One of the painted walls from Catal Hüyük (www.smm.org/catal/murals/murlshw)
shows different variations of the mystical cross, the symbol of the four
corners of the world melting together into one. This mystical symbol is much
later repeated in the symbol of the cherubim: four very different animal
species united in one “living being”. To the right a picture of the gate of the
sun. In the open space between the two pillars there is room for the rain to
fall and the rivers to flow. The letter m is originally the sign for water,
Semitic: maim:
A very beautiful sculpture from Mesopotamia (now in Louvre, C.Contenau, L´art
de l´Asie Occidentale Ancienne, 1928,p.47) shows the triple bull god
guarding the gate of the sun and thereby securing fertility (the flowers and
vegetation runners sprouting from the twined pillars). Such twined pillars
decorated with symbols of vegetation are well known from St. Peter’s cathedra
in the church of St. Peter in Rome and are made after the model of a very
special type of pillars supposed to come from the temple of Jerusalem; acc. to
tradition Jesus was standing beside (between?) these pillars when casting out
demons.
On two holy leopards from the temple
walls of Catal Hüyük all the spots are turned into mystical crosses. That the
cross is a symbol of mystical vision is seen from a later repainting of the
leopard sculptures, where the spots are turned into eyes. (Mellaart AnSt
16,1966, pl.38.) The wheels in the vision of Ezekiel are symbols
of cosmos and the four rims meeting in the centre, the hub, are a mystical
symbol and therefore “full of eyes”, Ez 1,18 cf. the “living beings” “full of
eyes all over”, Rev 4,8. They are all vision.
The
longing for mystic vision is old in Israel and so is “the way to the deep
silence in the desert”. In my opinion this spirituality is already felt in the
name of the mystic psycho-cosmic mountain, Horeb (= “wilderness”, “deserted
land”). The strong longing for the “fleshpots of Egypt” is the opposite
longing.
The
twined Heracles pillars are also seen on the little temple façade from the Dura
synagogue, standing on each side of a central pillar marked out with seven
discs (see the picture above in chap. 16).
In
my opinion the central icon in the Mithraeum dug out at Dieburg (now in Dieburg
Kreis- und Stadtmuseum) is not a picture of Phaeton getting permission from
Helios to drive the sun’s quadriga as normally presumed. The horses are
unharnessed and taken away, not gathered together. The central figure on the
throne surrounded by four women, the four seasons, the cosmic ring and the four
winds is Aion-Saturn, enthroned on top of the heavenly vault, and the man
approaching the throne is the initiated Mithras-believer, the heliodromos
(“sun-runner”) who by means of the sun’s chariot has reached the highest goal. The
bearded man under the cloak blown up by the wind is Caelus (= “heavenly
vault”). Note the four twined sticks carried by the four men taking the horses
away. They are the four twined Heracles pillars securing the passage of the sun
in and out of cosmos through the gate in the east and the gate in the west.
That these four poles are taken away indicates that we have reached the
mystical place beyond time and space and creation, where also the four corners
of the earth disappear into the mystic eternity represented by Aion-Saturn.
(Relief from 200 AC)
________
The front cover is a
drawing by the artist Egil Lauridsen of a motif from a chalice from prehistoric
Susa, now in Louvre, Paris, Mémoires de la Délegation en Perse,XIII,1912,
tab.I,4. It shows the holy Capricorn with horns greatly enlarged, thereby
becoming a symbol of the moon (producing the juice of life). In the centre a
symbol of vegetation.
The back cover is
by the same artist: the stele of Urnammu, 3,05m. Sumerian, 2111-2094 BC. At the top the mystic light as the union of
sun and moon. Below the king is watering the tree of life in the presence of
the enthroned high god (and building a pyramid?) Now in the University of
Pennsylvania, Univ. Museum.