The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism
By
Franz Cumont
SYRIA.
The religions of Syria never had the same solidarity in the Occident as
those from Egypt or Asia Minor. From the coasts of Phoenicia and the
valleys of Lebanon, from the borders of the Euphrates and the oases of
the desert, they came at various periods, like the successive waves of the
incoming tide, and existed side by side in the Roman world without
uniting, in spite of their similarities. The isolation in which they remained and
the persistent adherence of their believers to their particular rites
were a consequence and reflection of the disunited condition of Syria
herself, where the different tribes and districts remained more distinct than
anywhere else, even after they had been brought together under the
domination of Rome. They doggedly preserved their local gods and Semitic
dialects.
It would be impossible to outline each one of these religions in detail
at this time and to reconstruct their history, because our meager
Information would not permit it, but we can indicate, in a general way, how they
penetrated into the Occidental countries at various periods, and we can
try to define their common characteristics by showing what new elements the
Syrian paganism brought to the Romans. The first Semitic divinity to enter Italy was {104} _Atargatis_, frequently mistaken for the Phoenician Astarte, who had a famous temple at Bambyce or Hierapolis, not far from the Euphrates, and was worshiped with her
husband, Hadad, in a considerable part of Syria besides. The Greeks considered
her as the principal Syrian goddess ([Greek: Suria thea]), and in the Latin countries she was commonly known as _dea Syria_, a name corrupted into _Iasura_ by popular use.
We all remember the unedifying descriptions of her itinerant priests that Lucian and Apuleius[1] have left. Led by an old eunuch of dubious habits, a crowd of painted young men marched along the highways with an ass that bore an elaborately adorned image of the goddess. Whenever they passed through a village or by some rich villa, they went through their sacred exercises. To
the shrill accompaniment of their Syrian flutes they turned round and round, and with their heads thrown back fluttered about and gave vent to hoarse clamors until vertigo seized them and insensibility was complete.
Then they flagellated themselves wildly, struck themselves with swords and shed their blood in front of a rustic crowd which pressed closely about them, and finally they took up a profitable collection from the wondering spectators. They received jars of milk and wine, cheeses, flour, bronze coins of small denominations and even some silver pieces, all of which disappeared in the folds of their capacious robes. If opportunity presented they knew how to increase their profits by means of clever thefts or by making commonplace predictions for a moderate consideration.
This picturesque description, based on a novel by {105} Lucius of Patras, is undoubtedly extreme. It is difficult to believe that the sacerdotal corps of the goddess of Hierapolis should have consisted only of charlatans and thieves. But how can the presence in the Occident of that begging and low nomadic clergy be explained? It is certain that the first worshipers of the Syrian goddess in the Latin world were slaves. During the wars against Antiochus the Great a number
Of prisoners were sent to Italy to be sold at public auction, as was the custom, and the first appearance in Italy of the _Chaldaei_[2] has been connected with that event. The _Chaldaei_ were Oriental fortune-tellers who asserted that their predictions were based on the Chaldean astrology. They found credulous clients among the farm laborers, and Cato gravely exhorts
the good landlord to oust them from his estate.[3] Beginning with the second century before Christ, merchants began to import Syrian slaves. At that time Delos was the great trade center in this human commodity, and in that island especially Atargatis was worshiped by citizens of Athens and Rome.[4] Trade spread her worship in the Occident.[5] We know that the great slave revolution that devastated Sicily in 134 B. C. was started by a slave from Apamea, a votary of the Syrian goddess. Simulating divine madness, he called his companions to arms, pretending to act in accordance with orders from heaven.[6] This detail, which we know by chance, shows how considerable a proportion of Semites there was in the gangs working the fields, and how much authority Atargatis enjoyed in the rural centers. Being too poor to build temples for their
national goddess, those agricultural laborers {106} waited with their devotions until a band of itinerant _galli_ passed through the distant hamlet where the lot of the auction had sent them. The existence of those wandering priests depended, therefore, on the number of fellow countrymen they met in the rural dstricts, who supported them by sacrificing a part of their poor savings.
Towards the end of the republic those diviners appear to have enjoyed rather serious consideration at Rome. It was a pythoness from Syria that advised Marius on the sacrifices he was to perform.[7] Under the empire the importation of slaves increased. Depopulated Italy
needed more and more foreign hands, and Syria furnished a large quota of the forced immigration of cultivators. But those Syrians, quick and intelligent as they were strong and industrious, performed many other functions. They filled the countless domestic positions in the palaces of the aristocracy and were especially appreciated as litter-bearers.[8] The imperial and municipal administrations, as well as the big contractors to whom customs and the mines were farmed out, hired or bought them in large numbers, and even in the remotest border provinces the _Syrus_ was found serving princes, cities or private individuals. The worship of the Syrian
goddess profited considerably by the economic current that continually brought new worshipers. We find her mentioned in the first century of our era in a Roman inscription referring in precise terms to the slave market, and we know that Nero took a devout fancy to the stranger that did not,
however, last very long.[9] In the popular Trastevere quarter she had a temple until the end of paganism.[10] {107}
During the imperial period, however, the slaves were no longer the only missionaries that came from Syria, and Atargatis was no longer the only divinity from that country to be worshiped in the Occident. The propagation of the Semitic worship progressed for the most part in a different
Manner under the empire. At the beginning of our era the Syrian merchants, _Syri negotiatores_,
undertook a veritable colonization of the Latin provinces.[11] During the second century before Christ the traders of that nation had established settlements along the coast of Asia Minor, on the Piraeus, and in the Archipelago. At Delos, a small island but a large commercial center, they
maintained several associations that worshiped their national gods, in particular Hadad and Atargatis. But the wars that shook the Orient at the end of the republic, and above all the growth of piracy, ruined maritime commerce and stopped emigration. This began again with renewed vigor when the establishment of the empire guaranteed the safety of the seas and when the Levantine traffic attained a development previously unknown. We can trace the history of the Syrian establishments in the Latin provinces from the first to the seventh century, and recently we have begun to appreciate their economic, social and religious importance at its true value.
The Syrians’ love of lucre was proverbial. Active, compliant and able, frequently little scrupulous, they knew how to conclude first small deals, then larger ones, everywhere. Using the special talents of their race to advantage, they succeeded in establishing themselves on all coasts of
The Mediterranean, even in {108} Spain.[12] At Malaga an inscription mentions a corporation formed by them. The Italian ports where business was especially active, Pozzuoli, Ostia, later Naples, attracted them in great numbers. But they did not confine themselves to the seashore; they penetrated far into the interior of the countries, wherever they hoped to find profitable
trade. They followed the commercial highways and traveled up the big rivers. By way of the Danube they went as far as Pannonia, by way of the Rhone they reached Lyons. In Gaul they were especially numerous. In this new country that had just been opened to commerce fortunes could be made rapidly. A rescript discovered on the range of the Lebanon is addressed to
sailors from Arles, who had charge of the transportation of grain, and in the department of Ain a bilingual epitaph has been found mentioning a merchant of the third century, Thaïm or Julian, son of Saad, decurion of the city of Canatha in Syria, who owned two factories in the Rhone basin,
where he handled goods from Aquitania.[13] Thus the Syrians spread over the entire province as far as Treves, where they had a strong colony. Not even the barbarian invasions of the fifth century stopped their immigration. Saint Jerome describes them traversing the entire Roman world amidst the troubles of the invasion, prompted by the lust of gain to defy all dangers.
In the barbarian society the part played by this civilized and city-bred element was even more considerable. Under the Merovingians in about 591 they had sufficient influence at Paris to have one of their number elected bishop and to gain possession of all ecclesiastical offices. Gregory of
Tours tells how King Gontrand, on entering the city of Orleans {109} in 585, was received by a crowd praising him “in the language of the Latins, the Jews and the Syrians.”[14] The merchant colonies existed until the Saracen corsairs destroyed the commerce of the Mediterranean.
Those establishments exercised a strong influence upon the economic and material life of the Latin provinces, especially in Gaul. As bankers the Syrians concentrated a large share of the money business in their hands and monopolized the importing of the valuable Levantine commodities as well as of the articles of luxury; they sold wines, spices, glassware, silks and
purple fabrics, also objects wrought by goldsmiths, to be used as patterns by the native artisans.
Their moral and religious influence was not less
considerable: for instance, it has been shown that they furthered the
development of monastic life during the Christian period, and that the
devotion to the crucifix[15] that grew up in opposition to the
monophysites, was introduced into the Occident by them. During the first
five centuries Christians felt an unconquerable repugnance to the
representation of the Saviour of the world nailed to an instrument of
punishment more infamous than the guillotine of to-day. The Syrians were
the first to substitute reality in all its pathetic horror for a vague
symbolism. In pagan times the religious ascendency of that immigrant population
was no less remarkable. The merchants always took an interest in the affairs of
heaven as well as in those of earth. At all times Syria was a land of
ardent devotion, and in the first century its children were as fervid in
propagating their barbarian gods in the Occident as after their
conversion they were enthusiastic in spreading Christianity as far {110} as
Turkestan and China. As soon as the merchants had established their places of
business in the islands of the Archipelago during the Alexandrian
period, and in the Latin period under the empire, they founded chapels in which
they practised their exotic rites. It was easy for the divinities of the Phoenician coast to cross the
seas. Among them were Adonis, whom the women of Byblos mourned; Balmarcodes,
“the Lord of the dances,” who came from Beirut; Marna, the master of rain,
worshiped at Gaza; and Maiuma,[16] whose nautical holiday was celebrated
every spring on the coast near Ostia as well as in the Orient.
Besides these half Hellenized religions, others of a more purely Semitic
nature came from the interior of the country, because the merchants
frequently were natives of the cities of the _Hinterland_, as for
instance Apamea or Epiphanea in Coele-Syria, or even of villages in that flat
country. As Rome incorporated the small kingdoms beyond the Lebanon and
the Orontes that had preserved a precarious independence, the current of
emigration increased. In 71 Commagene, which lies between the Taurus and
the Euphrates, was annexed by Vespasian, a little later the dynasties of
Chalcis and Emesa were also deprived of their power. Nero, it appears,
Took possession of Damascus; half a century later Trajan established the new
province of Arabia in the south (106 A. D.), and the oasis of Palmyra, a
great mercantile center, lost its autonomy at the same time. In this
manner Rome extended her direct authority as far as the desert, over countries
that were only superficially Hellenized, and where the native devotions
had preserved all their {111} savage fervor. From that time constant
communication was established between Italy and those regions which had
heretofore been almost inaccessible. As roads were built commerce
developed, and together with the interests of trade the needs of
administration created an incessant exchange of men, of products and of
beliefs between those out-of-the-way countries and the Latin provinces.
These annexations, therefore, were followed by a renewed influx of
Syrian divinities into the Occident. At Pozzuoli, the last port of call of the
Levantine vessels, there was a temple to the Baal of Damascus (_Jupiter
Damascenus_) in which leading citizens officiated, and there were
altars on which two golden camels[17] were offered to Dusares, a divinity who had
come from the interior of Arabia. They kept company with a divinity of
more ancient repute, the Hadad of Baabek-Heliopolis (_Jupiter Heliopolitanus_),
whose immense temple, considered one of the world’s wonders,[18] had
been restored by Antoninus Pius, and may still be seen facing Lebanon in
majestic elegance. Heliopolis and Beirut had been the most ancient
colonies founded by Augustus in Syria. The god of Heliopolis participated in the
privileged position granted to the inhabitants of those two cities, who
worshiped in a common devotion,[19] and he was naturalized as a Roman
with greater ease than the others.
The conquest of all Syria as far as Euphrates and the subjection of
even a part of Mesopotamia aided the diffusion of the Semitic religions in
still another manner. From these regions, which were partly inhabited by
fighting races, the Cæsars drew recruits for the imperial army. They levied a
great number of {112} legionaries, but especially auxiliary troops, who were
transferred to the frontiers. Troopers and foot-soldiers from those
provinces furnished important contingents to the garrisons of Europe and
Africa. For instance, a cohort of one thousand archers from Emesa was
established in Pannonia, another of archers from Damascus in upper
Germany; Mauretania received irregulars from Palmyra, and bodies of troops
levied in Ituraea, on the outskirts of the Arabian desert, were encamped in Dacia,
Germany, Egypt and Cappadocia at the same time. Commagene alone
Furnished no less than six cohorts of five hundred men each that were sent to the
Danube and into Numidia.[20] The number of inscriptions consecrated by soldiers proves both the ardor of their faith and the diversity of their beliefs. Like the sailors of today
who are transferred to strange climes and exposed to incessant danger,
they were constantly inclined to invoke the protection of heaven, and
remained attached to the gods who seemed to remind them in their exile of the
distant home country. Therefore it is not surprising that the Syrians
who served in the army should have practised the religion of their Baals in
the neighborhood of their camps. In the north of England, near the wall of
Hadrian, an inscription in verse in honor of the goddess of Hierapolis
Has been found; its author was a prefect, probably of a cohort of Hamites
stationed at this distant post.[21]
Not all the soldiers, however, went to swell the ranks of believers
worshiping divinities that had long been adopted by the Latin world, as
did that officer. They also brought along new ones that had come from a
still greater distance than their predecessors, in fact {113} from the
outskirts of the barbarian world, because from those regions in particular trained
men could be obtained. There were, for instance, _Baltis_, an “Our Lady”
from Osroene beyond the Euphrates;[22] _Aziz_, the “strong god” of
Edessa, who was identified with the star Lucifer;[23] _Malakbel_, the “Lord’s
messenger,” patron of the soldiers from Palmyra, who appeared with
several companions at Rome, in Numidia and in Dacia.[24] The most celebrated of
those gods then was the Jupiter of Doliche, a small city of Commagene,
that owed its fame to him. Because of the troops coming from that region,
this obscure Baal, whose name is mentioned by no author, found worshipers in
every Roman province as far as Africa, Germany and Brittany. The number
of known inscriptions consecrated to him exceeds a hundred, and it is still
growing. Being originally nothing but a god of lightning, represented as
brandishing an ax, this local genius of the tempest was elevated to the
rank of tutelary divinity of the imperial armies.[25]
The diffusion of the Semitic religions in Italy that commenced
imperceptibly under the republic became more marked after the first
century of our era. Their expansion and multiplication were rapid, and they
attained the apogee of their power during the third century. Their
influence became almost predominant when the accession of the Severi
lent them the support of a court that was half Syrian. Functionaries of all
kinds, senators and officers, vied with each other in devotion to the
patron gods of their sovereigns, gods which the sovereigns patronized in
turn. Intelligent and ambitious princesses like Julia Domna, Julia
Maesa, Julia Mammea, whose ascendency was very {114} considerable, became
propagators of their national religion. We all know the audacious
pronunciamento of the year 218 that placed upon the throne the
fourteen-year-old emperor Heliogabalus, a worshiper of the Baal of
Emesa. His intention was to give supremacy over all other gods to his barbarian
divinity, who had heretofore been almost unknown. The ancient authors
narrate with indignation how this crowned priest attempted to elevate
his black stone, the coarse idol brought from Emesa, to the rank of supreme
divinity of the empire by subordinating the whole ancient pantheon to
it; they never tire of giving revolting details about the dissoluteness of
the debaucheries for which the festivities of the new _Sol invictus
Elagabal_furnished a pretext.[26] However, the question arises whether the Roman
historians, being very hostile to that foreigner who haughtily favored
the customs of his own country, did not misrepresent or partly misunderstand
the facts. Heliogabalus’s attempt to have his god recognized as supreme,
and to establish a kind of monotheism in heaven as there was monarchy on
earth, was undoubtedly too violent, awkward and premature, but it was in
keeping with the aspirations of the time, and it must be remembered that
the imperial policy could find the support of powerful Syrian colonies
not only at Rome but all over the empire.
Half a century later Aurelian[27] was inspired by the same idea when he
created a new worship, that of the “Invincible Sun.” Worshiped in a
splendid temple, by pontiffs equal in rank to those of ancient Rome,
having magnificent plays held in his honor every fourth year, _Sol invictus_
was also elevated to the supreme rank in the divine hierarchy, and became
the special {115} protector of the emperors and the empire. The country
where Aurelian found the pattern he sought to reproduce, was again Syria. Into
the new sanctuary he transferred the images of Bel and Helios, taken
from Palmyra, after it had fallen before his arms.
* * * * *
The sovereigns, then, twice attempted to replace the Capitoline Jupiter
By a Semitic god and to make a Semitic religion the principal and official
religion of the Romans. They proclaimed the fall of the old Latin
idolatry and the accession of a new paganism taken from Syria. What was the
superiority attributed to the creeds of that country? Why did even an
Illyrian general like Aurelian look for the most perfect type of pagan
religion in that country? That is the problem to be solved, but it must
remain unsolved unless an exact account is given of the fate of the
Syrian beliefs under the empire.
That question has not as yet been very completely elucidated. Besides
The superficial opuscule of Lucian on the _dea Syria_, we find scarcely any
reliable information in the Greek or Latin writers. The work by Philo of
Byblos is a euhemeristic interpretation of an alleged Phoenician
cosmogony, and a composition of little merit. Neither have we the original texts of
the Semitic liturgies, as we have for Egypt. Whatever we have learned we
owe especially to the inscriptions, and while these furnish highly
valuable indications as to the date and area of expansion of these religions,
they tell us hardly anything about their doctrines. Light on this subject
may be expected from the excavations that are being made in the great
sanctuaries of Syria, and also from a more exact interpretation {116} of the
sculptured monuments that we now possess in great numbers, especially those of
Jupiter Dolichenus.
Some characteristics of the Semitic paganism, however, are known at
present, and it must be admitted that it would appear at a disadvantage
if judged by those noticeable features that first attract our attention. It
had retained a stock of very primitive ideas and some aboriginal nature
worship that had lasted through many centuries and was to persist, in
part, under Christianity and Islam until the present day.[28] Such were the
worship of high elevations on which a rustic enclosure sometimes marked
the limits of the consecrated territory; the worship of the waters that
flow to the sea, the streams that arise in the mountains, the springs that gush
out of the soil, the ponds, the lakes and the wells, into all of which
offerings were thrown with the idea either of venerating in them the
thirst-quenching liquid or else the fecund nature of the earth; the
worship of the trees that shaded the altars and that nobody dared to fell or
mutilate; the worship of stones, especially of the rough stones called
bethels that were regarded, as their name (_beth-El_) indicates, as the
residence of the god, or rather, as the matter in which the god was
embodied.[29] Aphrodite Astarte was worshiped in the shape of a conical
stone at Paphos, and a black aerolite covered with projections and
depressions to which a symbolic meaning was attributed represented
Elagabal, and was transferred from Emesa to Rome, as we have said.
The animals, as well as inanimate things, received their share of
homage. Remnants of the old Semitic zoolatry perpetuated themselves until the
end of paganism and even later. Frequently the gods were {117} represented
standing erect on animals. Thus the Dolichean Baal stood on a steer, and
his spouse on a lion. Around certain temples there were sacred parks, in
which savage beasts roamed at liberty,[30] a reminder of the time when
they wereconsidered divine. Two animals especially were the objects of
universal veneration, the pigeon and the fish. Vagrant multitudes of
pigeons received the traveler landing at Ascalon,[31] and they played
about the enclosures of all the temples of Astarte[32] in flocks resembling
white whirlwinds. The pigeon belonged, properly speaking, to the goddess of
love, whose symbol it has remained above all to the people worshiping that
goddess. “Quid referam ut volitet crebras intacta per urbes
Alba Palaestino sancta columba Syro?”[33]
The fish was sacred to Atargatis, who undoubtedly had been represented
In that shape at first, as Dagon always was.[34] The fish were kept in
pondsin the proximity of the temples.[35] A superstitious fear prevented
people from touching them, because the goddess punished the sacrilegious by
covering their bodies with ulcers and tumors.[36] At certain mystic
repasts, however, the priests and initiates consumed the forbidden food
in the belief that they were absorbing the flesh of the divinity herself.
That worship and its practices, which were spread over Syria, probably
Suggested the ichthus symbolism in the Christian period.[37]
However, over this lower and primordial stratum that still cropped out
Here and there, other less rudimentary beliefs had formed. Besides inanimate
objects and animals, the Syrian paganism worshiped personal divinities
especially. The character of the gods that were originally adored by the
Semitic tribes has been {118} ingeniously reconstructed.[38] Each tribe
Had its Baal and Baalat who protected it and whom only its members were
permitted to worship. The name of _Ba’al_, “master,” summarizes the
conception people had of him. In the first place he was regarded as the
sovereign of his votaries, and his position in regard to them was that
of an Oriental potentate towards his subjects; they were his servants, or
rather his slaves.[39] The Baal was at the same time the “master” or
proprietor of the country in which he resided and which he made fertile
by causing springs to gush from its soil. Or his domain was the firmament
and he was the _dominus caeli_, whence he made the waters fall to the roar
of tempests. He was always united with a celestial or earthly “queen” and,
in the third place, he was the “lord” or husband of the “lady” associated
with him. The one represented the male, the other the female principle; they
were the authors of all fecundity, and as a consequence the worship of
the divine couple often assumed a sensual and voluptuous character.
As a matter of fact, immorality was nowhere so flagrant as in the
Temples of Astarte, whose female servants honored the goddess with untiring
ardor. In no country was sacred prostitution so developed as in Syria, and in
the Occident it was to be found practically only where the Phoenicians had
imported it, as on Mount Eryx. Those aberrations, that were kept up
until the end of paganism,[40] probably have their explanation in the
primitive constitution of the Semitic tribe, and the religious custom must have
been originally one of the forms of exogamy, which compelled the woman to
unite herself first with a stranger.[41] {119}
As a second blemish, the Semitic religions practised human immolations
longer than any other religion, sacrificing children and grown men in
order to please sanguinary gods. In spite of Hadrian’s prohibition of those
murderous offerings,[42] they were maintained in certain clandestine
rites and in the lowest practices of magic, up to the fall of the idols, and
even later. They corresponded to the ideas of a period during which the life
of a captive or slave had no greater value than that of an animal.
These sacred practices and many others, on which Lucian complacently
enlarges in his opuscule on the goddess of Hierapolis, daily revived the
habits of a barbarous past in the temples of Syria. Of all the conceptions
that had successively dominated the country, none had completely
disappeared. As in Egypt, beliefs of very different date and origin
coexisted, without any attempt to make them agree, or without success
when the task was undertaken. In these beliefs zoolatry, litholatry and all
the other nature worships outlived the savagery that had created them. More
than anywhere else the gods had remained the chieftains of clans[43]
because the tribal organizations of Syria were longer lived and more
developed than those of any other region. Under the empire many
districts were still subjected to the tribal régime and commanded by “ethnarchs”
or “phylarchs.”[44] Religion, which sacrificed the lives of the men and the
honor of the women to the divinity, had in many regards remained on the
moral level of unsocial and sanguinary tribes. Its obscene and atrocious
rites called forth exasperated indignation on the part of {120} the
Roman conscience when Heliogabalus attempted to introduce them into Italy with
his Baal of Emesa.
* * * * *
How, then, can one explain the fact that in spite of all, the Syrian
Gods imposed themselves upon the Occident and made even the Cæsars accept
them? The reason is that the Semitic paganism can no more be judged by certain
revolting practices, that perpetuated in the heart of civilization the
barbarity and puerilities of an uncultivated society, than the religion
of the Nile can be so judged. As in the case of Egypt we must distinguish
between the sacerdotal religion and the infinitely varied popular
religion that was embodied in local customs. Syria possessed a number of great
sanctuaries in which an educated clergy meditated and expatiated upon
the nature of the divine beings and on the meaning of traditions inherited
from remote ancestors. As their own interests demanded, that clergy
constantly amended the sacred traditions and modified their spirit when the letter
was immutable, in order to make them agree with the new aspirations of a
more advanced period. They had their mysteries and their initiates to whom
they revealed a wisdom that was above the vulgar beliefs of the masses.[45]
Frequently we can draw diametrically opposite conclusions from the same
principle. In that manner the old idea of _tabu_, that seems to have
transformed the temples of Astarte into houses of debauchery, also
became the source of a severe code of morals. The Semitic tribes were haunted
with the fear of the tabu. A multitude of things were either impure or sacred
because, in the original confusion, those two notions {121} had not been
clearly differentiated. Man’s ability to use the products of nature to
satisfy his needs, was thus limited by a number of prohibitions,
restrictions and conditions. He who touched a forbidden object was
soiled and corrupted, his fellows did not associate with him and he could no
longer participate in the sacrifices. In order to wipe out the blemish,
he had recourse to ablutions and other ceremonies known to the priests.
Purity, that had originally been considered simply physical, soon became
ritualistic and finally spiritual. Life was surrounded by a network of
circumstances subject to certain conditions, every violation of which
meant a fall and demanded penance. The anxiety to remain constantly in a
state of holiness or regain that state when it had been lost, filled one’s entire
existence. It was not peculiar to the Semitic tribes, but they ascribed
a prime importance to it.[46] And the gods, who necessarily possessed this
quality in an eminent degree, were holy beings ([Greek: hagioi])[47]
_par excellence_.In this way principles of conduct and dogmas of faith have frequently
Been derived from instinctive and absurd old beliefs. All theological
Doctrines that were accepted in Syria modified the prevailing ancient conception
Of the Baals. But in our present state of knowledge it is very difficult
indeed to determine the shares that the various influences contributed,
from the conquests of Alexander to the Roman domination, to make the
Syrian paganism what it became under the Cæsars. The civilization of the
Seleucid empire is little known, and we cannot determine what caused the
alliance of Greek thought with the Semitic traditions.[48] The religions of the
neighboring nations {122} also had an undeniable influence. Phoenicia
and Lebanon remained moral tributaries of Egypt long after they had
liberated themselves from the suzerainty of the Pharaohs. The theogony of Philo of
Byblos took gods and myths from that country, and at Heliopolis Hadad
Was honored “according to Egyptian rather than Syrian rite.”[49] The
Rigorous monotheism of the Jews, who were dispersed over the entire country, must
also have acted as an active ferment of transformation.[50] But it was
Babylon that retained the intellectual supremacy, even after its
Political ruin. The powerful sacerdotal caste ruling it did not fall with the
independence of the country, and it survived the conquests of Alexander
as it had previously lived through the Persian domination. The researches
of Assyriologists have shown that its ancient worship persisted under the
Seleucides, and at the time of Strabo the “Chaldeans” still discussed
cosmology and first principles in the rival schools of Borsippa and
Orchoë.[51] The ascendancy of that erudite clergy affected all
Surrounding regions; it was felt by Persia in the east, Cappadocia in the north, but
more than anywhere else by the Syrians, who were connected with the
Oriental Semites by bonds of language and blood. Even after the
Parthians had wrested the valley of the Euphrates from the Seleucides, relations
With the great temples of that region remained uninterrupted. The plains of
Mesopotamia, inhabited by races of like origin, extended on both sides
Of an artificial border line; great commercial roads followed the course of
the two rivers flowing into the Persian Gulf or cut across the desert,
and the pilgrims came to Babylon, as Lucian tells us, to perform their
devotions to the Lady of Bambyce.[52] {123}
Ever since the Captivity, constant spiritual relations had existed
Between Judaism and the great religious metropolis. At the birth of Christianity
they manifested themselves in the rise of gnostic sects in which the
Semitic mythology formed strange combinations with Jewish and Greek
Ideas and furnished the foundation for extravagant superstructures.[53]
Finally, during the decline of the empire, it was Babylon again from which
Emanated Manicheism, the last form of idolatry received in the Latin world. We
Can imagine how powerful the religious influence of that country on the
Syrian paganism must have been. That influence manifested itself in various ways. First, it introduced new gods. In this way Bel passed from the Babylonian pantheon into that of
Palmyra and was honored throughout northern Syria.[54] It also caused
ancient divinities to be arranged in new groups. To the primitive
couple of the Baal and the Baalat a third member was added in order to form one of
those triads dears to Chaldean theology. This took place at Hierapolis
as well as at Heliopolis, and the three gods of the latter city, Hadad,
Atargatis and Simios, became Jupiter, Venus and Mercury in Latin
inscriptions.[55] Finally, and most important, astrolatry wrought
radical changes in the characters of the celestial powers, and, as a further
consequence, in the entire Roman paganism. In the first place it gave
them a second personality in addition to their own nature. The sidereal myths
superimposed themselves upon the agrarian myths, and gradually
obliterated them. Astrology, born on the banks of the Euphrates, imposed itself in
Egypt upon the haughty and unapproachable clergy of the most
Conservative of all nations.[56] Syria {124}
received it without reserve and surrendered unconditionally;[57] numismatics and archeology as well as literature prove this. King Antiochus of Commagene, for instance, who died 34 B. C.,
built himself a monumental tomb on a spur of the Taurus, in which he placed
his horoscope, designed on a large bas-relief, beside the images of his
ancestral divinities.[58] The importance which the introduction of the Syrian religions into the
Occident has for us consists therefore in the fact that indirectly they
brought certain theological doctrines of the Chaldeans with them, just
as Isis and Serapis carried beliefs of old Egypt from Alexandria to the
Occident. The Roman empire received successively the religious tribute
Of the two great nations that had formerly ruled the Oriental world. It is
characteristic that the god Bel whom Aurelian brought from Asia to set
up as the protector of his states, was in reality a Babylonian who had
emigrated to Palmyra,[59] a cosmopolitan center apparently predestined
by virtue of its location to become the intermediary between the
civilizations of the Euphrates and the Mediterranean.
The influence exercised by the speculations of the Chaldeans upon
Greco-Roman thought can be asserted positively, but cannot as yet be
strictly defined. It was at once philosophic and religious, literary and
popular. The entire neo-Platonist school used the names of those
venerable masters, but it cannot be determined how much it really owes to them. A
selection of poems that has often been quoted since the third century,
under the title of “Chaldaic Oracles” ([Greek: Logia Chaldaika])
combines the ancient Hellenic theories with a fantastic {125} mysticism that was
certainly imported from the Orient. It is to Babylonia what the
literature of Hermes Trismegistus is to Egypt, and it is equally difficult to
determine the nature of the ingredients that the author put into his
sacred compositions. But at an earlier date the Syrian religions had spread far
and wide in the Occident ideas conceived on the distant banks of the
Euphrates. I shall try to indicate briefly what their share in the pagan
syncretism was. We have seen that the gods from Alexandria gained souls especially by
the promise of blessed immortality. Those from Syria must also have
satisfied doubts tormenting all the minds of that time. As a matter of fact the
old Semitic ideas on man’s fate in after-life were little comforting. We
know how sad, dull and hopeless their conception of life after death was. The
dead descended into a subterranean realm where they led a miserable
existence, a weak reflection of the one they had lost; since they were
subject to wants and suffering, they had to be supported by funeral
offerings placed on their sepulchers by their descendants. Those ancient
beliefs and customs were found also in primitive Greece and Italy.
This rudimentary eschatology, however, gave way to quite a different
conception, one that was closely related to the Chaldean astrology, and
which spread over the Occident towards the end of the republic.
According to this doctrine the soul returned to heaven after death, to live there
among the divine stars. While it remained on earth it was subject to all
the bitter necessities of a destiny determined by the revolutions of the
stars; but when it ascended into the upper regions, it escaped that fate
and even the limits of time; {126} it shared equally in the immortality
of the sidereal gods that surrounded it.[60] In the opinion of some, the
soul was attracted by the rays of the sun, and after passing through the
moon, where it was purified, it lost itself in the shining star of day.[61]
Another more purely astrological theory, that was undoubtedly a
Development of the former, taught that the soul descended to earth from the heights
Of heaven by passing through the spheres of the seven planets. During its
passage it acquired the dispositions and qualities proper to each
planet. After death it returned to its original abode by the same route. To get
from one sphere to another, it had to pass a door guarded by a
commandant ([Greek: archôn]).[62] Only the souls of initiates knew the password
that made those incorruptible guardians yield, and under the conduct of a
psychopompus[63] they ascended safely from zone to zone. As the soul
rose it divested itself of the passions and qualities it had acquired on its
descent to the earth as though they were garments, and, free from
sensuality, it penetrated into the eighth heaven to enjoy everlasting
happiness as a subtle essence. Perhaps this doctrine, undoubtedly of Babylonian origin, was not
generally accepted by the Syrian religions, as it was by the mysteries of Mithra,
but these religions, impregnated with astrology, certainly propagated the
belief that the souls of those worshipers that had led pious lives were
elevated to the heights of heaven, where an apotheosis made them the
equals of the luminous gods.[64] Under the empire this doctrine slowly
supplanted all others; the Elysian fields, which the votaries of Isis and Serapis
still located in {127} the depths of the earth, were transferred into
the ether bathing the fixed stars,[65] and the underworld was thereafter
reserved for the wicked who had not been allowed to pass through the
celestial gates. The sublime regions occupied by the purified souls were also the abode
of the supreme god.[66] When it transformed the ideas on the destiny of
man, astrology also modified those relating to the nature of the divinity. In
this matter the Syrian religions were especially original; for even if
the Alexandrian mysteries offered man just as comforting prospects of
immortality as the eschatology of their rivals, they were backward in
building up a commensurate theology. To the Semitic races belongs the
honor of having reformed the ancient fetichism most thoroughly. Their base and
narrow conceptions of early times to which we can trace their existence,
broaden and rise until they form a kind of monotheism.
As we have seen, the Syrian tribes worshiped a god of lightning,[67]
Like all primitive races. That god opened the reservoirs of the firmament to
Let the rain fall and split the giant trees of the woods with the double ax
that always remained his emblem.[68] When the progress of astronomy
removed the constellations to incommensurable distances, the “Baal of the
Heavens” (_Ba’al [vs]amîn_) had to grow in majesty. Undoubtedly at the time of
The Achemenides, he was connected with the Ahura-Mazda of the Persians, the
ancient god of the vault of heaven, who had become the highest physical
and moral power, and this connection helped to transform the old genius of
thunder.[69] People continued to worship the material heaven in him;
under the Romans he was still simply called {128} _Caelus_, as well as
“Celestial Jupiter” (_Jupiter Caelestis_, [Greek: Zeus Ouranios]),[70] but it was a
heaven studied by a sacred science that venerated its harmonious
mechanism. The Seleucides represented him on their coins with a crescent over his
forehead and carrying a sun with seven rays, to symbolize the fact that
he presided over the course of the stars;[71] or else he was shown with the
two Dioscuri at his side, heroes who enjoyed life and suffered death in
turn, according to the Greek myth, and who had become the symbols of the
two celestial hemispheres. Religious uranography placed the residence of
the supreme divinity in the most elevated region of the world, fixing
its abode in the zone most distant from the earth, above the planets and the
fixed stars. This fact was intended to be expressed by the term Most-
High ([Greek: Hupsistos]) applied to the Syrian Baals as well as to
Jehovah.[72] According to this cosmic religion, the Most High resided in the immense
Orb that contained the spheres of all the stars and embraced the entire
universe which was subject to his domination. The Latins translated the
name of this “Hypsistos” by _Jupiter summus exsuperantissimus_[73] to
indicate his preeminence over all divine beings.
As a matter of fact, his power was infinite. The primary postulate of
The Chaldean astrology was that all phenomena and events of this world were
necessarily determined by sidereal influence. The changes of nature, as
well as the dispositions of men, were controlled according to fate, by
the divine energies that resided in the heavens. In other words, the gods
were almighty; they were the masters of destiny that governed the universe
absolutely. The notion of their {129} omnipotence resulted from the
development of the ancient autocracy with which the Baals were
credited. As we have stated, they were conceived after the image of an Asiatic
monarch, and the religious terminology was evidently intended to display the
humility of their priests toward them. In Syria we find nothing
analogous to what existed in Egypt, where the priest thought he could compel the
gods to act, and even dared to threaten them.[74] The distance separating the
human and the divine always was much greater with the Semitic tribes,
and all that astrology did was to emphasize the distance more strongly by
giving it a doctrinal foundation and a scientific appearance. In the
Latin world the Asiatic religions propagated the conception of the absolute
And illimitable sovereignty of God over the earth. Apuleius calls the Syrian
goddess _omnipotens et omniparens_, “mistress and mother of all
things.”[75]
The observation of the starry skies, moreover, had led the Chaldeans to
The notion of a divine eternity. The constancy of the sidereal revolutions
inspired the conclusion as to their perpetuity. The stars follow their
ever uncompleted courses unceasingly; as soon as the end of their journey is
reached, they resume without stopping the road already covered, and the
cycles of years in which their movements take place extend from the
indefinite past into the indefinite future.[76] Thus a clergy of
astronomers necessarily conceived Baal, “Lord of the heavens,” as the
“Master of eternity” or “He whose name is praised through all
eternity”[77]–titles which constantly recur in Semitic inscriptions.
The divine stars did not die, like Osiris or Attis; whenever they seemed to
weaken, they were {130} born to a new life and always remained
invincible (_invicti_). Together with the mysteries of the Syrian Baals, this theological notion
penetrated into Occidental paganism.[78] Whenever an inscription to a
_deus aeternus_ is found in the Latin provinces it refers to a Syrian sidereal
god, and it is a remarkable fact that this epithet did not enter the
ritual before the second century, at the time the worship of the god Heaven
(_Caelus_)[79] was propagated. That the philosophers had long before
Placed the first cause beyond the limits of time was of no consequence, for
Their theories had not penetrated into the popular consciousness nor modified
The traditional formulary of the liturgies. To the people the divinities
Were beings more beautiful, more vigorous, and more powerful than man, but
Born like him, and exempt only from old age and death, the immortals of old
Homer. The Syrian priests diffused the idea of a god without beginning
And without end through the Roman world, and thus contributed, along lines
parallel with the Jewish proselytism, to lend the authority of dogma to
what had previously been only a metaphysical theory.
The Baals were universal as well as eternal, and their power became
limitless in regard to space as it had been in regard to time. These two
principles were correlative. The title of “_mar’olam_” which the Baals
bore occasionally may be translated by “Lord of the universe,” or by “Lord of
eternity,” and efforts certainly have been made to claim the twofold
quality for them.[80] Peopled with divine constellations and traversed
by planets assimilated to the inhabitants of Olympus, the heavens
determined the destinies of the {131} entire human race by their movements, and the
whole earth was subject to the changes produced by their revolutions.[81]
Consequently the old _Ba’al [vs]amîn_ was necessarily transformed into a
universal power. Of course, even under the Cæsars there existed in Syria
traces of a period when the local god was the fetich of a clan and
could be worshiped by the members of that clan only, a period when strangers were
admitted to his altars only after a ceremony of initiation, as brothers, or
at least as guests and clients.[82] But from the period when our knowledge
of the history of the great divinities of Heliopolis or Hierapolis
begins, these divinities were regarded as common to all Syrians, and crowds of
pilgrims came from distant countries to obtain grace in the holy
cities. As protectors of the entire human race the Baals gained proselytes in the
Occident, and their temples witnessed gatherings of devotees of every race
and nationality. In this respect the Baals were distinctly different
from Jehovah. The essence of paganism implies that the nature of a divinity broadens
as the number of its votaries increases. Everybody credits it with some new
quality, and its character becomes more complex. As it gains in power it
also has a tendency to dominate its companion gods and to concentrate their
functions in itself. To escape this threatening absorption, these gods must
be of a very sharply defined personality and of a very original character.
The vague Semitic deities, however, were devoid of a well-defined
individuality. We fail to find among them a well organized society of
immortals, like that of the Greek Olympus where each divinity had its own
features and its own particular {132} life full of adventures and
experiences, and each followed its special calling to the exclusion of
all the others. One was a physician, another a poet, a third a shepherd,
hunter or blacksmith. The Greek inscriptions found in Syria are, in this
regard, eloquently concise.[83] Usually they have the name of Zeus accompanied
by some simple epithet: kurios ([Greek: kurios], Lord), _aniketos_ ([Greek:
anikêtos], invincible), _megistos_ ([Greek: megistos], greatest). All
these Baals seem to have been brothers. They were personalities of
indeterminate outline and interchangeable powers and were readily confused.
At the time the Romans came into contact with Syria, it had already
Passed through a period of syncretism similar to the one we can study with
Greater prcision in the Latin world. The ancient exclusiveness and the national
particularism had been overcome. The Baals of the great sanctuaries had
enriched themselves with the virtues[84] of their neighbors; then, always
following the same process, they had taken certain features from foreign
divinities brought over by the Greek conquerors. In that manner their
characters had become indefinable, they performed incompatible functions
and possessed irreconcilable attributes. An inscription found in
Britain[85] assimilates the Syrian goddess to Peace, Virtue, Ceres,
Cybele, and even to the sign of the Virgin.
In conformity with the law governing the development of paganism, the
Semitic gods tended to become pantheistic because they comprehended all
nature and were identified with it. The various deities were nothing but
different aspects under which the supreme and infinite being manifested
itself. Although Syria {133} remained deeply and even coarsely idolatrous
in practice, in theory it approached monotheism or, better perhaps,
henotheism. By an absurd but curious etymology the name Hadad has been
explained as “one, one” (_’ad ‘ad_).[86] Everywhere the narrow and divided polytheism
showed a confused tendency to elevate itself into a superior synthesis, but in Syria astrology lent
the firmness of intelligent conviction to notions that were vague elsewhere.
The Chaldean cosmology, which deified all elements but ascribed a
predominant influence to the stars, ruled the entire Syrian syncretism.
It considered the world as a great organism which was kept intact by an
intimate solidarity, and whose parts continually influenced each other.
The ancient Semites believed therefore that the divinity could be
Regarded as embodied in the waters, in the fire of the lightning, in stones or
plants. But the most powerful gods were the constellations and the
planets that governed the course of time and of all things.
The sun was supreme because it led the starry choir, because it was the
king and guide of all the other luminaries and therefore the master of the
whole world.[87] The astronomical doctrines of the “Chaldeans” taught
that this incandescent globe alternately attracted and repelled the other
sidereal bodies, and from this principle the Oriental theologians had
concluded that it must determine the entire life of the universe,
inasmuch as it regulated the movements of the heavens. As the “intelligent
light” it was especially the creator of human reason, and just as it repelled and
attracted the planets in turn, it was believed {134} to send out souls,
at the time of birth, into the bodies they animated, and to cause them to
return to its bosom after death by means of a series of emissions and
absorptions. Later on, when the seat of the Most-High was placed beyond the limits of
the universe, the radiant star that gives us light became the visible
image of the supreme power, the source of all life and all intelligence, the
intermediary between an inaccessible god and mankind, and the one
object of special homage from the multitude.[88]
Solar pantheism, which grew up among the Syrians of the Hellenistic
Period as a result of the influence of Chaldean astrolatry, imposed itself upon
the whole Roman world under the empire. Our very rapid sketch of the
constitution of that theological system shows incidentally the last form
assumed by the pagan idea of God. In this matter Syria was Rome’s
teacher and predecessor. The last formula reached by the religion of the pagan
Semites and in consequence by that of the Romans, was a divinity unique,
almighty, eternal, universal and ineffable, that revealed itself
throughout nature, but whose most splendid and most energetic manifestation was the
sun. To arrive at the Christian monotheism[89] only one final tie had
to be broken, that is to say, this supreme being residing in a distant heaven had
to be removed beyond the world. So we see once more in this instance, how
the propagation of the Oriental cults levelled the roads for Christianity
and heralded its triumph. Although astrology was always fought by the
church, it had nevertheless prepared the minds for the dogmas the church
was to proclaim.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: The Syrian religions have been studied with especial
attention to their relation with Judaism: Baudissin, _Studien zur
semitischen Religionsgeschichte_, 2 vols., Leipsic, 1876. The same
author has published veritable monographs on certain divinities (Astarte, Baal,
Sonne, etc.) in the _Realencyclopädie für prot. Theol._, of Herzog-
Hauck, 3d ed.–Bäthgen, _Beiträge zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte_, Berlin,
1888.–W. Robertson Smith, _The Religion of the Semites_, 2d. ed.,
London, 1894.–Lagrange, _Etudes sur les religions sémitiques_, 2d ed., Paris,
1905. The results of the excavations in Palestine, which are important
In regard to the funeral customs and the oldest idolatry, have been
Summarized by Father Hugues Vincent, _Canaan d’après l’exploration récente_,
1907.—On the propagation of the Syrian religions in the Occident, see Réville,
_op. cit._, pp. 70 _et passim_; Wissowa, _Religion der Römer_, pp. 299 ff.;
Gruppe, _Griech. Mythol._, pp. 1582 f.–Important observations will be
found in Clermont-Ganneau, _Recueil d’archéologie orientale_, 8 vols.,
1888, and in Dussaud, _Notes de mythologie syrienne_, Paris, 1903. We
Have published a series of articles on particular divinities in the
_Realencyclopädie_ of Pauly-Wissowa (Baal, Balsamem, Dea Syria,
Dolichenus,
Gad, etc.). Other monographs are cited below.
1. Lucian, _Lucius_, 53 ff.; Apul., _Metam._, VIII, 24 ff. The
Description by these authors has recently been confirmed by the discovery of an
inscription at Kefr-Hauar in Syria: a slave of the Syrian goddess “sent
by her mistress ([Greek: kuria]),” boasts of having brought back “seventy
sacks” from each of her trips (Fossey, _Bull. corr. hell._, XXI, 1897, p.
60; on the {242} meaning of [Greek: pêra], “sack,” see Deissmann, _Licht
von Osten_, 1908, p. 73).
2. Cf. Riess in Pauly-Wissowa, s. v. _Astrologie_, col. 1816.
3. Cato, _De agric._, V, 4.
4. On dedication of Romans to Atargatis, see _Bull. corr. hell._, VI,
1882,
p. 497, No. 15; p. 498, No. 17.
5. Since the year 187 we find the Syrian musicians (_sambucistriae_)
mentioned also at Rome. Their number grew steadily (Livy, XXXIX, 6; see
Friedländer, _Sittengesch._, III^6, p. 346.)
6. Florus, II, 7 (III, 9); cf. Diodorus Sic., fr. 34, 2, 5.
7. Plut., _Vit. Marii_, 17.
8. Juvenal, VI, 351; Martial, IV, 53, 10; IX, 2, 11, IX, 22, 9.
9. _CIL_, VI, 399; cf. Wissowa, _op. cit._, p. 201.–Suetonius, _Nero_,
56.
10. A temple of the Syrian gods at Rome, located at the foot of the
Janiculum, has been excavated very recently. Cf. Gauckler, _Bolletino
communale di Roma_, 1907, pp. 5 ff. (Cf. Hülsen, _Mitt. Inst. Rom_,
XXII,
1907, pp. 225 ff.); _Comptes Rendus Acad. Inscr._, 1907, pp. 135 ff.;
1908,
pp. 510 ff.; 1909, pp. 424 ff., pp. 617 ff.; Nicole and Darier, _Le
sanctuaire des dieux orientaux au Janicule_, Rome, 1909 (Extr. des “Mél.
Ecole franç. de Rome,” XXIX). In it have been found dedications to
Hadad of
the Lebanon, to the Hadad [Greek: akroreitês], and to Maleciabrudus (in
regard to the latter see Clermont-Ganneau, _Rec. d’archéol. or._, VIII,
1907, p. 52). Cf. my article “Syria Dea” in Daremberg-Saglio-Pottier,
_Diction. des antiquités gr. et rom._, 1911.
11. I have said a few words on this colonization in my _Mon. rel. aux
myst.
de Mithra_, I, p. 262. Courajod has considered it in regard to artistic
influences, _Leçons du Louvre_, I, 1899, pp. 115, 327 ff. For the
Merovingian period see Bréhier, _Les colonies d’orientaux en Occident au
commencement du moyen âge_ (_Byzant. Zeitschr._, XII), 1903, pp. 1 ff.
12. Kaibel, _Inscr. gr._, XIV, 2540.
13. _Comptes Rendus Acad. Inscr._, 1899, p. 353 = Waltzing,
_Corporations
professionelles_, II, No. 1961 = _CIL_, III S., {243} 14165^8.–
Inscription
of Thaïm of Canatha: Kaibel, _Inscr. gr._, XIV, 2532.
14. Gregory of Tours, _Hist. Fr._, VIII, 1.–On the diffusion of the
Syrians in Gaul, see Bréhier, _loc. cit._, p. 16 ff.
15. Cf. Bréhier, _Les origines du crucifix dans l’art religieux_, Paris,
1904.
16. Adonis: Wissowa, p. 300, n. 1.–Balmarcodès: Pauly-Wissowa,
_Realenc._,
s. v.; Jalabert, _Mél. fac. orient. Beyrouth_, I, p. 182.–Marnas: The
existence at Ostia of a “Marneum” can be deduced from the dedication
_CIG_,
5892 (cf. Drexler in Roscher, _Lexikon_, s. v., col. 2382).–On
Maleciabrudus, cf. _supra_, n. 10.–The Maiuma festival was probably
introduced with the cult of the god of Gaza, Lydus, _De Mensib._, IV, 80
(p. 133, Wünsch ed.) = Suidas s. v. [Greek: Maioumas] and Drexler, _loc.
cit._, col. 2287. Cf. Clermont-Ganneau, _Rec. d’archéol. orient._, IV,
p.
339.
17. Cf. Pauly-Wissowa, s. v. “Damascenus, Dusares.”
18. Malalas, XI, p. 280, 12 (Bonn).–The temple has recently been
excavated
by a German mission; cf. Puchstein, _Führer in Baalbek_, Berlin,
1905.–On
the Hadad at Rome, cf. _supra_, n. 10.
19. _CIL_, X, 1634: “Cultores Iovis Heliopolitani Berytenses qui
Puteolis
consistunt”; cf. Wissowa, _loc. cit._, p. 504, n. 3; Ch. Dubois,
_Pouzzoles
antique_, Paris, 1906, p. 156.
20. A list of the known military societies has been made by Cichorius in
Pauly-Wissowa, _Realencycl._, s. v. “Ala” and “Cohors.”
21. _CIL_, VII, 759 = Buecheler, _Carmina epigr._, 24. Two inscriptions
dedicated to the Syrian Hercules (Melkarth) and to Astarte have been
discovered at Corbridge, near Newcastle (_Inscr. gr._, XIV, 2553). It is
possible that Tyrian archers were cantoned there.
22. Baltis: Pauly-Wissowa, _Realencyclop._, s. v.
23. Pauly-Wissowa, _Realenc._, s. v. “Aziz”; cf. Wissowa, _op. cit._, p.
303, n. 7.
24. On the etymology of Malakbel, see Dussaud, _Notes_, 24 ff. On the
religion in the Occident see Edu. Meyer in Roscher, _Lexikon_, s. v.
{244}
25. Kan, _De Iovis Dolicheni cultu_, Groningen, 1901; cf. Pauly-Wissowa,
_Realencycl._, s. v. “Dolichenus.”
26. Réville, _Relig. sous les Sévères_, pp. 237 ff.; Wissowa, _op.
cit._,
p. 305; cf. Pauly-Wissowa, s. v. “Elagabal.”–In a recent article (_Die
politische Bedeutung der Religion von Emesa_ [_Archiv für Religionsw._,
XI], 1908, pp. 223 ff.) M. von Domaszewski justly lays stress on the
religious value of the solar monotheism that arose in the temples of
Syria,
but he attributes too important a part in its formation to the clergy of
Emesa (see _infra_, n. 88). The preponderant influence seems to have
been
exercised by Palmyra (see _infra_, n. 59).
27. Cf. _infra_, n. 59.
28. Cf. Curtiss, _Primitive Semitic Religion To-day_, Chicago, 1902;
Jaussen, _Coutumes des Arabes du pays de Moab_, Paris, 1908, pp. 297 ff.
29. Cf. Robertson Smith, _passim_; Lagrange, pp. 158-216; Vincent, _op.
cit._, pp. 102-123; 144 f.–The power of this Semitic litholatry equaled
its persistence. Philo of Byblus defined the bethels as [Greek: lithoi
empsuchoi] (2, § 20, FHG, III, p. 563): Hippolytus also tells us (V, 1,
p.
145, Cruice), that in the Syrian mysteries ([Greek: Assuriôn teletai])
it
was taught that the stones were animated ([Greek: hoi lithoi eisin
empsuchoi; echousi gar to auxêtikon]), and the same doctrine perpetuated
itself in Manicheism. (Titus of Bostra, II, 60, p. 60, 25, de Lagarde
ed.:
[Greek: Ouk aischunetai de kai tous lithous epsuchôsthai legôn kai ta
panta
empsucha eisêgoumenos]).
During the last years of paganism the neo-Platonists developed a
superstitious worship of the bethels; see Conybeare, _Transactions of
the
Congress of Hist. of Rel._, Oxford, 1908, p. 177.
30. Luc., _De dea Syria_, c. 41. Cf. the inscription of Narnaka with the
note of Clermont-Ganneau, _Etudes d’arch. orient._, II, p. 163.–For
bull
worship in Syria cf. Ronzevalle, _Mélanges fac. orient. Beyrouth_, I,
1906,
pp. 225, 238; Vincent, _op. cit._, p. 169.
31. Philo Alex., _De provid._, II, c. 107 (II, 646 M.); cf. Lucian, _De
dea
Syria_, 54.
32. For instance on Mount Eryx in Sicily (Ael., _Nat. Anim._, {245} IV,
2).–Cf. Pauly-Wissowa, _Realenc._, s. v. “Dea Syria,” col. 2242.
33. Tibullus, I, 7, 17.
34. Lucian, _De dea Syria_, 14; 54. Cf. Diodorus, II, 4, 2; Ovid,
_Met._,
IV, 46; V, 331.
35. Pauly-Wissowa, _loc. cit._, col. 2241; W. Robertson Smith, p. 175.
36. The ancient authors frequently alluded to this superstition of the
Syrians (the texts have been collected by Selden, _De dis Syris_, II,
C. 3,
pp. 268 ff., ed. of 1672). W. Robertson Smith (_loc. cit._, p. 449), is
right in connecting it with certain ideas of savages. Like many
primitive
beliefs, this one has continued to the present day. It has been pointed
out
to me that at Sam-Keuï, a little west of Doliché, there is a pond fed
by a
spring and well stocked with fish, which one is forbidden to take. Near
the
mosque of Edessa is a large pond where catching fish is prohibited. They
are considered sacred, and the people believe that any one who would eat
them would die instantly. (Sachau, _Reise in Syrien_, 1883, pp. 196 ff.
Cf.
Lord Warkworth, _Diary in Asiatic Turkey_, London, 1898, p. 242). The
same
is the case at the mosque of Tripoli and elsewhere (Lammens, _Au pays
des
Nosaïris_ [_Revue de l’Orient chrétien_], 1908, p. 2). Even in Asia
Minor
this superstition is found. At Tavshanli, north of Aezani on the upper
Rhyndacus, there is to-day a square cistern filled with sacred fish
which
no one is allowed to take (on the authority of Munro). Travelers in
Turkey
have frequently observed that the people do not eat fish, even when
there
is a scarcity of food (Sachau, _loc. cit._, p. 196) and the general
belief
that their flesh is unhealthful and can cause sickness is not entirely
unfounded. Here is what Ramsay has to say on the subject (_Impressions
of
Turkey_, London, 1897, p. 288): “Fish are rarely found and when found
are
usually bad: the natives have a prejudice against fish, and my own
experience has been unfavorable…. In the clear sparkling mountain
stream
that flows through the Taurus by Bozanti-Khan, a small kind of fish is
caught; I had a most violent attack of sickness in 1891 after eating
some
of them, and so had all who partook.” Captain Wilson, who spent a
number of
years in {246} Asia Minor, asserts (_Handbook of Asia-Minor_, p. 19),
that
“the natives do not eat fish to any extent.” The “totemic” prohibition
in
this instance really seems to have a hygienic origin. People abstained
from
all kinds of fish because some species were dangerous, that is to say,
inhabited by evil spirits, and the tumors sent by the Syrian goddess
were
merely the edemas caused by the poisoning.
37. On the [Greek: Ichthus] symbolism I will merely refer to Usener,
_Sintflutsagen_, 1899, pp. 223 ff. Cf. S. Reinach, _Cultes, mythes_,
III,
1908, pp. 43 ff. An exhaustive book on this subject has recently
appeared:
Dölger, [Greek: ICHTHYS], _das Fischsymbol in frühchristlicher Zeit_, I,
Rome, 1910.
On sacred repasts where fish was eaten see Mnaseas, fragment 32 (_Fragm.
histor. graec._, III, 115); cf. Dittenberger, _Sylloge_, 584: [Greek:
Ean
de tis tôn ichthuôn apothanêi, karpousthô authêmeron epi tou bômou], and
Diog. Laert., VIII, 34. There were also sacred repasts in the Occident
in
the various Syrian cults: _Cenatorium et triclinium_ in the temples of
Jupiter Dolichenus (_CIL_, III, 4789; VI, 30931; XI, 696, cf. _Mon.
myst.
Mithra_, II, p. 501); _promulsidaria et mantelium_ offered to the Venus
Caelestis (_CIL_, X, 1590); construction of a temple to Malachbel with a
_culina_ (_CIL_, III, 7954). Mention is made of a [Greek: deipnokritês,
deipnois kreinas polla met’ euphrosunês], in the temple of the Janiculum
(Gauckler, _C.R. Acad. Inscr._, 1907, p. 142; _Bolletino communale_,
1907,
pp. 15 ff.). Cf. Lagrange, _Religions sémitiques_, II, p. 609, and
Pauly-Wissowa, _Realenc._, s. v. “Gad.”
38. W. Robertson Smith, pp. 292 ff.
39. An inscription discovered at Kefr-Hauar (Fossey, _Bull. corr.
hell._,
1897, p. 60) is very characteristic in this respect. A “slave” of the
Syrian goddess in that inscription offers his homage to his “mistress”
([Greek: kuria]).
40. Notably at Aphaca where they were not suppressed until the time of
Constantine (Eusebius, _Vit. Const._, III, 55; cf. Sozom., II, 5).
41. Much has been written about the sacred prostitutions in paganism,
and
it is well known that Voltaire ridiculed the scholars who were credulous
enough to believe in the tales of Herodotus. But this practice has been
proven by {247} irrefutable testimony. Strabo, for instance, whose
great-uncle was arch-priest of Comana, mentions it in connection with
that
city, (XII, 3, 36, p. 559 C), and he manifests no surprise. The history
of
religion teaches many stranger facts; this one, however, is
disconcerting.
The attempt has been made to see in it a relic of the primitive
promiscuity
or polyandry, or a persistence of “sexual hospitality,” (“No custom is
more
widely spread than the providing for a guest a female companion, who is
usually a wife or daughter of the host,” says Wake, _Serpent Worship_,
1888, p. 158); or the substitution of union with a man for union with
the
god (Gruppe, _Griech. Mythol._, p. 915). But these hypotheses do not
explain the peculiarities of the religious custom as it is described by
more reliable authors. They insist upon the fact that the girls were
dedicated to the temple service while _virgins_, and that after having
had
_strangers_ for lovers, they married in their own country. Thus Strabo
(XI,
14, § 16, p. 532 C.) narrates in connection with the temple of Anaitïs
in
Acilisena, that [Greek: thugateras hoi epiphanestatoi tou ethnous
anierousi
parthenous, ais nomos esti kataporneutheisais polun chronon para têi
theôi
meta tauta didosthai pros gamon, ouk apaxiountos têi toiautêi sunoikein
oudenos]. Herodotus (I, 93), who relates about the same thing of the
Lydian
women, adds that they acquired a dowry in that manner; an inscription at
Tralles (_Bull. corr. hell._, VII, 1885, p. 276) actually mentions a
descendant of a sacred prostitute ([Greek: ek progonôn pallakidôn]) who
had
temporarily filled the same office ([Greek: pallakeusasa kata chrêsmon
Dii]). Even at Thebes in Egypt there existed a similar custom with
striking
local peculiarities in the time of Strabo (XVII, 1, § 46), and traces
of it
seem to have been found in Greece among the Locrians (Vurtheim, _De
Aiacis
origine_, Leyden, 1907). Every Algerian traveler knows how the girls of
the
Ouled-Naïl earn their dowry in the _ksours_ and the cities, before they
go
back to their tribes to marry, and Doutté (_Notes sur l’Islam
maghrébien,
les Marabouts_, Extr. _Rev. hist. des relig._, XL-XLI, Paris, 1900), has
connected these usages with the old Semitic prostitution, but his thesis
has been attacked and the historical circumstances of the arrival of the
Ouled-Naïl in Algeria in the eleventh century render it very doubtful
(Note
by Basset).–It seems certain (I do not know whether this explanation
has
ever been offered) {248} that this strange practice is a modified
utilitarian form of an ancient exogamy. Besides it had certain favorable
results, since it protected the girl against the brutality of her
kindred
until she was of marriageable age, and this fact must have insured its
persistence; but the idea that inspired it at first was different. “La
première union sexuelle impliquant une effusion de sang, a été
interdite,
lorsque ce sang était celui d’une fille du clan versé par le fait d’un
homme du clan” (Salomon Reinach, _Mythes, cultes_, I, 1905, p. 79. Cf.
Lang, _The Secret of the Totem_, London, 1905.) Thence rose the
obligation
on virgins to yield to a stranger first. Only then were they permitted
to
marry a man of their own race. Furthermore, various means were resorted
to
in order to save the husband from the defilement which might result from
that act (see for inst., Reinach, _Mythes, cultes_, I, p. 118).–The
opinion expressed in this note was attacked, almost immediately after
its
publication, by Frazer (_Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, 1907, pp. 50 ff.) who
preferred to see in the sacred prostitutions a relic of primitive
communism. But at least one of the arguments which he uses against our
views is incorrect. Not the women, but the men, received presents in
Acilisena (Strabo, _loc. cit._) and the communistic theory does not
seem to
account for the details of the custom prevailing in the temple of
Thebes.
There the horror of blood clearly appears. On the discovery of a skull
(having served at a rite of consecration) in the temple of the
Janiculum,
see the article cited above, “Dea Syria,” in _Dict. des antiquités_.
42. Porphyry, _De Abstin._, II, 56; Tertull., _Apol._, 9. Cf. Lagrange,
_op. cit._, p. 445.
43. Even in the regions where the cities developed, the Baal and the
Baalat
always remained the divinities [Greek: poliouchoi], the protectors of
the
city which they were supposed to have founded.
44. Le Bas-Waddington, 2196.–Suidas, s. v. [Greek: Phularchês] (II, 2,
col. 1568, Bernhardy). Cf. Marquardt, _Staatsverwaltung_, I, p. 405,
409.
45. Hippolytus, Adv. Haeres., V, II, § 7: [Greek: Assuriôn teletai]; §
18:
[Greek: Assuriôn mustêria] (pp. 145, 148, ed. by Cruice). Cf. Origen,
_Contra Celsum_, I, 12. Pognon (_Inscrip. sémitiques_, {249} 1907, No.
48)
has recently published a Syrian epitaph that is unfortunately mutilated,
but which seems to be that of an adept of the pagan mysteries; see
Nöldeke,
_Zeitschrift für Assyr._, XXI, 1907, p. 155.
46. On the Semitic notion of purity, W. Robertson Smith has written
admirably and convincingly (pp. 446 ff. and _passim_). The question has
been taken up from a different point of view by Lagrange, pp. 141 ff.–
The
development of the notion of purity in the ancient religions has been
recently expounded by Farnell, _The Evolution of Religion_, 1905, pp. 88
ff., especially pp. 124 ff. Cf. also _supra_, p. 91 f. An example of the
prohibitions and purifications is found in the Occident in an
inscription,
unfortunately mutilated, discovered at Rome and dedicated to Beellefarus
(_CIL_, VI, 30934, 31168; cf. Lafaye, _Rev. hist. relig._, XVII, 1888,
pp.
218 ff.; Dessau, _Inscr. sel._, 4343). If I have understood the text
correctly it commands those who have eaten pork to purify themselves by
means of honey.–On penances in the Syrian religions see ch. II, n. 31.
47. M. Clermont-Ganneau (_Etudes d’archéologie orientale_, II, 1896, p.
104) states that the epithet [Greek: hagios] is extremely rare in pagan
Hellenism, and almost always betrays a Semitic influence. In such cases
it
corresponds to [Hebrew: QRSH], which to the Semites is the epithet _par
excellence_ of the divinity. Thus Eshmon is [Hebrew: QRSH]; cf.
Lidzbarski,
_Ephemer. für semit. Epigraph._, II, p. 155; Clermont-Ganneau, _Recueil
d’archéol. orient._, III, p. 330; V, p. 322.–In Greek Le Bas-
Waddington,
2720, has: [Greek: Oi katochoi hagiou ouraniou Dios]. Dittenberger,
_Orientis inscript._, 620, [Greek: Zeus hagios Beel bôsôros]. Some time
ago
I copied at a dealer’s, a dedication engraved upon a lamp: [Greek: Theôi
hagiôi Arelselôi], in Latin: J. Dolichenus _sanctus_, _CIL_, VI, 413, X,
7949.–J. Heliopolitanus _sanctissimus_, _CIL_, VIII, 2627.–“Caelestis
_sancta_,” VIII, 8433, etc.–The African Saturn (= Baal) is often called
_sanctus_.–_Hera sancta_ beside Jupiter Dolichenus, VI, 413.–Malakbel
is
translated by _Sol sanctissimus_, in the bilingual inscription of the
Capitol, VI, 710 = Dessau, 4337. Cf. _deus sanctus aeternus_, V, 1058,
3761, and _Comptes Rendus Acad. Inscr._, 1906, p. 69.–See in general
Delehaye, _Analecta Bollandiana_, 1909, pp. 157 ff. {250}
48. As curious examples of Greco-Syrian syncretism we may mention the
bas-relief of Ed-Douwaïr in the Louvre, which has been analyzed in
detail
by Dussaud (_Notes_, pp. 89 ff.), and especially that of Homs in the
Brussels museum (_ibid._, 104 ff.).
49. Macrobius, I, 23, § 11: “Ritu Assyrio magis quam Aegyptio colitur”;
cf.
Lucian, _De dea Syria_, 5.–“Hermetic” theories penetrated even to the
Sabians of Osrhoene (Reitzenstein, _Poimandres_, 166 ff.), although
their
influence seems to have been merely superficial (Bousset, _Göttingische
gelehrt. Anzeigen_, 1905, 704 ff.)–The existence of [Greek: katochoi]
at
Baetocécé and elsewhere appears to be due to Egyptian influence
(Jalabert,
_Mélanges de la fac. orient. de Beyrouth_, II, 1907, pp. 308 ff.). The
meaning of [Greek: katochos] which has been interpreted in different
ways,
is established, I think, by the passages collected by Kroll, _Cat. codd.
astrol. graec._, V, pars 2, p. 146; cf. Otto, _Priester und Tempel_, I,
p.
119; Bouché-Leclercq, _Hist. des Lagides_, IV, p. 335. It refers to the
poor, the sick and even the “illumined” living within the temple
enclosures
and undoubtedly supported by the clergy, as were the refugees of the
Christian period who availed themselves of the right of sanctuary in the
churches (cf. _Comptes Rendus Acad. Inscr._, 1907, p. 454).
50. Cf. _infra_, n. 59.
51. Strabo, XVI, 1, 6. Cf. Pliny, _H. N._, VI, 6: “Durat adhuc ibi Iovis
Beli templum.” Cf. my _Mon. myst. Mithra_, I, pp. 35 ff.; Chapot, _Mém.
soc. antiq. de France_, 1902, pp. 239 ff.; Gruppe, _Griech. Mythol._, p.
1608, n. 1.
52. Lucian, _De dea Syria_, c. 10.
53. Harnack, _Dogmengeschichte_, I, pp. 233 ff. and _passim_.
54. On the worship of Bel in Syria cf. _Comptes Rendus Acad. Inscr._,
1907,
pp. 447 ff.–Cf. _infra_, n. 59.
55. On the Heliopolitan triad and the addition of Mercury to the
original
couple see Perdrizet, _Rev. études anc._, III, 1901, p. 258; Dussaud,
_Notes_, p. 24; Jalabert, _Mélanges fac. orient. de Bayrouth_, I, 1906,
pp.
175 ff.–Triad of Hierapolis: Lucian, _De dea Syria_, c. 33. According
to
Dussaud, the three divinities came from Babylon together, _Notes_, p.
115.–The existence of a Phoenician triad (Baal, Astarte, Eshmoun or
{251}
Melkarth), and of a Palmyrian triad has been conjectured but without
sufficient reason (_ibid._, 170, 172 ff.); the existence of Carthaginian
triads is more probable (cf. Polybius, VII, 9, 11, and von Baudissin,
_Iolaos_ [_Philothesia für Paul Kleinert_], 1907, pp. 5 ff.)–See in
general Usener, _Dreiheit_ (Extr. _Rhein. Museum_, LVIII), 1903, p. 32.
The
triads continued in the theology of the “Chaldaic Oracles” (Kroll, _De
orac. Chald._, 13 ff.) and a threefold division of the world and the
soul
was taught in the “Assyrian mysteries” (_Archiv für Religionswiss._, IX,
1906, p. 331, n. 1).
56. Boll, _Sphaera_, p. 372.–The introduction of astrology into Egypt
seems to date back no further than the time of the Ptolemies.
57. The Seleucides, like the Roman emperors later, believed in Chaldean
astrology (Appian., _Syr._, 28; Diodorus, II, 31, 2; cf. Riess in
Pauly-Wissowa, _Realenc._, s. v. “Astrologie,” col. 1814), and the
kings of
Commagene, as well as of a great number of Syrian cities, had the signs
of
the zodiac as emblems on their coins. It is even certain that this
pseudo-science penetrated into those regions long before the Hellenistic
period. Traces of it are found in the Old Testament (Schiaparelli;
translation by Lüdke, _Die Astron. im Alten Testament_, 1904, p. 46). It
modified the entire Semitic paganism. The only cult which we know in any
detail, that of the Sabians, assigned the highest importance to it; but
in
the myths and doctrines of the others its influence is no less apparent
(Pauly-Wissowa, _Realencycl._, s. v. “Dea Syria,” IV, col. 2241, and s.
v.
“Gad”; cf. Baudissin, _Realencycl. für prot. Theol._, s. v., “Sonne,”
pp.
510-520). To what extent, for instance, the clergy of Emesa had been
subjected to its ascendency is shown by the novel of Heliodorus,
written by
a priest of that city (Rohde, _Griech. Roman_^2, p. 464 [436]), and by
the
horoscope that put Julia Domna upon the throne (_Vita Severi_, 3, 8;
cf. A.
von Domaszewski, _Archiv für Religionsw._, XI, 1908, p. 223). The
irresistible influence extended even to the Arabian paganism (Nöldeke in
Hastings, _Encyclop. of Religion_, s. v. “Arabs,” I, p. 661; compare,
_Orac. Sibyll._, XIII, 64 ff., on Bostra). The sidereal character which
has
been attributed to the Syrian gods, was borrowed, but none the less
real.
From very early times the Semites worshiped the sun, {252} the moon, and
the stars (see Deut. iv. 19; Job xxxi. 25), especially the planet Venus,
but this cult was of secondary importance only (see W. Robertson Smith,
_op. cit._, p. 135, n. 1), although it grew in proportion as the
Babylonian
influence became stronger. The polemics of the Fathers of the Syrian
Church
show how considerable its prestige was in the Christian era (cf. Ephrem,
_Opera Syriaca_, Rome, 1740, II, pp. 447 ff.; the “Assyrian” Tatian, c.
9
ff., etc.).
58. Humann and Puchstein, _Reise in Klein-Asien und Nord-Syrien_, 1890,
pl.
XL; _Mon. myst. Mithra_, I, p. 188, fig. 8; Bouché-Leclercq, _Astrol.
gr._,
p. 439.
59. Cf. Wissowa, _op. cit._, p. 306-7.–On the temple of Bel at Palmyra,
cf. Sobernheim, _Palmyrenische Inschriften_ (_Mitt. der vorderasiat.
Gesellsch._, X), 1905, pp. 319 ff.; Lidzbarski, _Ephemeris_, I, pp. 255
ff., II, p. 280.–Priests of Bel: Clermont-Ganneau, _Recueil d’arch.
orient._, VII, p. 12, 24, 364. Cf. _supra_, n. 54. The power of Palmyra
under Zenobia, who ruled from the Tigris to the Nile, must have had as a
corollary the establishment of an official worship that was necessarily
syncretic. Hence its special importance for the history of paganism.
Although the Babylonian astrology was a powerful factor in this worship,
Judaism seems to have had just as great an influence in its formation.
There was at Palmyra a large Jewish colony, which the writers of the
Talmud
considered only tolerably orthodox (Chaps, _Gli Ebrei di Palmira_
[_Rivista
Israelitica_, I], Florence, 1904, pp. 171 ff., 238 f. Cf. “Palmyra” in
the
_Jewish Encycl._; Jewish insc. of Palmyra; Euting, _Sitzb. Berl. Acad._,
1885, p. 669; Landauer, _ibid._, 1884, pp. 933 ff.). This colony seems
to
have made compromises with the idolaters. On the other hand we see
Zenobia
herself rebuilding a synagogue in Egypt (_Revue archéologique_, XXX,
1875,
p. III; _Zeitschrift für Numismatik_, V, p. 229; Dittenberger, _Orientis
inscript._, 729). This influence of Judaism seems to explain the
development at Palmyra of the cult of [Greek: Zeus hupsitos kai
epêkoos],
“he whose name is blessed in eternity.” The name of Hypsistos has been
applied everywhere to Jehovah and to the pagan Zeus (_supra_, p. 62,
128)
at the same time. The text of Zosimus (I, 61), according to which
Aurelian
brought from Palmyra to Rome the statues of [Greek: Hêliou te kai Bêlou]
(this has been wrongly changed to read [Greek: tou kai Bêlou]), proves
that
the {253} astrological religion of the great desert city recognized a
supreme god residing in the highest heavens, and a solar god, his
visible
image and agent, according to the Semitic theology of the last period of
paganism (_supra_, p. 134).
60. I have spoken of this solar eschatology in the memorial cited
_infra_,
n. 88.
61. This opinion is that of Posidonius (see Wendland, _Philos Schrift
über
die Vorsehung_, Berlin, 1892, p. 68, n. 1; 70, n. 2). It is shared by
the
ancient astrologers.
62. This old pagan and gnostic idea has continued to the present day in
Syria among the Nosaïris; cf. Dussaud, _Histoire et religion des
Nosaïris_,
1900, p. 125.
63. The belief that pious souls are guided to heaven by a psychopompus,
is
found not only in the mysteries of Mithra (_Mon. myst. Mithra_, I, p.
310),
but also in the Syrian cults where that rôle was often assigned to the
solar god, see Isid. Lévy, _Cultes syriens dans le Talmud_ (_Revue des
études juives_, XLIII), 1901, p. 5, and Dussaud, _Notes_, p. 27; cf.
the Le
Bas-Waddington inscription, 2442:
“[Greek: Basileu despota] (= the sun), [Greek: hilathi kai didou pasin
hêmin hugiên katharan, prêxis agathas kai biou telos esthlon].”–
The same idea is found in inscriptions in the Occident; as for instance
in
the peculiar epitaph of a sailor who died at Marseilles (Kaibel, _Inscr.
gr._, XIV, 2462 = _Epigr._, 650):
“[Greek: En de [te] tethneioisin homêguri [es] ge pelousin]
[Greek: doiai; tôn heterê men epichthoniê pephorêtai,]
[Greek: hê d’ heterê teiressi sun aitherioisi choreuei,]
[Greek: ês stratiês eis eimi, lachôn theon hêgemonêa].”
It is the same term that Julian used (_Césars_, p. 336 C) in speaking of
Mithra, the guide of souls: [Greek: hêgemona theon]. Cf. also _infra_,
n.
66 and ch. VIII, n. 24.
64. The Babylonian origin of the doctrine that the souls returned to
heaven
by crossing the seven planetary spheres, has been maintained by Anz
(_Zur
Frage nach dem Ursprung des Gnostizismus_, 1897; cf. _Mon. myst.
Mithra_,
I. pp. 38 ff., p. 309; Bousset, _Die Himmelsreise der Seele_ [_Archiv
für
Religionsw._, IV], 1901, pp. 160 ff.) and “Gnosis” in Pauly-Wissowa,
_Realencyclopädie_, col. 1520. It has since been denied by Reitzenstein
(_Poimandres_, p. 79; cf. Kroll, _Berl. philol. Wochensch._, {254}
1906, p.
486). But although it may have been given its precise shape and been
transformed by the Greeks and even by the Egyptians, I persist in
believing
that it is of Chaldean and religious origin. I heartily agree with the
conclusions recently formulated by Bousset, (_Göttingische gelehrte
Anzeigen_, 1905, pp. 707 ff.). We can go farther: Whatever roots it may
have had in the speculations of ancient Greece (Aristoph., _Pax_, 832,
Plato, _Tim._, 42B, cf. Haussoullier, _Rev. de philol._, 1909, pp. 1
ff.),
whatever traces of it may be found in other nations (Dieterich,
_Mithrasliturgie_, pp. 182 ff.; _Nekyia_, p. 24, note; Rohde, _Psyche_,
II,
p. 131, n. 3), the idea itself of the soul rising to the divine stars
after
death certainly developed under the influence of the sidereal worship of
the Semites to a point where it dominated all other eschatological
theories. The belief in the eternity of souls is the corollary to the
belief in the eternity of the celestial gods (p. 129). We cannot give
the
history of this conception here, and we shall limit ourselves to brief
observations. The first account of this system ever given at Rome is
found
in “Scipio’s Dream” (c. 3); it probably dates back to Posidonius of
Apamea
(cf. Wendland, _Die hellenistisch-römische Kultur_, p. 85, 166, n. 3,
168,
n. 1), and is completely impregnated with mysticism and astrolatry. The
same idea is found a little later in the astrologer Manilius (I, 758;
IV,
404, etc.). The shape which it assumed in Josephus (_Bell. Judaic._, V,
1,
5, § 47) is also much more religious than philosophical and is
strikingly
similar to a dogma of Islam (happiness in store for those dying in
battle;
a Syrian [_ibid._, § 54] risks his life that his soul may go to heaven).
This recalls the inscription of Antiochus of Commagene (Michel,
_Recueil_,
No. 735, l. 40):
[Greek: Sôma pros ouranious Dios Ôromasdou thronous theophilê psuchên
propempsan eis ton apeiron aiôna koimêsetai].
It must be said that this sidereal immortality was not originally
common to
all men; it was reserved “omnibus qui patriam conservaverint adiuverint,
auxerint” (_Somn. Scip._ c. 3, c. 8; cf. _Manil._, I, 758; Lucan,
_Phars._,
IX, 1 ff.; Wendland, _op. cit._, p. 85 n. 2), and this also is in
conformity with the oldest Oriental traditions. The rites first used to
assure immortality to kings and to make them the equals of the gods were
extended little by little as a kind of privilege, to the important {255}
persons of the state, and only very much later were they applied to all
who
died.
Regarding the diffusion of this belief from the beginning of the first
century of our era, see Diels, _Elementum_, 1899, p. 73, cf. 78;
Badstübner, _Beiträge zur Erklärung Senecas_, Hamburg, pp. 2 ff.–It is
expressed in many inscriptions (Friedländer, _Sitteng._, III, pp. 749
ff.;
Rohde, _Psyche_, p. 673, cf. 610; epitaph of Vezir-Keupru, _Studia
Pontica_, No. 85; _CIL_. III (Salone), 6384; _supra_, n. 63, etc.) It
gained access into Judaism and paganism simultaneously (cf. Bousset,
_Die
Religion des Judentums im neutest. Zeitalter_, 1903, p. 271, and, for
Philo
of Alexandria, Zeller, _Philos. der Griechen_, V, p. 397 and p.
297).–During the third century it was expounded by Cornelius Labeo, the
source of Arnobius and Servius (Nieggetiet, _De Cornelio Labeone_ [Diss.
Munster], 1908, pp. 77-86). It was generally accepted towards the end of
the empire; see _infra_, n. 25.–I hope soon to have the opportunity of
setting forth the development of this sidereal eschatology with greater
precision in my lectures on “Astrology and Religion in Antiquity” which
will appear in 1912 (chap. VI).
65. According to the doctrine of the Egyptian mysteries the Elysian
Fields
were in the under-world (Apul., _Metam._, XI, 6).–According to the
astrological theory, the Elysian Fields were in the sphere of the fixed
stars (Macrobius, _Comm. somn. Scip._, I, 11, § 8; cf. _infra_, chap.
VIII,
n. 25). Others placed them in the moon (Servius, _Ad Aen._, VI, 887; cf.
Norden, _Vergils Buch_, VI, p. 23; Rohde, _Psyche_, pp. 609 ff.).
Iamblichus placed them between the moon and the sun (Lydus, _De mens._,
IV,
149, p. 167, 23, Wünsch).
66. The relation between the two ideas is apparent in the alleged
account
of the Pythagorean doctrine which Diogenes Laertius took from Alexander
Polyhistor, and which is in reality an apocryphal composition of the
first
century of our era. It was said that Hermes guided the pure souls, after
their separation from the body, [Greek: eis ton Hupsiston] (Diog.
Laert.,
VIII, § 31; cf. Zeller, _Philos. der Griechen_, V, p. 106, n. 2).–On
the
meaning of Hypsistos, cf. _supra_, p. 128. It appears very plainly in
the
passage of Isaiah, xiv, 13, as rendered by the Septuagint: {256}
[Greek: Eis ton ouranon anabêsomai, epanô tôn asterôn thêsô ton thronon
mou
… esomai homoios tôi Hupsistôi.]
67. Originally he was the thunder-god, in Greek [Greek: Keraunos]. Under
this name he appeared for instance on the bas-relief preserved in the
museum of Brussels (Dussaud, _Notes_, p. 105). Later, by a familiar
process, the influence of a particular god becomes the attribute of a
greater divinity, and we speak of a [Greek: Zeus Keraunios] (cf. Usener,
_Keraunos_, Rhein. Museum, N. F., LX, 1901).–This Zeus Keraunios
appears
in many inscriptions of Syria (_CIG_, 4501, 4520; Le Bas-Waddington,
2195,
2557 _a_, 2631, 2739; cf. Roscher, _Lexikon Myth._, s. v. “Keraunos”).
He is the god to whom Seleucus sacrificed when founding Seleucia
(Malalas,
p. 199), and a dedication to the same god has been found recently in the
temple of the Syrian divinities at Rome (_supra_, n. 10).–An
equivalent of
the Zeus Keraunios is the Zeus [Greek: Kataibatês]–“he who descends in
the
lightning”–worshiped at Cyrrhus (Wroth, _Greek Coins in the British
Museum_: “Galatia, Syria,” p. 52 and LII; Roscher, _Lexikon_, s. v.)
68. For instance the double ax was carried by Jupiter Dolichenus (cf.
_supra_, p. 147). On its significance, cf. Usener, _loc. cit._, p. 20.
69. Cf. Lidzbarski, _Balsamem, Ephem. semit. Epigr._, I, p. 251.–Ba’al
Samaïn is mentioned as early as the ninth century B. C. in the
inscription
of Ben Hadad (Pognon, _Inscr. sémit._, 1907, pp. 165 ff.; cf. Dussaud,
_Rev. archéol._, 1908, I, p. 235). In Aramaic papyri preserved at
Berlin,
the Jews of Elephantine call Jehovah “the god of heaven” in an address
to a
Persian governor, and the same name was used in the alleged edicts of
Cyrus
and his successors, which were inserted in the book of Esdras (i. 1;
vi. 9,
etc.)–If there were the slightest doubt as to the identity of the god
of
thunder with Baalsamin, it would be dispelled by the inscription of
Et-Tayibé, where this Semitic name is translated into Greek as [Greek:
Zeus
megistos keraunios]; cf. Lidzbarski, _Handbuch_, p. 477, and Lagrange,
_op.
cit._, p. 508.
70. On the worship of Baalsamin, confused with Ahura-Mazda and
transformed
into _Caelus_, see _Mon. myst. Mithra_, p. 87.–The texts attesting the
existence of a real cult of {257} heaven among the Semites are very
numerous. Besides the ones I have gathered (_loc. cit._, n. 5); see
Conybeare, _Philo about the Contemplative Life_, p. 33, n. 16; Kayser,
_Das
Buch der Erkenntniss der Wahrheit_, 1893, p. 337, and _infra_, n. 75.
Zeus
[Greek: Ouranios]: Le Bas-Waddington, 2720 _a_ (Baal of Bétocécé);
Renan,
_Mission de Phénicie_, p. 103.–Cf. _Archiv für Religionswissenschaft_,
IX,
1906, p. 333.
71. Coins of Antiochus VIII Grypus (125-96 B. C.); Babelon, _Rois de
Syrie,
d’Arménie_, 1890, p. CLIV, pp. 178 ff.
72. All these qualities ascribed to the Baals by astrological paganism
([Greek: hupsistos, pantokratôr], etc.), are also the attributes which,
according to the doctrine of Alexandrian Judaism, characterized Jehovah
(see _supra_, n. 66). If he was originally a god of thunder, as has been
maintained, the evolution of the Jewish theology was parallel to that of
the pagan conceptions (see _supra_, n. 69).
73. On this subject cf. _Jupiter summus exsuperantissimus_ (_Archiv f.
Religionsw._, IX), 1906, pp. 326 ff.
74. Ps.-Iamblichus, _De mysteriis_, VI, 7 (cf. Porph., _Epist. Aneb._,
c.
29), notes this difference between the two religions.
75. Apul., _Met._, VIII, 25. Cf. _CIL_, III, 1090; XII, 1227 (= Dessau,
2998, 4333); Macrobius, _Comm. somn. Scipionis_, I, 14, § 2: “Nihil
aliud
esse deum nisi caelum ipsum et caelestia ipsa quae cernimus, ideo ut
summi
omnipotentiam dei ostenderet posse vix intellegi.”–[Greek: Hêlios
pantokratôs]: Macrob., I, 23, 21.
76. Diodorus, II, 30: [Greek: Chaldaioi tên tou kosmou phusin aidion
phasin
einai k. t. l.]; cf. Cicero, _Nat. deor._, II, 20, § 52 ff.; Pliny, _H.
N._, II, 8, § 30. The notion of eternity was correlative with that of
[Greek: heimarmenê]; cf. Ps.-Apul., _Asclep._, 40; Apul., _De deo
Socratis_, c. 2: “(The planets) quae in deflexo cursu … meatus
aeternos
divinis vicibus efficiunt.”–This subject will be more fully treated in
my
lectures on “Astrology and Religion” (chaps. IV-V).
77. At Palmyra: De Vogüé, _Inscr. sem._, pp. 53 ff., etc.–On the first
title, see _infra_, n. 80.
78. Note especially _CIL_, VI, 406 = 30758, where Jupiter Dolichenus is
called _Aeternus conservator totius poli_. The {258} relation to heaven
here remained apparent. See _Somn. Scip._, III, 4; IV, 3.
79. Cf. _Rev. archéol._, 1888, I, pp. 184 ff.; Pauly-Wissowa, s. v.
“Aeternus,” and _Festschrift für Otto Benndorf_, 1898, p. 291.–The
idea of
the eternity of the gods also appeared very early in Egypt, but it does
not
seem that the mysteries of Isis–in which the death of Osiris was
commemorated–made it prominent, and it certainly was spread in the
Occident only by the sidereal cults.
80. The question has been raised whether the epithet [Hebrew: MR’ `LM’]
means “lord of the world” or “lord of eternity” (cf. Lidzbarski,
_Ephemeris_, I, 258; II, 297; Lagrange, p. 508), but in our opinion the
controversy is to no purpose, since in the spirit of the Syrian priests
the
two ideas are inseparable and one expression in itself embraces both,
the
world being conceived as eternal (_supra_, n. 76). See for Egypt,
Horapoll., _Hieroglyph._, I (serpent as symbol of the [Greek: aiôn] and
[Greek: kosmos]). At Palmyra, too, the title “lord of all” is found,
[Hebrew: MR’ KL] (Lidzbarski, _loc. cit._); cf. Julian, Or., IV, p.
203, 5
(Hertlein): [Greek: Ho basileus tôn holôn Hêlios], and infra, n. 81; n.
87.
Already at Babylon the title “lord of the universe” was given to Shamash
and Hadad; see Jastrow, _Religion Babyloniens_, I, p. 254, n. 10.
Nöldeke
has been good enough to write me as follows on this subject: “Daran kan
kein Zweifel sein, dass [Hebrew: `LM] zunächst (lange Zeit) Ewigkeit
heisst, und dass die Bedeutung ‘Welt’ secundär ist. Ich halte es daher
für
so gut wie gewiss dass das palmyrenische [Hebrew: MR’ `LM’], wenn es ein
alter Name ist, den ‘ewigen’ Herrn bedeutet, wie ohne Zweifel [Hebrew:
‘L
`WLM], Gen., xxi. 33. Das biblische Hebräisch kennt die Bedeutung ‘Welt’
noch nicht, abgesehen wohl von der späten Stelle, Eccl. iii. 11. Und, so
viel ich sehe, ist im Palmyrenischen sonst [Hebrew: `LM’] immer
‘Ewigkeit,’
z.B. in der häufigen Redensart [Hebrew: LBRYK SHMCH L`LM’]. Aber das
daneben vorkommende palmyr. [Hebrew: MR’ KL] führt allerdings darauf,
dass
die palmyrenische Inschrift auch in [Hebrew: MR’ `LM’] den ‘Herrn der
Welt’
sah. Ja der syrische Uebersetzer sieht auch in jenem hebräischen
[Hebrew:
‘L `WLM] ‘den Gott der Welt.’ Das Syrische hat nämlich einen formalen
Unterschied festgestellt zwischen _'[=a]l[)a]m_, dem Status absolutus,
‘Ewigkeit,’ und _'[=a]lm[=a]_ [_[=a]l^em[=a]_] dem Status emphaticus
‘Welt.’–Sollte übrigens die {259} Bedeutung Welt diesem Worte erst
durch
Einfluss griechischer Speculation zu Teil geworden sein? In der
Zingirli-Inschrift bedeuted [Hebrew: BTSLM] noch bloss ‘in seiner
Zeit.'”
81. Cf. _CIL_, III, 1090 = Dessau, _Inscr._, 2998: “Divinarum
humanarumque
rerum rectori.” Compare _ibid._, 2999 and Cagnet, _Année épigr._, 1905,
No.
235: “I. O. M., id est universitatis principi.” Cf. the article of the
_Archiv_ cited, n. 73. The _Asclepius_ says (c. 39), using an
astrological
term: “Caelestes dii catholicorum dominantur, terreni incolunt singula.”
82. Cf. W. Robertson Smith, 75 ff., _passim_. In the Syrian religions
as in
that of Mithra, the initiates regarded each other as members of the same
family, and the phrase “dear brethren” as used by our preachers, was
already in use among the votaries of Jupiter Dolichenus (_fratres
carissimos_, _CIL_, VI, 406 = 30758).
83. Renan mentioned this fact in his _Apotres_, p. 297 = _Journal
Asiatique_, 1859, p. 259. Cf. Jalabert, _Mél. faculté orient. Beyrout_,
I,
1906, p. 146.
84. This is the term (_virtutes_) used by the pagans. See the
inscription
_Numini et virtutibus dei aeterni_ as reconstructed in _Revue de
Philologie_, 1902, p. 9; _Archiv für Religionsw._, _loc. cit._, p. 335,
n.
1 and _infra_, ch. VIII, n. 20.
85. _CIL_, VII, 759 = Bücheler, _Carm. epig._, 24.–Cf. Lucian, _De dea
Syria_, 32.
86. Macrobius, _Sat._, I, 23, § 17: “Nominis (Adad) interpretatio
significat unus unus.”
87. Cicero, _Somnium Scip._, c. 4: “Sol dux et princeps et moderator
luminum reliquorum, mens mundi et temperatio.” Pliny, _H. N._, II, 6, §
12:
“Sol … siderum ipsorum caelique rector. Hunc esse mundi totius animam
ac
planius mentem, hunc principale naturae regimen ac numen credere decet,”
etc. Julian of Laodicea, _Cat. codd. astr._, I, p. 136, l. 1:
[Greek: Hêlios basileus kai hêgemôn tou sumpantos kosmou kathestôs,
pantôn
kathêgoumenos kai pantôn ôn genesiarchês.]
88. We are here recapitulating some conclusions of a study on _La
théologie
solaire du paganisme romain_ published in _Mémoires des savants
étrangers
présentés à l’Acad. des Inscr._, XII, 2d part, pp. 447 ff., Paris, 1910.
{260}
89. The hymns of Synesius (II, 10 ff., IV, 120 ff., etc.) contain
Peculiar examples of the combination of the old astrological ideas with Christian
theology.
.