk of heathenism as abroad, that we forget or neglect the gross heathenism which abounds at home; and while we complacently speak of the march of the world's progress with which we identify ourselves, we are oblivious of the fact that much ancient falsehood survives and blends with the truth in which our superior minds, or minds with superior facilities, have been trained. How few of us reflect that the signs and symbols of rejected theories have pa.s.sed into the nomenclature of received systems! Nay, we plume ourselves upon the new translation or revision as if we were the favoured recipients of some fresh revelation. Not only in the names of our days and months, but also in some of our most cherished dogmas, we are but the "liberal-conservatives" in religion, who retain the old, while we congratulate ourselves upon being the apostles of the new. That the past must always run into the present, and the present proceed from the past, we readily enough allow as a natural and necessary law; yet baptized heathenism is often heathenism still, under another name. Again, we are sometimes so short-sighted that we deny to former periods the paternity of their own more fortunate offspring, and behave like prosperous children who ungratefully ignore their poorer parents, to whom they owe their breath and being. Such treatment of history is to be emphatically deprecated, whether it arises from ignorance or ingrat.i.tude. We ought to know, if we do not, and we ought also to acknowledge, that our perfect day grew out of primeval darkness, and that the progress was a lingering dawn. This we hold to be the clearest view of the Divine causation.

Our modern method in philosophy, largely owing to the _Novum Organum_ of Bacon, is evolution, the _novum organum_ of the nineteenth century; and this process recognises no abrupt or interruptive creations, but gradual transformations from pre-existent types, "variations under domestication," and the pa.s.sing away of the old by its absorption into the new. Our religion, like our language, is a garden not only for indigenous vegetation, but also for acclimatisation, in which we improve under cultivation exotic plants whose roots are drawn from every soil on the earth. And, as Paul preached in Athens the G.o.d whom the Greeks wors.h.i.+pped in ignorance, so our missionaries carry back to less enlightened peoples the fruit of that life-giving tree whose germs exist among themselves, undeveloped and often unknown. No religion has fallen from heaven, like the fabled image of Athene, in full-grown beauty.

All spiritual life is primordially an inspiration or intuition from the Father of spirits, whose offspring all men are, and who is not far from every one of them. This intuition prompts men to "seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him." Thus prayer becomes an instinct; and to wors.h.i.+p is as natural as to breathe. But man is a being with five senses, and as his contact with his fellow-creatures and with the whole creation is at one or other of those five points, he is necessarily sensuous. Endowed with native intelligence, the _intellectus ipse_ of Leibnitz, he nevertheless receives his impressions on _sensitive_ nerves, his emotions are _sentiments_, his words become _sentences_, and his stock of wisdom is his common _sense_. A few, very few, words express his sensations, a few more his perceptions, and so on; but he is conscious of _objects_ at first, he deals with _subjects_ afterwards.

Soon the sun, moon, and stars, as bright lights attract his eyes, as we have all seen an infant of a few days fix its gaze upon a candle or lamp. These heavenly orbs are found to be in motion, to be far away, to be the glory of day and night: what wonder if _ideas_ of these _images_ are formed in the religious mind, if the wors.h.i.+pper imagines the sun and moon to be reflections of the G.o.d of light, and pays homage to the creature which renders the Creator visible? Thus in the childhood of man religion grows, and with the multiplication of intellect and sensation, endless diversity of language, conception and faith is the result. Another result, of course, is the endless diversity of deities. Every race, every nation, every tribe, every household, every heart, has had its own G.o.d. And yet, with all this multiplicity in religious literature and dogma, subject and object, a unity co-exists which the student of the science notes with profound interest. All nations of men are of one blood; and all forms of G.o.d embody the one Eternal Spirit. To this unity mythology tends. As one writer says: "We must ever bear in mind that the course of mythology is from many G.o.ds toward one, that it is a synthesis, not an a.n.a.lysis, and that in this process the tendency is to blend in one the traits and stories of originally separate divinities."

[107] The ancient Hebrew wors.h.i.+pped G.o.d as "the Eternal, our righteousness"; the Greek wors.h.i.+pped Him as wisdom and beauty; the Roman as power and government; the Persian as light and goodness; and so forth. Few hymns have surpa.s.sed the beauty of Pope's _Universal Prayer_. It is the _Te Deum laudamus_ of that catholic Church which embraces G.o.d-loved humanity.

"Father of all! in every age, In every clime, adored, By saint, by savage, and by sage, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!"

The Christian, believing his to be the "One Religion," as a recent Bampton Lecturer termed it, too often forgets that his system is a recomposition of rays of a religious light which was decomposed in the prismatic minds of earlier men. And further, with a change of metaphor, if Christianity has flourished and fructified through eighteen centuries, it must not be denied that it is a graft upon an old stock which through fifteen previous centuries had borne abundant fruit. The same course must be adopted still. We find men everywhere holding some truth; we add further truth; until, as a chemist would say, we saturate the solution, which upon evaporation produces a crystallized life of entirely new colour and quality and form. Thus Professor Nilsson writes: "Every religious _change_ in a people is, in fact, only an intermixture of religions; because the new religion, whether received by means of convincing arguments, or enforced by the eloquence of fire and sword, cannot _at once_ tear up all the wide-spreading roots by which its forerunner has grown in the heart of the people; this must be the work of many years, perhaps of many generations." [108] We cannot better close this lengthy introduction than by reminding Christians of the saying of their Great and Good Teacher, "I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil."

II. THE MOON MOSTLY A MALE DEITY.

We have already in part pointed out that the moon has been considered as of the masculine gender; and have therefore but to travel a little farther afield to show that in the Aryan of India, in Egyptian, Arabian, Slavonian, Latin, Lithuanian, Gothic, Teutonic, Swedish, Anglo-Saxon, and South American, the moon is a male G.o.d. To do this, in addition to former quotations, it will be sufficient to adduce a few authorities. "Moon," says Max Muller, "is a very old word. It was _mona_ in Anglo-Saxon, and was used there, not as a feminine, but as a masculine for the moon was originally a masculine, and the sun a feminine, in all Teutonic languages; and it is only through the influence of cla.s.sical models that in English moon has been changed into a feminine, and sun into a masculine. It was a most unlucky a.s.sertion which Mr. Harris made in his _Hermes_, that all nations ascribe to the sun a masculine, and to the moon a feminine gender." [109] Grimm says, "Down to recent times, our people were fond of calling the sun and moon _frau sonne_ and _herr mond_." [110] Sir Gardner Wilkinson writes: "Another reason that the moon in the Egyptian mythology could not be related to Bubastis is, that it was a male and not a female deity, personified in the G.o.d Thoth. This was also the case in some religions of the West. The Romans recognised the G.o.d Lunus; and the Germans, like the Arabs, to this day, consider the moon masculine, and not feminine, as were the Selene and Luna of the Greeks and Latins." [111] Again, "The Egyptians represented their moon as a male deity, like the German _mond_ and _monat_, or the _Lunus_ of the Latins; and it is worthy of remark, that the same custom of calling it male is retained in the East to the present day, while the sun is considered female, as in the language of the Germans." [112] "In Slavonic," Sir George c.o.x tells us, "as in the Teutonic mythology, the moon is male. His wedding with the sun brings on him the wrath of Perkunas [the thunder-G.o.d], as the song tells us

'The moon wedded the sun In the first spring.

The sun rose early The moon departed from her.

The moon wandered alone; Courted the morning star.

Perkunas, greatly wroth, Cleft him with a sword.

'Wherefore dost thou depart from the sun, Wandering by night alone, Courting the morning star?'" [113]

"In a Servian song a girl cries to the sun--

'O brilliant sun! I am fairer than thou Than thy brother, the bright moon.'"

In South Slavonian poetry the sun often figures as a radiant youth.

But among the northern Slavonians, as well as the Lithuanians, the sun was regarded as a female being, the bride of the moon. 'Thou askest me of what race, of what family I am,' says the fair maiden of a song preserved in the Tambof Government--

'My mother is--the beauteous Sun, And my father--the bright Moon.'" [114]

"Among the Mbocobis of South America the moon is a man and the sun his wife." [115] The Ahts of North America take the same view; and we know that in Sanskrit and in Hebrew the word for moon is masculine.

This may seem to many a matter of no importance; but if mythology throws much light upon ancient history and religion, its importance may be considerable, especially as it lies at the root of that s.e.xuality which has been the most prolific parent of both good and evil in human life. The s.e.xual relation has existed from the very birth of animated nature; and it is remarkable that a man of learning and piety in Germany has made the strange if not absurd statement that in the beginning "Adam was externally s.e.xless." [116] Another idea, more excusable, but equally preposterous, is, that grammatical gender has been the cause of the male and female personation of deities, when really it has been the result. The cause, no doubt, was inherent in man's const.i.tution; and was the inevitable effect of thought and expression. The same necessity of natural language which led the Hebrew prophets to speak of their land as married, of their nation as a wife in prosperity and a widow in calamity, of their Maker as their husband, who rejoices over them as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride: [117] this same necessity, becoming a habit like that of our own country folks in Hamps.h.i.+re, of whom Cobbett speaks, who call almost everything _he_ or _she_; led the sensuous and imaginative ancients, as it leads simple and poetical peoples still, to call the moon a man and to wors.h.i.+p him as a G.o.d. Objects of fear and reverence would be usually masculines; and objects of love and desire feminines. We may thus find light thrown upon the honours paid to such G.o.ddesses as Astarte and Aphrodite: which will also help us to understand the deification by a celibate priesthood of the Virgin Mary. We may, moreover, account partly for the fact that to the sailor his s.h.i.+p is always she; to the swain the flowers which resemble his idol, as the lily and the rose, are always feminine, and used as female names; while to the patriot the mother country is nearly always of the tender s.e.x. [118] Prof. Max Muller thinks that the distinction between males and females began, "not with the introduction of masculine nouns, but with the introduction of feminines, _i.e._ with the setting apart of certain derivative suffixes for females. By this all other words became masculine."

[119] Thus the s.e.xual emotions of men created that grammatical gender which has contributed so powerfully to our later mythology, and has therefore been mistaken for the author of our male and female personations. What beside s.e.xuality suggested the thought of the Chevalier Marini? "He introduces the G.o.d _Pan_, who boasts that the spots which are seen in the moon are impressions of the kisses he gave it." [120] That grammar is very much younger than s.e.xual relations is proven by the curious fact mentioned by Max Muller that _pater_ is not a masculine, nor _mater_ a feminine.

Gender, we must not forget, is from _genus_, a kind or cla.s.s; and that the cla.s.sification in various languages has been arranged on no fixed plan. We in our modern English, with much still to do, have improved in this respect, since, in Anglo-Saxon, _wif_ = wife, was neuter, and _wif-mann_ = woman, was masculine. In German still _die frau_, the woman, is feminine; but _das weib_, the wife, is neuter. [121] Dr. Farrar finds the root of gender in the imagination: which we admit if a.s.sociated with s.e.x. Otherwise, we cannot understand how an _unfelt_ distinction of this sort could be mentally _seen_. But Dr. Farrar means more than imagination, for he says, "from this source is derived the whole system of genders for inanimate things, which was perhaps inevitable at that early childish stage of the human intelligence, when the actively working soul attributed to everything around it some portion of its own life.

Hence, well-nigh everything is spoken of as masculine or feminine."

[122] We are surprised that Dr. Farrar seems to think German an exception, in making a masculine noun of the moon. He has failed to apply to this point his usual learned and laborious investigation.

[123]

Diogenes Laertius describes the theology of the Jews as an offshoot from that of the Chaldees, and says that the former affirm of the latter "that they condemn images, and especially those persons who say that the G.o.ds are male and female." [124] Which condemnation implies the prevalence of this s.e.xual distinction between their deities.

In concluding this chapter we think that it will be granted that gender in the personification of inanimate objects was the result of s.e.x in the animate subject: that primitive men saw the moon as a most conspicuous object, whose spots at periods had the semblance of a man's face, whose waxing and waning increased their wonder: whose coming and going amid the still and solemn night added to the mystery: until from being viewed as a man, it was feared, especially when apparently angry in a mist or an eclipse, and so reverenced and wors.h.i.+pped as the heaven-man, the monthly G.o.d.

III. THE MOON A WORLD-WIDE DEITY.

Anthropomorphism, or the representation of outward objects in the _form_ of _man_, wrought largely, as we have seen, in the manufacture of the man in the moon; it entered no less into the composition of the moon-G.o.d. The twenty-first verse of the fiftieth Psalm contains its recognition and rebuke. "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether as thyself"; or, still more literally, "Thou hast thought that being, I shall be like thee." As Dr. Delitzsch says, "Because man in G.o.d's likeness has a bodily form, some have presumed to infer backwards therefrom that G.o.d also has a bodily form like to man, which is related by way of prototype to the human form."

[125] As well might we say that because a watchmaker constructs a chronometer with a movement somewhat like that of his own heart, therefore he is mechanical, metallic, and round. Against this anthropomorphic materialism science lifts up its voice; for what modern philosopher, worthy of the name, fails to distinguish between phenomenon and fact, inert matter and active force? Says a recent writer, "We infer that as our own master of the mint is neither a sovereign nor a half-sovereign, so the force which coins and recoins this ulh, or matter, must be altogether in the G.o.d-part and none of it in the metal or paste in which it works." [126] With the progress of man's intelligence we shall observe improvement in this anthropomorphism, but it will still survive. As Mr. Baring-Gould tells us: "The savage invests G.o.d with bodily attributes; in a more civilized state man withdraws the bodily attributes, but imposes the limitations of his own mental nature; and in his philosophic elevation he recognises in G.o.d intelligence only, though still with anthropomorphic conditions." [127]

Xenophanes said that if horses, oxen, and lions could paint, they would make G.o.ds like themselves. And Ralph Waldo Emerson says: "The G.o.ds of fable are the s.h.i.+ning moments of great men. We run all our vessels into one mould. Our colossal theologies of Judaism, Christism, Buddhism, Mahometism, are the necessary and structural action of the human mind. The student of history is like a man going into a warehouse to buy clothes or carpets. He fancies he has a new article. If he go to the factory, he shall find that his new stuff still repeats the scrolls and rosettes which are found on the interior walls of the pyramids of Thebes. Our theism is the purification of the human mind. Man can paint, or make, or think nothing but man. He believes that the great material elements had their origin from his thought. And our philosophy finds one essence collected or distributed." [128] And a devout author, whose orthodoxy --whatever that may mean--is unquestioned, acknowledges that man adored the unknown power in the sun, and "in the moon, which bathes the night with its serene splendours. Under this latter form, completed by a very simple anthropomorphism which applies to the G.o.ds the law of the s.e.xes, the religions of nature weighed during long ages upon Western Asia." [129] A volume might be written upon this subject; but we have other work in hand.

It seems to be generally admitted that no form of idolatry is older than the wors.h.i.+p of the moon. Lord Kames says, "It is probable that the sun and moon were early held to be deities, and that they were the first visible objects of wors.h.i.+p." [130] Dr. Inman says, "That the sun and moon were at a very early period wors.h.i.+pped, none who has studied antiquity can deny." [131] And Goldziher maintains that "the lunar wors.h.i.+p is older than the solar." [132] Maimonides, "the light of Israel," says that the Zabaists not only wors.h.i.+pped the moon themselves, but they also a.s.serted that Adam led mankind to that species of wors.h.i.+p. No doubt luniolatry is as old as the human race.

In some parts the moon is still the superior G.o.d. Mr. Tylor writes: "Moon wors.h.i.+p, naturally ranking below sun wors.h.i.+p in importance, ranges through nearly the same district of culture. There are remarkable cases in which the moon is recognised as a great deity by tribes who take less account, or none at all, of the sun. An old account of the Caribs describes them as esteeming the moon more than the sun, and at new moon coming out of their houses crying, Behold the moon!" [133] This deity, then, is ancient and modern: also a chief of the G.o.ds: let us now show that he is a G.o.d whose empire is the world.

We begin in Asia, and with the a.s.syrian monuments, which display many religious types and emblems. "Representations of the heavenly bodies, as sacred symbols, are of constant occurrence in the most ancient sculptures. In the bas-reliefs we find figures of the sun, moon, and stars, suspended round the neck of the king when engaged in the performance of religious ceremonies." [134] In Chaldaea "the moon was named Sin and Hur. Hurki, Hur, and Ur was the chief place of his wors.h.i.+p, for the satellite was then considered as being masculine. The name for the moon in Armenian was _Khaldi_, which has been considered by some to be the origin of the word Chaldee, as signifying moon wors.h.i.+ppers." [135] With this Chaldaean deity may be connected "the Akkadian moon G.o.d, who corresponds with the Semitic Sin," and who "is Aku, 'the seated-father,' as chief supporter of kosmic order, styled 'the maker of brightness,' En-zuna, 'the lord of growth,' and Idu, 'the measuring lord,' the Ades of Hesychios." [136]

"With respect to the name of Chaldaean, perhaps the most probable account of the origin of the word is, that it designates properly the inhabitants of the ancient capital, Ur or Hur,--_Kkaldi_ being in the Burbur dialect the exact equivalent of _Hur_, which was the proper name of the moon G.o.d, and Chaldaeans being thus either 'moon wors.h.i.+ppers,' or simply, inhabitants of the town dedicated to, and called after, the moon." [137] Again: "The first G.o.d of the second triad is Sin or Hurki, the moon deity. It is in condescension to Greek notions that Berosus inverts the true Chaldaean order, and places the sun before the moon in his enumeration of the heavenly bodies.

Chaldaean mythology gives a very decided preference to the lesser luminary, perhaps because the nights are more pleasant than the clays in hot countries. With respect to the names of the G.o.d, we may observe that Sin, the a.s.syrian or Semitic term, is a word of quite uncertain etymology, which, however, is found applied to the moon in many Semitic languages." [138] "_Sin_ is used for the moon in Mendaean and Syriac at the present day. It is the name given to the moon G.o.d in St. James of Seruj's list of the idols of Harran; and it was the term used for Monday by the Sabaeans as late as the ninth century." [139] Another author writes: "The Babylonian and a.s.syrian moon G.o.d is Sin, whose name probably appears in Sinai.

The expression, 'from the origin of the G.o.d Sin,' was used by the a.s.syrians to mark remote antiquity; because, as chaos preceded order, so night preceded day, and the enthronement of the moon as the night-king marks the commencement of the annals of kosmic order." [140]

When we search the Hebrew Scriptures, we find too many allusions to the Queen of Heaven, to Astarte and the groves, for us to doubt that the Israelites adored

"--mooned Ashtaroth, Heaven's queen and mother both." (Milton's _Odes_.)

Dr. Goldziher is an incontestable authority, and thus writes: "Queen or Princess of Heaven is a very frequent name for the moon." [141]

Again, "Even in the latest times the Hebrews called the moon the 'Queen of Heaven' (Jer. vii. 18), and paid her Divine honours in this character at the time of the captivity." [142] And, to complete this author's witness, he again says: "What was the antiquity of this lunar wors.h.i.+p among the Hebrews, is testified (as has long been known) by the part played by Mount Sinai in the history of Hebrew religion.

For this geographical name is doubtless related to _Sin_, one of the Semitic names of the moon. The mountain must in ancient times have been consecrated to the moon. The beginning of the Hebrew religion, which was connected with the phenomena of the night-sky, germinated first during the residence in Egypt on the foundation of an ancient myth. The recollection of this occasioned them to call the part of Egypt which they had long inhabited, eres Sinim, 'moonland'

(Isa. xlix. 12)." [143] It is but just that we should hear the other side, when there is a difference of opinion. The above mentioned 'Queen of Heaven' is beyond question the Ashtoreth or Astarte (identical with our _star_), which was the princ.i.p.al G.o.ddess of the Phoenicians; and we believe she was originally the G.o.ddess of the moon. This is doubted by a modern writer, who says, "Baal is constantly coupled with Astarte; and the more philosophical opinion is that this national G.o.d and G.o.ddess were the lord and lady of Phoenicia, rather than the sun and moon: for to a people full of political life the sun and moon would have been themselves representatives, while a Divine king and queen were the realities.

And if so, the habitual inclination of the Israelites, an essentially political people, for this wors.h.i.+p becomes the more easily understood." [144] Professor F. D. Maurice, in his _Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy_, also takes this view. The question here is not whether the Jews wors.h.i.+pped Astarte, but whether Astarte was the moon. This we cannot hesitate to answer in the affirmative.

Kenrick writes: "Ashtoreth or Astarte appears physically to represent the moon. She was the chief local deity of Sidon; but her wors.h.i.+p must have been extensively diffused, not only in Palestine, but in the countries east of the Jordan, as we find Ashtaroth-Karnaim (Ashtaroth of two horns) mentioned in the book of Genesis (xiv. 5). This G.o.ddess, like other lunar deities, appears to have been symbolized by a heifer, or a figure with a heifer's head, whose horns resembled the crescent moon. The children of Israel renounced her wors.h.i.+p at the persuasion of Samuel; and we do not read again of her idolatry till the reign of Solomon (1 Kings xi. 5), after which it appears never to have been permanently banished, though put down for a time by Josiah (2 Kings xxiii. 13). She is the Queen of Heaven, to whom, according to the reproaches of Jeremiah (vii. 18, xliv. 25), the women of Israel poured out their drink-offerings, and burnt incense, and offered cakes, regarding her as the author of their national prosperity. This epithet accords well with the supposition that she represented the moon, as some ancient authors inform us."

[145] Dr. Gotch, an eminent Hebrew scholar, says that there is no doubt that the moon is the symbol of productive power and must be identified with Astarte. "That this G.o.ddess was so typified can scarcely be doubted. The ancient name of the city, Ashtaroth-Karnaim, already referred to, seems to indicate a horned Astarte, that is an image with a crescent moon on her head like the Egyptian Athor. At any rate, it is certain that she was by some ancient writers identified with the moon, as Lucian and Herodian. On these grounds Movers, Winer, Keil, and others maintain that originally Ashtoreth was the moon G.o.ddess." [146] Clearly, then, the Hebrews wors.h.i.+pped the moon. But, even apart from Astarte, this wors.h.i.+p may be proven on other evidence. Dr. Jamieson says that the word _mena_ (moon: Anglo-Saxon, _mona_) "approaches most nearly to a word used by the prophet Isaiah, which has been understood by the most learned interpreters as denoting the moon. 'Ye are they that prepare a table for _Gad_, and that furnish the offering unto _Meni_.' (Isa. lxv. 11). As _Gad_ is understood of the _sun_, we learn from Diodor Sicul that _Meni_ is to be viewed as a designation of the _moon_." [147] This is Bishop Lowth's view.

"The disquisitions and conjectures of the learned concerning Gad and Meni are infinite and uncertain: perhaps the most probable may be, that Gad means good fortune, and Meni the moon." [148] One point is worthy of notice. In our English version _Meni_ is rendered "number"; and we know very well that by the courses of the moon ancient months and years were numbered. In Isaiah iii. 18 we find the daughters of Zion ornamented with feet-rings, and networks, and _crescents_: or, as our translation reads, "round tires like the moon."

And, once more, in Ezekiel xlvi., we read that the gate of the inner court of the sanctuary that "looketh toward the east, shall be opened on the day of the new moon"; and the meat offering on "the day of the new moon shall be a young bullock without blemish, and six lambs, and a ram." If there was no sacred significance in the observance of these lunar changes, why did the writer of the New Testament Epistle to the Colossians say, "Let no man judge you in respect of the new moon"? A competent scholar, in recognising this consociation of Hebrew religion with the moon's phases, rightly ascribes to it an earlier origin. Says Ewald: "To connect the annual festivals with the full moon, and to commence them in the evening, as though greeting her with a glad shout, was certainly a primitive custom, both among other races and in the circle of nations from which in the earliest times Israel sprang." [149] And the Bishop of Derry remarks: "To a religious Hebrew it was rather the moon than the sun which marked the seasons, as the calendar of the Church was regulated by it." [150] We have sought to place this Hebrew luniolatry beyond dispute, because so many Christians have supposed that "the chosen people" lived in unclouded light, and "the uncovenanted heathen" in outer and utter darkness.

Pa.s.sing on we find that "in Pontus and Phrygia were temples to _Meen_, and Homer says _Meen_ presides over the months, whilst in the Sanskrit _Mina_, we see her connected with the Fish and Virgin. It is not improbable that the great Akaimenian race, as wors.h.i.+pping and upholding sun and moon faiths, were called after _Meni_, the moon." [151] Among the Arabians the moon was the great divinity, as may be learned from Poc.o.c.k's _Specimen Historiae Arab.u.m_; Prideaux's _Connection_; Gibbon's _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_; and Sale's _Preliminary Discourse_ to his translation of the _Koran_. Tiele says: "The ancient religion of the Arabs rises little higher than animistic polydaemonism. The names Itah and Shamsh, the sun G.o.d, occur among all the Semitic peoples; Allat, or Alilat, and Al-Uzza, as well as the triad of moon G.o.ddesses to which these last belong, are common to several, and the deities which bear them are reckoned among the chief." [152]

The Saracens called the moon _Cabar_, the great; and its crescent is the religious symbol of the Turks to this day. Tradition says that "Philip, the father of Alexander, meeting with great difficulties in the siege of Byzantium, set the workmen to undermine the walls, but a crescent moon discovered the design, which miscarried; consequently the Byzantines erected a statue to Diana, and the crescent became the symbol of the state." Dr. Brewer, who cites this story, adds: "Another legend is that Othman, the sultan, saw in a vision a crescent moon, which kept increasing till its horns extended from east to west, and he adopted the crescent of his dream for his standard, adding the motto, _Donec repleat orbem_." [153] Schlegel mentions the story that Mahomet "wished to pa.s.s with his disciples as a person transfigured in a supernatural light, and that the credulity of his followers saw the moon, or the moon's light, descend upon him, pierce his garments, and replenish him. That veneration for the moon which still forms a national or rather religious characteristic of the Mahometans, may perhaps have its foundation in the elder superst.i.tion, or pagan idolatry of the Arabs."

[154] No doubt this last sentence contains the true elucidation of the crescent. For astrolatry lives in the east still. The _Koran_ may expressly forbid the practice, saying: "Bend not in adoration to the sun or moon"; [155] yet, "monotheist as he is, the Moslem still claps his hands at sight of the new moon, and says a prayer." [156]

We come next to the Persians, whom Herodotus accuses of adoring the sun and moon. But, as Gibbon says, "the Persians of every age have denied the charge, and explained the equivocal conduct, which might appear to give colour to it." [157] It will certainly require considerable explanation to free from lunar idolatry the following pa.s.sage, which we find in the _Zend Avesta_: "We sacrifice unto the new moon, the holy and master of holiness: we sacrifice unto the full moon, the holy and master of holiness." [158] Unquestionably the Persian recognised the Lord of Light _in_ the ordinances of heaven; and therefore his was superior to many forms of blind idol-wors.h.i.+p. So far we may accept Hegel's interpretation of the _Zend_ doctrine. "Light is the _body of Ormuzd_; thence the wors.h.i.+p of fire, because Ormuzd is present in all light; but he is not the sun or moon itself In these the Persians venerate only the light, which is Ormuzd." [159] In fact, we owe to the Persians a valuable testimony to the G.o.d in whom is no darkness at all. "The prayer of Ajax was for light"; and we too little feel the Fire which burns and s.h.i.+nes beyond the stars.

In Central India the sun and moon are wors.h.i.+pped by many tribes, as the Khonds, Korkus, Tunguses, and Buraets. The Korkus adore the powers of nature, as the G.o.ds of the tiger, bison, the hill, the cholera, etc., "but these are all secondary to the sun and the moon, which among this branch of the Kolarian stock, as among the Kols in the far east, are the princ.i.p.al objects of adoration." [160a]

"Although the Tongusy in general wors.h.i.+p the sun and moon, there are many exceptions to this observation. I have found intelligent people among them, who believed that there was a being superior to both sun and moon; and who created them and all the world."

[160b] This last sentence we read with grat.i.tude, but not with surprise. There is some good in all, if there seem to be all good in some.

"The aboriginal tribes in the Dekkan of India also acknowledge the presence of the sun and moon by an act of reverence." [161]

The inhabitants of the island of Celebes, in the East Indian Archipelago, "formerly acknowledged no G.o.ds but the sun and the moon, which were held to be eternal. Ambition for superiority made them fall out." [162] According to Milton, ambition created unpleasantness in the Hebrew heaven.