ii. 16; yet Balaam, inspired by God, prophesies from the high places of

Baal. This name, though so appropriate to the Almighty, became abhorrent to the Jews when it was so frequently associated with idolatry, and a new cognomen, or "the Supreme," was adopted by them, viz., Jehovah, = the Eternal, the Ever-Living One, the Creator; see Exod. iii. 14. "Baal" was the supreme god of all the great Syro-Phoenician nations, with the insignificant exception of the Jews; and when the latter migrated into Canaan they were surrounded on all sides by his worshippers. Towns, temples, men, including even a son of Saul, of David and of Jonathan, viz., Eshbaal, Meribbaal, and Beelida, were called after him. As the sun-god, Baal-Hammon, Song of Sol. viii. 11; 2 Kings xxiii. 5; he was worshipped on high places, Num. xxii. 41; and an image of the sun appeared over his altars, 2 Chron. xxxiv. 4. As the generative and productive power, he was worshipped under the form of the phallus, Baal-Peor; and youths and maidens, even of high birth, prostituted themselves in his honour or service; Num. xxv.; 2 Kings xxiii. 7. As the creator, he was represented to be of either or of both sexes; and Arnobius tells us that his worshippers invoked him thus:

"Hear us, Baal! whether thou be a god or a goddess."

Though he is of the masculine gender in the Hebrew, the lord, yet Baal is called [------], = the lady, in the Septuagint; Hos. ii. 8; Zeph. i. 4; and in the New Testament, Romans xi. 4. At the licentious worship of this androgyne, or two-sexed god, the men on certain occasions wore female garments, whilst the women appeared in male attire, brandishing weapons. Each of this god's names had a female counterpart; and the feminine form of Baal was Beltis, Ishtar, and Ashtarte. As he was the sun-god, she was the moon-goddess. Now, whilst the masculine name (as Bel or Bal, Baal, Baalim,) appears nearly one hundred times in the Hebrew Old Testament, the feminine equivalent is only found three times in the singular Ashtoreth, and six times in the plural Ashtaroth; always in association with Baal-worship. Knowing, as we do, the immense diffusion of her worship amongst the Babylonians, Assyrians, and Phoenicians, this appears strange. There is a word of the feminine gender occurring in the Hebrew twenty-four times, viz., Asherah or Asharah; plural, Asharth translated in the Septuagint and Latin vulgate, a tree, or "grove," in which they have been followed by most modern versions, including the English. This supplies the void, for Asharah may be regarded as another name for the goddess Ashtoreth, as is plainly seen by the following passages: "They forsook Jehovah and served Baal and Ashtoreth;" Judges ii. 18; whilst in the following chapter we read, "They forgot Jehovah their God, and served the Baalim and the Asharoth;" iii. 7. What, then, was the Asharah? It was of wood, and of large size; the Jews were ordered to cut it down; Exod. xxxiv. 18, etc.; and Gideon offered a bullock as a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the Asherah. Occasionally it was of stone. It was carved or graven as an image; 2 Kings xxi. 7. It often stood close to the altar of Baal; Judges vi. 25 and 80; 1 Kings xvi. 82, 88; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 8. Usually on high places and under shady trees; 1 Kings xiv. 28; Jer. xvii. 2; but one was erected in the temple of Jehovah by Manasseh; 2 Kings xxi. 7. It had priests; 1 Kings xviii. 19; and its worship was as popular as that of Baal; for whilst the priests of "the Baal" were four hundred and fifty, those of "the Asherah" were four hundred, who ate at the table of Queen Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal, king of Sidon. It was sometimes surrounded with hangings, and was worshipped by both sexes with licentious rites; 2 Kings xxiii. 7; Ezek. xvi. 16. As Baal was associated with sun-worship, so was the Asherah with that of the moon; 2 Kings xxi. 8; 2 Chron. xxxiv. 4.

Besides these Asheroth, female emblems of Baal, there were Asherim, male emblems of Baal, "symbolising his generative power" (Furst, Hebrew Lexicon), which are mentioned sixteen times in the Hebrew scriptures. It is only found in the plural, and must have been a multiple representation of the singular, Asher, which means "to be firm, strong, straight, prosperous, happy," * and cognate with the Phoenician (Osir), "husband," "lord," an epithet of Baal.

* The lupanars at Pompeii were distinguished by a sign over the street door, representing the erect phallus, painted or carved, and having the words underneath, "Hie habitat felicitas."

Doubtless this was also identical with the Egyptian Osiris, = the sun, = the phallus. He was said to have suffered death like the sun; and Plutarch tells us that Isis, unable to discover all the remains of her husband, consecrated the phallus as his representative. Thus "the Asharim" were male symbols used in Baal-worship, and sometimes consisted of multiple phalli, of which the branch carried by an Assyrian priest, in Plate iii. Fig. 4, is a conventional form. They were then counterparts of the "multimammia" of Greek and Roman worship.* This is confirmed by a curious passage, 1 Kings xv. 13 (repeated 2 Chron. xv. 16). We learn (xiv. 28) that the Jews, under Rehoboam, son of Solomon, having lapsed into idolatry, had "built them high places, images, and Asharim ("groves," A. V.) on every high hill, and under every green tree; and that there were also consecrated ones ("sodomites," A. V.) in the land." But Asa, his brother, on succeeding to the throne, swept away all these things, and (xv. 18) deposed the queen mother, Maachah, because she had made a miphletzeth to an Asherah ("an idol in a grove," A. V.) miphletzeth, is rendered by the Vulgate "simulacrum Priapi." The word is derived from palatz, "to be broken," "terrified," or the cognate, phalash, palash, "to break or go through," "to open up a way;" a word or root found in the Hebrew, Phoenician, Syriac, and Ethiopie. Doubtless the Greek [------] phallus, was hence derived, since it has no independent meaning in Greek; and Herodotus and Diodorus expressly assert that the chief gods of Greece and their mysteries, especially the Dionysiac or Bacchic revels, in which the phallus was carried in procession, were derived from the east. Compare also the Latin pales, English pale, pole, = Maypole. A similar word, with a corresponding meaning, exists in the Sanscrit. Thus, then, according to the Hebrew scriptures, there were two chief symbols used in the worship of Baal, one male, the other female.

See Figs. 15, 16.

We can now look upon the very symbols themselves, which were so used--perhaps the most remarkable in existence. It is well known that the Chaldeans, from whom all other nations derived their religion, astronomy, and science, gave the name of Bel or Baal to their chief god. In the most ancient inscription yet deciphered, written in the Babylonian and Arcadian languages, a king rules by "the favour of Bel." Another name for Baal is Assur, or Asher, from whom Assyria is named. In the cuneiform inscriptions of Sennacherib, the great king of Assyria, Nineveh is called "the city of Bel," and "the city beloved by Ishtar." In another inscription he says of the king of Egypt:--"the terror of Ashur and Ishtar overcame him and he fled." Assurbanipal thus commences his annals "The great warrior, the delight of Assur and Ishtar, the royal offspring am I." In a cuneiform inscription of Nebobelzitri, we read:--"Nineveh the city, the delight of Ishtar, wife of Bel." Again, "Beltis, the consort of Bel." "Assur and Beltis, the gods of Assyria." Thus we see that Baal and Bel were identical with Assur, and Ashur. Doubtless, then, "Asherah" is the last name with the feminine termination (as Ish = man, Ishah=woman), and is identical with Ishtar, Ashteroth, Astarte and Beltis. The Septuagint has rendered "Asherah" by "Astarte," in 2 Chron. xv. 16, and the Vulgate by "Astaroth," in Judges iii. 7. Herodotus described (b.c. 450) the great temple of Belus at Babylon, and its seven stages dedicated to the sun, moon, and planets, on the top of which was the shrine. This contained no statue, but there was a golden couch, upon which a chosen female lay, and was nightly visited by the god. Now, therefore, that the palaces of the Assyrian kings, and their "chambers of imagery," have been by great good fortune laid open to us, we might expect to discover the long-lost symbolism of Baal-worship. And so we have.

To commence with the simplest. The (Ashcrim) is seen as the mystic palm-tree, the tree of life, Fig. 99; the phallic pillar putting forth branches like flames, Fig. 65; and the tree with seven phalloid branches, so common on Assyrian and Babylonian seals, Plate xvii., Fig. 4. See also the remarkable Syrian medals, Plate xvii., Fig. 2, on which is represented Baal as the sun-god, holding the bow, and surrounded by phalli.

Or, least conventional of all, the simple phallus, of which there are two remarkable specimens in the British Museum. Each of these is about two and a half feet high, and once guarded the bounds of an estate. Among the Greeks and Romans, boundaries were also marked by a phallic statue of Hermes, the god of fertility. These Assyrian emblems have doubtless often been honoured with rural sacrifice. Themselves the most expressive symbol of life, they are also covered with its conventional emblems.

A back view of one is given, Figure 174. The body is mainly occupied with a full length portrait of the great king. For as the Assyrians represented the Deity, the source of all life, by the phallus, so the monarch was the god of this lower world, the incarnation of God on earth. He was the source of life to the empire, and as such was addressed--"O king, live for ever" (Dan. v. 10). He, like the gods, never dies. "Le Roi est mort; Vive le Roi" The ensigns of royalty were also those of the creator-god. Accordingly, his garments and crown are embroidered with that sacred emblem, the Asherah. He bears the strung-bow and arrows, emblems of virile power, borne afterwards by the sun-god Apollo, and the western son of Venus. An erect serpent occupies the other side, and ends with forky tongue near the orifice. The glans is covered with symbols. On the summit is a triad of sun emblems; beneath are three altars, over two of which are the glans-shaped caps, covered with bulls' horns, always worn by the Assyrian guardian angels, and intense emblems of the male potency. For in ancient symbolism, a part of a symbol stands for the whole; as here, the horns represent the bull, and the glans the phallus. Above the third altar is a tortoise, whose protruded head and neck reminded the initiated of the phallus; and the altars are covered with a pattern drawn from the tortoise scales. We have, besides, a vase with a rod inserted, emblem of sexual union, and a cock, with wings and plumage ruffled, running after a hen in amorous heat. The glans only of the other is copied.

Fig. 175. At the top are the sun-symbols, as before. Beneath is the horse-shoe-like head-dress of Isis, and there are two altars marked with the tortoise-emblem in front. Over both rises the erect serpent, and upon one lies the head of an arrow or a dart, both male symbols. The miphletzeth which Queen Maachah placed in or near the Asherah, probably resembled these Assyrian phalli, or the Asherim.

And now we come to the Asherah, a much more complex and difficult symbol than any other which we have named. This object has long puzzled antiquarians, and though it is continually recurring in the sculptures from Nineveh, it has not yet been fully explained. In Fig. 176 we see it worshipped by human figures, with eagles' heads and wings, who present to it the pine-cone, = the testis, and the basket, =the scrotum (?), intense emblems of the male creator.

Fig. 177 it is adored by the king and his son or successor, with their attendant genii. The kings present towards it a well-known symbol of life and good fortune, the fist with the forefinger extended, or "the phallic hand." Here, then, we have evidently the Asherah, or Ashtaroth-symbol, the female Baal, the life-producer, "the door" whence life issues to the world. As such the goddess is here symbolised as an arched door-way. In the Phonician alphabet, the fourth letter, daleth, = a door, has the shape of a tent-door, as on the Moabite stone, A, and also in the Greek [------] But another form, perhaps as ancient, is D, which, when placed in its proper position, would be [--], the very form of the Asherah.* In the plural, this word stands for the labia pudendi, [--------], "because it shut not up the doors of the womb," Job iii. 10.** We infer from Numbers xxv. 6-8, that in the rites of Baal-peor, the Kadeshoth, or women devoted to the god, offered themselves to his worshippers each in a peculiar bower or small arched tent, called a qubbah. The part also through which Phinehas drove his spear (see Num.