8.The Europa-Sara motif
W.Burkert[1]
has made some important observations regarding a “goddess of nature” pictured
on an urn from the burial place of Teke, from the middle of the 9th cent.B.C.
(BICS 31,1984,96/J.N.Coldstream). Coldstream has already underlined that the two pictures shown above
must be seen as opposed to each other, both through the gesture of the goddess
and the condition of the trees. In the first picture the goddess is seen with
lowered wings and lifted arms. In the second with lowered arms and lifted
wings. In the first the trees sprout with a lot of sprouts unfolding, in the
second the leaf is hanging down withered and dried out. The first picture shows
the goddess as the center of the vegetation, full of energy lifting up her birds.
In the second picture she is in the process of letting go of the birds and
lifting her wings to leave the scene.
Burkert has drawn our attention to a
ritual celebrated in the Greek speaking part of Sicily in the town of Enyx. The
feast was called Anagógia: “…because they say: that Aphrodite leaves the place
to go to Africa, and all her pigeons leave together with her”. “But after 9
days a pigeon outstanding in strength and beauty is seen coming over the sea
from Africa, and clouds of pigeons following her, and the people of Enyx
celebrate a new feast called Katagógia”.[2]
R.Merkelbach has created much discussion with his book Roman und Mysterium in der Antike, 1962. He has argued that the
myth about Isis and Osiris has given both form and content to the Hellenistic
novels when they tell the love-story of the young couple, their separation and
final reunion. But also other mystery-cults like the cult of Dionysos and
Mithras have created novels which are to be read as mystery-texts: The
Shepherd-Novel of Longus and Heliodor´s Ethiopica.
Merkelbach is following important suggestions already made by K.Kerényi[3],
but goes much farther than Kerényi who has only pointed to traces of myth and mystery-cult in the novels. In his edition of
the Jewish novel, Joseph and Asenath,
M.Philonenko has tried to make use of Merkelbach´s insights in understanding
this tale[4].
Now the oldest of the novels,
Chariton’s Chaireas and Kallirhoe
(1st cent.A.C.) has received a rather superficial treatment by the above
mentioned scholars, while it quite obviously has no connection to either
Isis-religion or mystery-cult. But if we are to search for the origin of the
novels, we have to start with the oldest. But there are fragments of an even
older novel coming from Syria, the novel about Ninos and Semiramis from perhaps
1st cent. BC. The main characters are here Ninos, his beloved Semiramis and her
mother Derkia. We have here an interesting phenomenon that the names of gods
are only changed a little in order to pass as names of humans: Derketo and
Semiramis are two goddesses, mother and daughter, well known from Ashkalon (and
both names are in the Ugarittexts used as epithets of ´Anat). Semiramis is the
goddess ´Anat which can be seen from her youth (13 years), matching well with
the virginity of ´Anat so often stressed in the Ugarittexts. In a fragment
Ninos suffers as a shipwrecked castaway after his wife has been taken as a
prisoner of war. He is thrown ashore and sees a shadowy grove and in the centre
of the grove a great spring. (By Philo the “sons of the dioscours” are cast
ashore at Mt.Cassios after their primordial attempt to sail the sea, I,10,20).
All this could easily be understood on the basis of the Syrian belief in the
sun hero sailing the sea towards the mountain of god with the well of life.
Like the sun going down into the realm of death, he has to stand many
tribulations, but will finally prove victorious. The goddess will be taken away
by robbers (as the symbol of chaos) or a king (as the symbol of an older god),
but will finally be liberated and bring back grace to nature: the birds and the
flowers.
In Chariton´s novel, the cult of
Aphrodite plays a most important role. It is during the feast for the goddess
the young couple meets and falls in love, and the girl's similarity to the
goddess is stressed over and over again. Such is her beauty that she is often
taken as an epiphany of Aphrodite. Now we know from several myths that the
beauty of the Syrian goddess was used to pacify a monster, who was the
personification of sea and chaos, Hedammu in Hittite mythology, Jam in an
Egyptian text working with Syrian myth, Andromeda put out to the Ketos-monster.
This motif is found also in the novel where Kallirhoe is taken away over the
sea by a gang of pirats led by Theron, whose men are named “people from the
brothels and public houses”. But for a short moment they are struck with holy
fear, because Kallirhoe looked like the goddess Aphrodite in person, II 2,14.
She ends by falling into the hands of the High-king of Persia, but is liberated
by a Dioscurical pair, Chaireas and Polycharmos (Castor and Polydeukos). Such
pairs often carry names underlining their twin-like nature: Chaireas and Charmos.
The name Theron is also found as the name of a man from Tyre (“son of
Budastratos”, that is “servant of Astarte”) and Clermont-Gannau [5]
thinks it is a translation of the Phoenician Sid = “hunter” (Jatansed, Abdsed,
Sedjaton,Gersed and Sidon are some of the men and places named after this god).
He is the god called Agreus (“hunter”) by Philo, and in Chartage he is closely
attached to the great goddess Tanit (Sed-Tanit). When Theron is finally caught,
he is crucified after being whipped and tortured at the theatre, and he dies
hanged up by the sea which he has made dangerous by his robbing and stealing.
It seems likely that there is some cultic ritual behind this acting at the
theatre, a yearly feast at the theatre that ends the winter and greets the
coming of spring. Also the final act of the plot is played out at the
town-theatre VIII 7,1ff. R.Reitzenstein has already pointed out that the novel
is structured like a drama in five acts[6].
Chariton, the author of the novel,
was from Aphrodisias in Anatolia. The coins from this town show the goddess
attended by a Dioscurical pair easily recognised by their piloi-hats. Chaireas and
Polycharmos mean “joy” and “delight”, like Aphrodite attended by Eros and
Pothos she is served by Joy and Delight. Her typical cult-idol is a pillar-like
statue with pictures on the ephod of the goddess riding the sea on a kind of
monster with snake-coils as its body - one more indication that she is a
goddess taken away across the sea like the Sidonian goddess Europa. But while
Europa is taken away on the back of the bull over the sea to Crete, Kallirhoe
is taken from her hometown Syracus towards the East (Milet, Babylon). But after
her liberation she is found on the island Arados in Phoenicia. On this island
there was acc to the novel an old temple for Aphrodite. From there she is taken
to Paphos on Cyprus, the hometown of Aphrodite, and finally returned to Sicily.
When she is in the power of the Persian king, he orders a feast for 30 days to
be celebrated in every street in his empire with eating, singing, and playing
on the syringe. The king offers sacrifices to Eros and is the leader of a great
hunt, which is described in great detail although it has nothing to add to the
plot, in my opinion because it wants to picture the king as the great hunter,
bringing sacrifices to the great hunter Eros. Dreaming he sees with his mind's
eye Kallirhoe hunting like Artemis with her skirt bound up so her naked knees
and naked arms are seen and he hopes that she as the female hunter will take up
her position by his side VI,4.
But in the great fight between two
navies she is taken back by Chaireas, who even conquers the Persian Queen
Statira. The two women taken from the high god by a younger god is a Syrian
motif: Uranos sends Hora and Heimarmene against El Cronos, but he
takes them as his property. They are the symbols of “destiny (of the world)”
and “season”.
A Persian New Year´s feast,
Mithrakana, lasted for 30 days and celebrated the victory over a chaos king who
is robbed of his two women/cows by a young hero. The cows are also symbols of
water, cf. Kallirhoe´s name “beautiful stream of water”.
Like Kadmos who goes out from Sidon
to seek his sister Europa and is guided by a cow with the picture of the moon
on its flank to the place where he founds the city of Thebes, so Triptolemos
during his search for Jo travels towards the east and founds Tarsos (Strabo),
Jopolis better known as Anthioch by Orontes and Gordyene on the other side of
Tigris (Steph Byz, Gordyaia). Johs. Malala (chron
2 pp.28ff. & other sources, see Cook, Zeus I, p.237n1) tells us that Jo was
the mystical name the people of Argos gave the moon and that the beautiful
princess was named after it. Her brothers were Kasos & Belos (Kush and
Baal). There are many facts indicating that we are here dealing with a Semitic
myth. Europa must come from ´rb
“evening”,”west”, and Kadmos from qdm
“east”. Europa is handed over into the care of Asterios. Jo is guarded by
Argos, a man with eyes all over his body (Aesch.Prom. 569,679) and wearing a shaggy bull´s hide. In both cases a
young god liberates Jo and Europa's double, Harmonia, whom Kadmos liberates
from a dragon guarding her. The goddess is guarded by a creature who by his
very name or by his 1000 eyes betrays that he is heaven = the high god. The
goddess is kept in heaven united to the high god, the moon, she has to be
brought down to earth, cf the seals where a girl is descending standing in a
hut of wreaths on the back of a bull.
(M.Jastrow, Bildermappe zur
Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens, 1912, p.103 pl.151,no.187). Note the
two sitting and drinking from cups filled by the bowl of the crescent moon. The
young god with the morning star is leading a train of followers all dressed in
the short kilt of the hunter. An altar with a holy flame is standing between
them.
At the time of our Saviour there was
in Samaria a cult of Helene, the sister of Castor and Pollux [7].
Perhaps as a goddess giving inspiration to the gnosticism of Simon Magus.
In Sparta Helene was not only the
beautiful wife of Menelaos, but also a, goddess with two temples and a festival
called Heleneia. Her crater is the bowl of the moon. She is as shown by Martin
P. Nilsson (The Mycenaean Origin of Greek Mythology, 1932, pp.73-5) a pre-Greek
goddess of vegetation who is abducted in much the same way as Persephone. Not
only Paris is mentioned as her abductor but also Theseus who hid her in the
castle of Aphidna. She was liberated by her brothers Castor and Polydeukos. The
myth behind the Ilead is the old motif: the abduction of the goddess and the
two brothers trying to bring her back (Menelaos & Agamemnon, the fair haired
Menelaos being the sun hero and his brother Agamemnon being the god of life
fluids killed in his bath tub.) An old Spartan relief shows the dioscures
standing on each side of an ancient idol of a goddess[8].
The goddess Europa was also called
Helene/Helle, for the name of her feast in Crete was Hellotis. During this
feast she was honoured with a giant wreath of flowers, which was said also to
contain her bones, perhaps an old simple woodcarving representing the goddess
(Cook,Zeus,I,pp.525 & 644 with
the beautiful picture of Europa with the flower basket) This is, as seen by
Cook, the long wreath of flowers the goddess is seen holding in her hand on
some Hittite seals. We can now see that Helene sought by a pair of brothers,
Europa sought for by her brothers Kadmos, Phoenix and Cilix, and Helle abducted
on the back of the golden ram are precious remnants of a very old and very
important Near Eastern myth. Achilles Tatios´ novel starts with a beautiful
description of a painting of Europa being abducted from a meadow full of
flowers on the back of the bull. She is the goddess of the flowers. The picture
is seen by the author in a temple dedicated to Astarte in Sidon. The same motif
occurs in the novel of Jamblichos (Babylonica)
where the heroine is abducted from a paradise-like meadow by a ghost-like
he-goat, who has fallen in love with her (Acc. to the summery of the novel
preserved by Photios Bibliotheca.)
The titles of the Hellenistic novels, Ephesiaca,
Babylonica, Phoenicica stand for traditions connected with the great annual
festival where the abduction and return of the goddess is celebrated. In these
festivals the town or area finds its identity. The goddess with the long wreath
of flowers is a well known motif in Syria and is also found among the Antioch
mosaics treated by D.Levi. The motif is even found on Egyptian-Coptic textiles
(here after Levi,Antioch Mosaics
I,p.267) The goddess is riding on a hippokamp
in front of the long wreath carried by the small “karpoi”:
The hero and heroine of the novel by
Jamblichos the Syrian are called Sinonis and Rhodanes, of course after Sin, the
moon and Rhodos (“man from the sun-island”).
There is an old Phoenician tradition
about the love between sun and moon: At the court of Carthage songs were sung
about the “labours of the sun” (the 12 labours of Heracles) and the “vagrancy
of the moon”. Syllas from Carthage told about the “seeking and vagrancy”
attached to the moon. (Plutarch
de facie in erbe lunae 26f.[9])
Hidden behind the legends around
Cadmos and Europa/Harmonia we find the symbols of coincidentia oppositorum Europa is west and Cadmos east. At
Cadmos´s and Harmonia´s wedding their car was drawn by a lion and a boar, under
the spell of Apollo's lyre united under
the same yoke. They are duality brought together into union and at the end of
their journey towards north-west they are in Illyria changed to two snakes. We
have to interpret all this as the symbols of an ecstatic journey. (a)The jouney
over the great sea on the back of the bull to the paradise-island Crete where
Zeus is changed into an eagle, and where Europa under the holy plane tree gives
birth to the primordial twins Minos and Rhadamanthys. (b)The riding in the
wedding car is the ecstatic union of male and female pole in some kind of chariot
of the sun, and finally C. and H. are changed into the symbol of the
double-snake (c). The myth of Cadmos and Harmonia is a myth about the union of
the two halves, male and female, the sun hero and the goddess as a symbol of
earth and sea. Harmonia´s wedding dress given her by Cadmos is the beautiful
cover of flowers given to the earth by the sun in spring.
A coin from Carthage shows on the
obverse the goddess with the sign of the world mountain the so-called Tanit-sign
and dolphins and a hairdo full of ears of corn. On the reverse the sun hero,
identified with the morning star, riding on the horse of the sun, has reached
the tree of life growing besides the mystical lotus. Falbe-Lindberg-Müller II, p.77, no.32
K.Kerenyi[10]
has underlined the fact that Kadmos is acting as a kind of primordial man or
shepherd by killing the dragon and founding the city of Thebes. To my mind he
has to be seen as the sun-hero travelling towards the west finally coming to
the centre of the earth where he kills the dragon guarding the world mountain
and marries the princess who is an epiphany of the earth goddess.
The coin below (A.Parrot,Les Phéniciens,fig.209) shows the
sun-hero riding in the course of the sun and finally reaching the mystical
lotus and the symbol of the mystical union of all light: the sun resting in the
crescent moon. A gold-medallion from Carthage (7th-6th cent.B.C.) shows the
cosmic mountain covered with golden stars and guarded by two uraeus snakes.
Earrings from the same period with the same motif, but without snakes
(ibd.fig.192f.)
In Egypt the immortality of Pharaoh
is closely connected with his arrival after death to the island of the primeval
god in the centre of the universe surrounded by the “Ring-channel” (See the
chapter "Die Himmelreise des ägyptischen Königs" in: M.Riemschneider,
Augengott und Heilige Hochzeit,
1953).
W.Bousset thinks that the
Kadmos-Harmonia-Europa-legend is evidence of a Phoenician myth about the
liberation of a goddess disappeared or abducted, and he draws attention to
Nonnos Dion 40,346ff.: in Tyre was
shown the “House of Agenor”(father of Europa) and the “Bridal chamber of
Kadmos”. This myth lives on in the gnosticism of Simon the Magus and the
Valentinian gnosis, where Achamoth is liberated by the Saviour[11].
8a. Ruth
Acc to Bousset, the Phoenician goddess is often
split into two: sister and wife. Europa and Harmonia. Something similar seems
to be the case in the book of Ruth closely connected to the Jewish harvest
festival, the Pentecost. M.Astour [12]
points out that the goddess of harvest here as in Eleusis is split into two
aspects, mother and young woman (Demeter/Noomi) and (Kore/Ruth). The role of
Eleusis is played by Bethlehem = “The house of the Bread”. To this town comes
the old lady mourning over the loss of her two sons and her talks with the
women at the well are similar to Demeter´s words at the well in Eleusis Homer Hymn 90-117. Noomi is connected to
the word na´ama= “the
graceful/lovely” and Ruth´s son gets the name Obed = “worker”. Although he is
the son of Ruth, it is said “A son is born for Noomi”
There is even hinted at a love scene
on the threshing floor between Bo´az (cf. the name of the morning star ´Azizu)
and Ruth. Ruth´s first husband, Mahlon, has a name acc. to Astour derived from mehille “cave, underworld”.
8b. Phoinicica
Small papyrus-fragments of a novel from about
200 A.C. were ed. by A.Henrichs in 1972, Die
Phoinikika des Lollianus [13].
The novel of Lollianus seems quite close to the well known work of
Achilleus Tatius Leukippe and Cleithophon: a fragment tells about a ritual murder,
where Egyptian robbers from the delta of the Nile kill and eat a young boy, a
striking parallel to the scene in Ach. Tat. where robbers from the delta
seemingly sacrifice the heroine and eat from her entrails. It is reasonable to
assume that they are from the same period.
Acc. to Henrichs the fragments
support the interpretation of the Hellenistic novels as mystery-texts put
forward by Kerenyi and Merkelbach.
The first fragment speaks about some
boys, somebody fasting, a roof, and women dancing. Henrichs thinks it is
tempting to see this scenery in connection with the Phoenician feast for
Adonis, which was a feast prepared by the women, who put out the so-called
Adonis gardens on the roofs. After that, the main male character of the novel
is led to a hidden chamber where the girl Persis is waiting. ”And there I made
my first experience in the field of
love”. Henrichs stresses that this girl can not be the heroine but must be a
more anonymous character, probably playing the same role as Melitte in the
novel of Ach.Tat., a mature woman who comes to the hero while he is chained and
persuades him to have sexual intercourse with her, and the “Wolf-woman” in the
novel of Longus, who also gives the hero live information about the mystery of
sex. Persis carries a golden chain, and this makes her an epiphany of the
goddess of love acc to Henrichs, and he points out that the origin of the often
used phrase in the novels of love as a “mystery” must lie in some kind of
religious vocabulary.
The symbolism of initiation is also
the key to the human sacrifice: this awful act is performed by a naked man
(except for a purple loincloth - red is the colour of the hunter. Henrichs mentions
the purple scarves the initiated into the mysteries of Samothrake tied round
their loins). The heart is taken out of the victim, and the robbers swear an
oath on the entrails that they will never leave the group or betray it, not
even if they are tortured. Henrichs compares this with the oath of the soldiers
and the mystery-oath where one has to swear never to reveal the secrets of the
mysteries. The sacrifice of the young man is compared by Henrichs to the
Cretan-Minoan myth about the divine child Dionysos-Zagreus. “It is a law by us
that those who are to become members of the mysteries as the first task have to
perform the ritual sacrifice”, says the chief of the robbers in Achill.Tatios
3,22,3 and in Lollianus (fr.B,line 14): “…he gave of the heart to the
initiated” (myumenoi - present term.: “those who were in the
process of being initiated”[14].)
Ostracon,
Berlin Mus. (Leclant, "Astarté a Cheval") SYRIA 37,1960,pp.1ff.,pl. III,A
On the reverse of the paper telling
about the sacrifice there is a description of an orgy: “…they started singing
and drinking and making love to the women just in front of him”. But 11 men
kept sober as they had been picked out for a special task (?): by midnight they
threw some naked corpses out of the window, and now they dressed like ghosts
from the underworld, some in white gowns and with their faces painted in white,
others in black gowns with blackened faces. This important fragment tells that
there was a nightly arrival of the spirits of the dead in connection with the
feast for Adonis. They come attracted by the orgy and the chaotic behaviour.
We have already mentioned Melitte,
the female landowner, asking the
hero to make love to her. Merkelbach has compared this scene with the attempt
of Isis to become pregnant with her death-lamed husband. The origin of the
scene must be sought in the old idea that the goddess of the earth has to be
healed/made fruit-bearing by love:
Melitte asks the young man for a “medicine”(pharmakon)
for her sick soul V,27,2, and Cleithophon continues his story with the words:
“When I had healed Melitte”. In the gnosticism of Valentine “healing (íasis) for her sufferings” is given Achamoth by the Saviour (Ir.adv.haer.I 4,5 cf. Clem. exc. ex Theod. 44,2 & 45,1) cf. Iasion´s
(= “Healer”) sexual act with Demeter “on the trice-ploughed fallow field”. Also
in the novel of Jamblichos, the hero is approached by the “daughter of the farmer”. She has sex with him, and she has shorn
locks like Isis.
Achill.Tatios's novel starts with
the praise of Eros and his ruling over “heaven and earth and sea” I,2,1. This
praise is the purpose of the novel, and it must be seen on the background of
the cosmic wedding between sun hero and goddess celebrated in early spring and
also felt as the background to the Song of Songs.
Important in the novel is also the
description of the bulls to be sacrificed as “Egyptian bulls with horns as the
sickle of the crescent moon”. Later in Egypt after being shipwrecked, Leukippe
is taken captive by robbers called “shepherds” and living in the delta. This is
a remnant of the goddess taken away to heaven by the divine bull. The island of
El, ”the bull”, is, acc. to the Ugarittext CTA 3,6,14 situated in the delta of
the Nile. “The shepherds” or “robbers” must be some secret societies being
active on the chaotic side of the spring-festival. The members of the old
Iranian men´s societies as well as of the Islamic futuwwah-brotherhoods
were called “robbers”[15].
Leukippe is the goddess taken away, her beauty was as that of “Selene on a
bull” (I,4), but she is liberated by the young hero from a strange dementia brought upon her by the
Egyptian sorcerer Gorgias.
The robber and cannibal from which
the young couple has to escape in the novel of Jamblichos is Saturn/Molok demanding
human sacrifices. From his burning house they escape by throwing their donkeys
on the fire and using them as a bridge. Behind this dramatic act we are able to
see the sacrifice of children to Saturn by “letting them pass through the
fire”. The donkey is a symbol of the body being burnt while the spirit is set
free.
Figurines
dug out in Neirab, Persian period, SYRIA
8,1927 pl. LII: Man and woman seem united to the horse to a kind of centaur.
8c.
Xenophon: Efesiaca
The love story of Habrocomas and Anthia
The antique novel has its root in cult-legend. It is repetition, imitation of the account of the suffering of the god. How he is given into the hands of his enemies, is tortured and killed, and how he, nevertheless, is able to pass through all the sufferings alive and victorious. On their journey through life Habrocomas and Anthia experience – like all other young couples in the antique novel – the destiny of Isis and Osiris. The divine life and the divine suffering is pictured in human destiny, the teaching and experience of the mystery religions is reflected in the figures of two heathen “saints” – these novels, on the surface so simple and naive, have religious depths which the modern reader is barely able to fathom.
In this way the novel about the
travelling of the two lovers expands into the picture of man’s journey through
life. What is experienced by the initiated becomes picture…[16],
becomes symbols of the dangerous road of life and the all conquering power of
love, of divine providence and assurance of a happy ending. “Comfort in all the
tragedy and mourning of this world”. Nothing in the novel is told for the sake
of a good story, “everything is hieroglyph”(ibd.).
Efesiaca is
closely connected with the cult of Artemis in Ephesos, but an Artemis in the
course of time being fused with Isis and other goddesses. Anthia´s name means
“flower-girl”. She is the goddess with the flower basket, abducted, but
returning in spring. There is also a young man, Hyperanthes, the
beautiful Adonis-type killed and mourned for. The name of Habrokomas´s father
is Lykomedes (“the one with thoughts like a wolf”). Habrocomas means “the one
with radiant hair”. In IV,1 he tells the old fisherman about his “wanderings”.
Especially important is the oracle of Apollo at the beginning of the plot I,6:
it speaks about a pharmacon (“a
medicine”) which can be obtained only after they have fled over the sea, have
been chained “by men mingling with the waters”, have been buried in a grave and
destroyed by fire. Exactly the same is experienced by Baal in his fights with
Jamm and Mot. Habrocomas is the sun hero who, through many struggles, and even
a near-to-death experience, is able to return in spring strengthened by the
pharmakon of paradise, the plant of life that brings revival to all nature. The
journey through many countries brings H. to Southern Italy, where he toils hard
as a worker at the harbour, suffering through many “labours and fights”,V,10,
cf. the “labours” of Heracles. Finally, in Rhodes, the island of the sun, he is
united to his female partner. When H. is nailed to the cross, he is the god of
vegetation fastened to the tree. Two times he is threatened by fire, but saved
by water, I,12 & IV,2. But he is also the hunter: as the first of the many
skills he has to learn is mentioned “hunting”, I,1. Like Hippolyt he has great
contempt for Eros and as the typical ecstatic his very existence and power are
threatened by the confrontation with the female gender. He is totally lost when
he meets Anthia, who “revealed what she could of her body, that Habrocomas
should see it” I,3. The result is that poor H. is afflicted by a mortal
disease.
But the real Seth-figure is the
homosexual Hippothoos, who, with his robbers, makes a raid into Egypt on the
southern border. Like Seth, who has to carry the dead body of Osiris through
the sea to the land of the far west, Hippothoos swims with the dying youth
Hyperanthes on his back. He ends up as the faithful helper and steady companion
of Habrocomas.
8d. Apollonios of Tyre
A statue is erected in Tarsus showing him
standing in the prow of his ship with his right arm around his daughter Tarsia
trampling on the pimp, who is the bad guy of the story.
He sails out from Tyre as the young
sun hero, and like Resheph and Baal he is praised for his fantastic ability to
play the lyre. He knows the remedy of renewal, he anoints the king of Lybia
with an unction of revival. Like the old Saturn with long hair and beard
untamed for many years, he returns with a ship full of grain. But his soul is
totally shrouded in darkness and he hides in the darkest cabin of the ship
under deck. Now Tarsia´s fight to make him “step out into the light” begins,
“she urged him to return to the light”. “In the darkness” she poses him several
riddles, all of which he is able to answer, and finally she is able to rekindle
his wish to live.
All of this is understandable in the
light of the Tyrian cult where Melqart has to be “aroused”, or made energetic,
from his sleep of death in the underworld. Or (which is the same) be reborn
from the dark starry sky of Saturn.
The trampling on a person is also
seen on a wall-picture from Dura, from pronaos
A in "the temple for the gods of Palmyra", where the male Tyche
(“fortune”) of Dura and the female Tyche of Palmyra are enthroned on both sides
of the mystical rosette, both trampling on a river god, the personified river
that runs through the town [17].
The motif seems to have some importance when the goddess of “destiny” is
pictured. Originally it was probably a motif stressing the cruel nature of the
hunter/huntress, and this is perhaps the reason why the same motif is used in
India in the iconography of Shiwa and Kali. M. Avi-Yonah[18]
has shown how the Roman art has humanitas
as one of its characteristics. Even the death of the enemies of the Empire is
often depicted with a pitying touch. When a deceased officer on his memorial is
represented in the act of dispatching a barbarian, ”the latter is rendered in a
pathetic last appeal which characterizes this feeling of common humanity,
transcending nationality”. In Near Eastern art “any feeling of pity for the
vanquished foe is entirely absent”(ibd.). The god or goddess is hailed for
their ecstatic cruelty transcending any notion of good and evil.
8e. The woman liberated from a demon
We meet with this motif in the book of Tobit,
where the young hero with his divine comes,
Raphael, travels to the Far East and liberates the girl with the help of some
ingredients taken from a great fish. He has first eaten the flesh of the fish,
and now burns its heart and liver to scare the demon away. This must be a very
faint survival of the fish orgy which made the chaos dragon unfit for fight.
The demon flies to Egypt. Tobias´ father is blind but is healed, cf. Ps 13,4:
“Enlighten my eyes…” The sun-hero is just as much Raphael (“God’s healer”) who
carries a name that makes him quite similar to Iason (“healer”) travelling in
the sun-boat Argos to the copper mountain (Cholkis) to take the princess there
as his wife.
8f. And the woman liberated from herself
The Jewish novel Joseph and Asenath is both by
C.Burchard[19] and
M.Philonenko[20] dated to
1st cent. A.C.: Asenath is a very pretty, but very unapproachable virgin,
living surrounded by jewels and infinite luxury in a tower, and in her heart
full of contempt for all men. She refuses in the strongest possible way when
her father suggests Joseph as a suitable husband. But she changes her mind when
she has seen him, for his appearance was like that of “a god’s son”. The
description of Joseph depicts him as the sun-hero: He drives into the courtyard
of Asenath’s father through the eastern gate in a chariot drawn by 4 horses
white as snow and on his head is a crown with 12 beams of gold and in his hand
an olive branch with fruits. He has a heavenly comes (“companion”, in Roman times used about Hercules as comes of
the Emperor) coming from the morning star.(Like the apostle Thomas and his
heavenly twin, Jesus, on their journey to India, the land of the sunrise).
Asenath is the goddess living in the
tower-high world mountain surrounded by 7 handmaids called “pillars”. She is
dressed in sorrow and black, but when Joseph comes she changes into a bride’s
dress.(Cf the symbolism of Harmonia getting a bridal dress from Cadmos, Xthonie
getting a dress from Zas. They are symbols of the earth rejoicing in spring.)
Like the Near Eastern goddess Asenath is the symbol of the country or the town.
“Behind your walls shall nations find protection”, it is said. But also the
symbol of the people, the religious community, the soul, in this novel the
symbol of the soul converted to Judaism (Like Mirjai in the Madaean religion).
She is even saved by two Dioscuric brothers.
A beautiful Egyptian fairytale from
the 19th dynasty is the tale about the “Prince and his foreseen Destiny”[21].
We will concentrate on a single motif in the plot: the prince gets a chariot
and with all kinds of weapons and followed by his dog, he heads north hunting
the wild animals of the desert. He comes to the king of Naharin (Naharayim, a
kingdom situated between the upper part of Euphrates and Orontes, the meaning
of the name being “Two rivers”). The king keeps his daughter locked up in a
tower, and only he who is able to ascend to the window at a height of 70 yards
can get her as his wife. After having his sore feet treated and healed, the
prince is able to reach the window and is married to the girl.
This is a typical Syrian myth. In
the high North is found the Saphon-mountain as world pillar, and in it the
goddess is sitting by the window as Aphrodite Parakyptousa, and it has the
symbolism of seven attached to it. Naharin is not only the Aramean kingdom, but
also a mythological place: the mountain of El by the two cosmic water streams.
The sore feet of the sun-hero are due to his long journey to the end of the world.
8g. The Struggles of the Blessed in Estrangement
Such is the title of two important articles by
the Norwegian scholar M. Ravndal Hauge[22].
Hauge asks the important question: What is the main purpose of these stories
about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? Perhaps the most important motif is the motif
of the “chosen one”: Abel is the chosen one, Cain flies to the land east of
Eden, Abraham is chosen by the Lord and is called out of Babylon and sets out
on the long journey to the promised holy land. But he will only be the owner of
his grave there. Lot chooses an area east of the Judean Highland. Isaac is the
chosen son, his half brothers are denied access and get their home “towards the
east, in the land of the East” (Gen 25,6). The sons of Lot and Esau are given
room on the other side of Jordan “in the mountains”, Ishmael “in the desert”.
Joseph is the chosen son, predestined to rule over his brothers. As the only
one he gets his grave in the holy land just like his father (47,29-31 &
50,4-14.24f). The life of the patriarchs is a life constantly being on the
road, a life in exile, in estrangement from the holy Judean Highland. Hauge has
shown that the patriarch- and Moses-stories are full of exile- and home-coming
motifs. To the exile-motif is often tied a wife-motif, to the home-coming a
death- or substitute-sacrifice-motif. The blessed is staying at a place with a
name connected to the word gur (=
exile). Abraham is in exile in Egypt
and loses his wife, Sarah, but regains her with increased wealth. His wife is
taken from him by Abimelek in Gerar, but he wins her back with increased
wealth. Jacob gains two wives for himself in exile plus great wealth. Joseph
gets a wife in Egypt plus riches. Moses gets a wife while exiled to the desert.
Even more visible is the death motif connected with home-coming. Jacob must
fight with the angel before coming home, and is struck so hard that he becomes
an invalid. Joseph can only return as dead. Moses is threatened by God when he
returns, but his wife presents a bloody substitute. Abraham must give his son
as a sacrifice when coming to Mt. Moria, but God provides a substitute, a ram.
At the exodus, Israel must present a substitute, the paschal lamb, and on the
arrival at Jericho, the whole of Israel has to be circumcised. A whole
generation of Israelites has to die in
the desert before they can enter the holy land.
Hauge has not given any explanation
of these motifs. But at least for Sara and Rebecca abducted by Pharao and
Abimelek, it is obvious that the background is the West Semitic Europa-myth:
The goddess as the symbol of fertility abducted and brought back. The
background to the death motif is the sacrifice brought to secure the sun-hero’s
return from the realm of death. Egypt plays the role of the Far West, the land
of imprisonment. To secure exodus from this kingdom of death, a substitute must
be given: the lamb. It is all part of the celebration of spring, the return of
the sun at Easter-time. Hauge also draws attention to the return of those
exiled in Babylon and the death of the suffering servant of the Lord, Is 53.
The drama developing between the
hero and the heroine often becomes a triangle, the third person being a king:
|
Pharaoh – Sara – Abraham |
The local king – Mygdonia – Thomas, the
apostle |
|
King Abimelek – Rebecca – Isaac |
The king of Babylon – Sinonis – Rhodanes |
|
Zeus/king Asterios - Europa/Harmonia – Cadmos |
The old king – Stratonice – his son, Lucian, de dea 17f. |
|
Uranos, king of heaven – Hora &
Heimarmene – El Cronos |
|
W.Daum (Ursemitische Religion) found the background to this structure: A
young god liberates the female force of fertility from the sphere of the high
god. But perhaps it is safer to say that she is liberated from being held
captive in a passive state of primordial union. The dragon or coiled snake is
often seen as her guardian, and it is the symbol of amorphous matter, or, in
its raised state, a symbol of mystic vision. As the front cover for his book
Daum has a picture from a South Arabian temple of the young god fighting the
dragon to liberate a goddess surrounded by vegetation. A young hero liberating
a female fertility power from a dragon is also the motif of the oldest Iranian
New Years feast acc. to G. Widengren[23].
The Bible talks about liberation from exile and slavery, cf Bo´az as the
“liberator” (go´el) for Ruth and
Noomi, the name Noomi being a parallel to the Greek charites, Latin graces.
