Part 15

Thus the command to Jehovah’s people as to their treatment of the people of Canaan was: “Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee: but ye shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars [or male symbols], and ye shall cut down their Asherim [or trees as a female symbol]: for thou shalt worship no other god: for the Lord [Jehovah], whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God: lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods.”[610] Here is a distinct reference to the primitive Threshold Covenant in its purity and sacredness, and to its perversion in the misuse of the phallus and tree in their symbolism.

Again the command was explicit to the Israelites: “Thou shalt not plant thee an Asherah of any kind of tree beside the altar of the Lord thy God, which thou shalt make thee. Neither shalt thou set thee up a pillar; which the Lord thy God hateth.”[611]

From the earliest historic times the serpent seems to have been accepted as a symbol of the nexus of union between the two sexes, and to be associated, therefore, with the pillar and the tree, as suggestive of the desire that may be good or evil, according to its right or wrong direction and use. Its place as a symbol has been at the threshold of palace and temple and home, with limitless powers of evil in its misuse.[612]

“Mighty snakes standing upright,” together with “mighty bulls of bronze” were “on the threshold of the gates” in ancient Babylon.[613] A serpent wreathed the phallus boundary stone (as if suggestive of its being a thing of life) on the threshold of Babylonian domains.[614] As a symbol of life and life-giving power the serpent stood erect above the head of the mightiest kings of Egypt, who gave and took life at their pleasure,[615] and it even accompanied the winged sun-orb in its manifestation of light and warmth and life over the grandest temples of ancient Thebes.[616] The Egyptian goddess Ket, or Kadesh, “Mistress of Heaven,” a divinity borrowed from the Semites, was represented as standing on a lioness, with lotus flowers, their stems coiled in circular form, in her right hand, and two serpents in her left hand, as she came with her offering to Min, or Khem, the god of generative force.[617] A similar representation of a goddess of life is found in ancient Assyrian remains.

In the representation of Nergal, the lord of the under world, in the ancient Babylonian mythology, the phallus and the serpent were identical.[618] Beltis-Allat, consort of Nergal, and lady of the under world, brandished a serpent in either hand. She was guardian of the waters of life which were under the threshold of the entrance of her realm.[619]

That which was primarily a holy instinct became, in its perversion, a source of evil and a cause of dread; hence the serpent became a representative of evil itself, and the conflict with it was the conflict between good and evil, between light and darkness. This is shown in the religions of ancient Babylonia, Egypt, and India, and Phœnicia and Greece, and Mexico and Peru, and various other countries.[620]

Vishnoo and his wife Lakshmi, from whom, according to Hindoo teachings, the world was produced, and by whom it continues or must cease, are represented as seated on a serpent, as the basis of their life and power.[621] Siva, also, giver and destroyer of life, is crowned with a serpent, and a serpent is his necklace, while the symbol of his worship is the _linga in yoni_.[622] A mode of Hindoo worship includes the placing of a stone _linga_ between two serpents, and under two trees, the one a male tree and the other a female tree.[623] And in various ways the serpent appears, in connection with different Hindoo deities, as the agent of life-giving or of life-destroying.[624] A suggestive representation of Booddha as the conqueror of desire shows him seated restfully on a coiled serpent, the hooded head of which is a screen or canopy above his head.[625]

Apollo, son of Zeus, was the slayer of the man-destroying serpent at Delphi; yet the serpent, when conquered, became a means of life and inspiration to others.[626] Æsculapius, the god of healing, a son of Apollo, was represented by the serpent because he gave new life to those who were dying. Serpents were everywhere connected with his worship as a means of healing.[627] The female oracle who represented Apollo at Delphi sat on a tripod formed of entwined serpents.[628] Serpents on the head of Medusa were a means of death to the beholder; and these serpents were given to Medusa instead of hair because of her faithlessness and sacrilege in the matter of the Threshold Covenant.[629] Thus the good and the evil in that which the serpent symbolized were shown in the religions of the nations of antiquity, and serpent worship became one of the grossest perversions of the idea of the primitive Threshold Covenant.

As in the matter of phallic worship and tree worship, so in this of the worship of the serpent, it would seem unnecessary to multiply illustrations of its prominence in various lands, when so many special treatises on the subject are already available.[630] It is only necessary to emphasize anew the fact that the evident thought of the symbol is an outgrowth or a perversion of the idea of the primitive Threshold Covenant.

The form of the Bible narrative, portraying the first temptation and the first sin, seems to show how early the symbolism of the tree and the serpent was accepted in popular speech. From that narrative as it stands it would appear that the first act of human disobedience was incontinence, in transgression of a specific command to abstain, at least for a time, from carnal intercourse. Desire, as indicated by the serpent, prompted to an untimely partaking of the fruit of the forbidden tree, and the consequences of sin followed. The results of this act of disobedience, as recorded in the sacred text,[631] make evident the correctness of this view of the case. When the Bible narrative was first written, whenever that was, the terms “tree,”[632] “fruit” of the tree,[633] “knowledge,”[634] “serpent,” were familiar figures of speech or euphemisms, and their use in the Bible narrative would not have been misunderstood by readers generally. Probably there was no question as to this for many centuries. It was not until the dull prosaic literalism of the Western mind obscured the meaning of Oriental figures of speech that there was any general doubt as to what was affirmed in the Bible story of the first temptation and disobedience.[635]

Philo Judæus at the beginning of the Christian era, seems to understand this as the meaning of the narrative in Genesis, and he applies the teachings of that narrative accordingly.[636] There are indications that the rabbis looked similarly at the meaning of the Bible text. There are traces of this traditional view in different Jewish writings.[637]

Evidently the original meaning was still familiar in the early Christian ages. But its becoming connected with false doctrines and heresies, as taught by the Ophites and other Gnostic sects, seems to have brought the truth itself into disrepute, and finally led to its repudiation in favor of a dead literalism.[638] The curse resting on the serpent, in consequence of the first sin of incontinence, was the degradation of the primitive impulse,[639] unless uplifted again by divine inspiration.[640] Because of their breach of the covenant of divine love our first parents were expelled from their home of happiness, and the guardians of the threshold forbade their return to it.[641]

In the closing chapters of the New Testament, as in the opening chapters of the Old, the symbolism of the tree and the serpent, and the covenant relations involved in crossing the threshold, appear as familiar and well-understood figures of speech. “The dragon, the old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan,”[642] representing unholy desire, is shut out from the precincts of the New Jerusalem. Within the gates of that city is there the tree of life watered by the stream that flows from under the throne of power.[643] The city threshold is the dividing line between light and darkness, good and evil, life and death. “Blessed are they that wash their robes, that they may have the right to come to the tree of life, and may enter in by the gates into the city. Without are the dogs, and the sorcerers, and the fornicators, and the murderers, and the idolators, and every one that loveth and maketh a lie.”[644]

Thus it is in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, at their beginning and at their close. And there are traces of the same truth in the teachings of the various religions, and of the more primitive customs and symbolisms. The all-dividing threshold separates the within from the without; and a covenant welcome there gives one a right to enter in through the gates into the eternal home, to be a partaker of the tree of life, with its ever-renewing and revivifying fruits.

Footnote 599:

See “Blood Covenant,” pp. 310–313.

Footnote 600:

See pp. 22 f., 39-44, 99-164, _supra_.

Footnote 601:

2 Cor. 2 : 16.

Footnote 602:

See, for example, Herodotus’s _History_, Bk. I., chaps. 181, 182. See pp. 111 f., _supra_.

Footnote 603:

Herodotus’s _History_, Bk. I., chap. 199.

Footnote 604:

See Deut. 25 : 1–9. See, also, chapter on “Sacred Prostitution” in Wake’s _Serpent Worship_; and Professor W.M. Ramsay’s “Holy City of Phrygia,” in _Contemporary Review_ for October, 1893.

Footnote 605:

See, for example, Squier’s _Serpent Symbol_; Forling’s _Rivers of Life_; Westropp’s and Wake’s _Ancient Symbol Worship_; Knight’s _Worship of Priapus_; Jennings’s _Phallicism_; Frazer’s _Golden Bough_; Monier-Williams’s _Brahmanism and Hinduism_, and his _Buddhism_; Griffis’s _Religions of Japan_, etc.

Footnote 606:

See, for example, in addition to the books just cited, Fergusson’s _Tree and Serpent Worship_; Ohnefalach-Richter’s _Kypros, die Bibel und Homer_; Hopkins’s _Religions of India_, pp. 527 f., 533, 540, 542.

Footnote 607:

See Dr. E.B. Tyler’s article on “The Winged Figures of the Assyrian and other Ancient Monuments,” in _Proceedings of the Soc. of Bib. Arch._, XII., Part 8, pp. 383–393; Dr. Bonavia’s articles on “Sacred Trees,” in _Babylonian and Oriental Record_, III., Nos. 1–4; IV., Nos. 4, 5; and De Lacouperie’s articles on Trees, _ibid._, IV., Nos. 5, 10, 11.

Footnote 608:

See, for example, Ohnefalach-Richter’s _Kypros_, Tafel-Band, pl. lxxxii., figures 7, 8; Donaldson’s _Architectural Medals of Classic Antiquity_, pp. 105–109; Von Löher and Joyner’s _Cyprus: Historical and Descriptive_, p. 153 f., Perrot and Chipiez’s _History of Art in Phœnicia and Cyprus_, I., 123, 276 f., 281, 284, 331 f.; W. Robertson Smith’s _Religion of the Semites_, p. 191.

Footnote 609:

Compare W. Robertson’s Smith’s _Religion of the Semites_, p. 437 f.

Footnote 610:

Exod. 34 : 12–15; Deut. 7 : 5.

Footnote 611:

Deut. 16 : 21, 22.

Footnote 612:

There seems, indeed, to be a connection between the Hebrew words, _miphtan_, “threshold,” and _pethen_, “asp,” “adder,” or “serpent,” as first pointed out to me by Mr. Montague Cockle. Although the verbal root is not preserved in the Hebrew, there is no valid reason for doubting that they go back to the same root. In Arabic, the verb is preserved as _pathana_, “to tempt.” Its derivatives indicate the same meaning. This would seem to confirm the connection of the primitive threshold, the serpent, and temptation. In Leland’s _Etruscan Roman Remains_ (p. 131 f.) are citations from several ancient works, and references to current Italian traditions, showing the supposed connection of the serpent with the threshold, the phallus, and married life, that are in obvious confirmation of the views here expressed.

Footnote 613:

See p. 109 f., _supra_; also, Schrader’s _Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, Vol. III., Pt. 2, p. 72 f.

Footnote 614:

See, for example, Rawlinson’s _Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia_, III., p. 45.

Footnote 615:

See Erman’s _Life in Anc. Egypt_, p. 60.

Footnote 616:

_Ibid._, p. 259, vignette illustration.

Footnote 617:

See Wilkinson’s _Anc. Egypt._, III., 235, pl. lv., fig. 2. Prisse’s _Mon. Egypt_, pl. xxxvii.; also Layard’s _Nineveh and its Remains_, p. 169 (Am. ed.), and W. Max Müller’s _Asien und Europa_, p. 314.

Footnote 618:

See Perrot and Chipiez’s _History of Art in Chaldea and Assyria_, I., 349 f. See, also, Layard’s _Monuments_, Series ii., pl. 5, for representation of the conflict between Marduk and Tiamat. The serpent is there shown on the feminine Tiamat where it appears on the masculine Nergal.

Footnote 619:

See Maspero’s _Dawn of Civilization_, pp. 690–696; Sayce’s _Relig. of Anc. Babylonia_, p. 286.

Footnote 620:

See Sayce’s _Relig. of Anc. Babylonia_, pp. 281–283; Wilkinson’s _Anc. Egypt._, III., 141–155; Fergusson’s _Tree and Serpent Worship_, pp. 5–72; Squier’s _Serpent Symbol_, pp. 137–254; Réville’s _Native Religions of Mexico and Peru_, pp. 29–32, 53, 166.

Footnote 621:

See Wilkins’s _Hindu Mythology_, p. 99.

Footnote 622:

See Wilkins’s _Hindu Mythology_, p. 218.

Footnote 623:

Maurice’s _Indian Antiq._, V. 182 f.

Footnote 624:

_Ibid._, V.

Footnote 625:

See frontispiece of Sir Monier Monier-Williams’s Buddhism; see, also, Fergusson’s article on “The Amravati Tope” in “Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,” Vol. III., Pt. 1, pp. 132–166.

Footnote 626:

See Keightley’s _Mythology_, art. “Phœbus-Apollo.”

Footnote 627:

See “Æsculapius,” in Smith’s _Classical Dictionary_.

Footnote 628:

See Herodotus’s _History_, Bk. IX., chap. 81.

Footnote 629:

See “Gorgones,” in Smith’s _Classical Dictionary_.

Footnote 630:

See, for example, Maurice’s _Indian Antiquities_; Fergusson’s _Tree and Serpent Worship_; Forlong’s _Rivers of Life_, I., 93–322; Wake’s _Serpent Worship_, pp. 81–106.

Footnote 631:

Gen. 3 : 7, 10–13, 16.

Footnote 632:

See, for example, Psa. 128 : 3; Prov. 3 : 18; 11 : 30; Ezek. 19 : 10.

Footnote 633:

See, for example, Gen. 30 : 2; Deut. 7 : 13; 28 : 4, 18, 53; 30 : 9; Psa. 127 : 3; 132 : 11; Song of Songs 4 : 16; Isa. 13 : 18; Micah 6 : 7; Acts 2 : 30.

Footnote 634:

See, for example, Gen. 4 : 1, 17, 25; 38 : 26; Judg. 11 : 39; 19 : 25; 1 Sam. 1 : 19; 1 Kings 1 : 4; Matt. 1 : 25.

Footnote 635:

Gen. 3 : 1–13.

Footnote 636:

See, for example, Philo Judæus’s _Works_, “On the Creation,” I., 53–60; “On the Allegories of the Sacred Laws,” I., 15–20; “Questions and Solutions,” I., 31–41.

Footnote 637:

See, for example, _Midrasch Bereschit Rabba_, pararshah 18, § 6, in comments on Gen. 2 : 25; Weber’s _Die Lehren d. Talmud_ (ed. 1866), pp. 210–213.

Footnote 638:

See Clement of Alexandria’s _Miscellanies_, III., 17; also Irenæus’s _Against Heresies_, I., 30.

Footnote 639:

Gen. 3 : 14, 15.

Footnote 640:

Compare Num. 21 : 4–9; 2 Kings 18 : 4; John 3 : 14, 15.

Footnote 641:

Gen. 3 : 22–24.

Footnote 642:

Rev. 20 : 1, 2.

Footnote 643:

_Ibid._, 21 : 1–27; 22 : 1, 2.

Footnote 644:

_Ibid._, 22 : 14, 15.

APPENDIX.

APPENDIX.

SIGNIFICANCE OF BLOOD IN THE MARRIAGE RITE.[645]

In Ægypto Superiori, quemadmodum in aliis regionibus, ubi mores prisci praeservati vigent, matrimonium eousque non consummatur, donec, examine instituto, sponsus sanguinem, ceu testimonium virginitatis sponsae elicuerit. Linteolum quoddam singulare, mucinii vel mappae speciem prae se ferens, a parentibus sponsae ad obryssam hanc praeparatur.

Quum sponsus vigilia nuptiarum sponsam convenit, linteolum istud digito circumvolvit, atque periculum virginitatis instituit. Sanguis linteolum maculis cruentans fit insigne ac testimonium sponsi autographum virginitatis sponsae intemeratae atque comprobatae, necnon tessera eius in uxorem accitae. Ipsum linteolum, manu sua cruenta quasi sigillo signatum, parentibus, qui illud, tamquam indubitatum castitatis filiae suae virginalis servatae testimonium, insimul et pignus sacri foederis sui connubii custodiant, thesauri instar recondendum redditur. Receptio pignoris evidentiaeque tarn castitatis illibatae quam matrimonii iuncti, inter amicos, qui prae foribus cubiculi nuptialis adventum linteoli praestolantur, causa exsistit gaudii laetitiaeque exsultantis.

Verumenimvero si nec manamen sanguinis, nec rubrum manus cruentatae vestigium occasione istiusmodi se prodiderint, turba amicorum in limine conclavis nuptialis praestolantium, loco exsultationis laetae moerore tristi luget atque plangorem eiulatumque saevum ciet; aut vero silentium, eloquens luctus indicium, inter eos regnat, nam dolor est illatus domui decore honoris orbatae, cuius parem ne mors ipsa quidem gignere possit. Si res sic se habent, sponsa libello repudii, absque vinculo connubii, a sponso dimittitur. Ast si digitus suus tactu cruore manante contaminetur, ab ipso eo momento sua fit uxor, etiamsi consummatio coniugii, ut moris est, ad usque triduum aut hebdomadem differatur.[646]

Id quod foedus inter se suamque sponsam figit atque sancit, est cruoris tactu sponsi eliciti profluvium. Meatum in penetralia suae essentiae incisione aperiens, sponsus “caedit foedus” cum ea in conspectu sui Creatoris, ad litteram.[647] Sponsus “nocte nuptiarum sanguinem virginalem offerens,” fit sponsus sanguineus, “khatan damim.”[648] In hoc rerum statu divulsio est quod coniungit, atque vestigium manus cruentum est quod instrumentum foederis subministrat.

Sponsus, loco proprii digiti ansa interdum clavis ianuae ligneae pristinae, specie digito simili, quae linteolo hoc obvolvitur, examen instituit, eo quod haec, _aperiendo_ penetralia intemerata, quae penetrare[649] praeter se liceat nemini, actum _reseratus_ imagine quadam symbolica significet. Signaculum tamen cruentum in linteolo utroque in casu eiusdem omnino est momenti.

Pari modo camisia sponsae communis, loco mucinii vel telae, soluit notam manus cruentae recipere, quae ut testimonium matrimonii identidem custodiri consuevit. Caeterum hae sunt moris vigentis variationes exiliores, nec quae referantur dignae, nisi ut declarent, quam sint testimonia variorum, qui haec perhibuerint, secum pugnantia.[650]

Footnote 645:

See p. 196, _supra_.

Footnote 646:

Vide Lane’s _Mod. Egypt._, II, 241; item Skertchley’s _Dahomey As It Is_, p. 499.

Footnote 647:

Foedus pangere Hebraice _Karath_ idem sonat ac “caedere.” Vide Gen. 15 : 17–19; 21 : 22–24, etc. Vide etiam Trumbull’s _Blood Covenant_, pp. 265–267, 322 _et seq._, Lane’s _Arab. Eng. Lex._, et Freytag’s _Lex. Arab. Latin_, s. vv. “Khatan,” “Khatana.”

Footnote 648:

Vide Fuerst’s _Heb. Lex._, s. v. “Khatan;” etiam Exod. 4 : 25, 26.

Footnote 649:

Burckhardt, in suis _Proverbiis Arabicis_ (pp. 139 _seqq._), moris huius meminit; Lane autem in suo _Modern Egyptians_ (I, 218) idem perhibet. Verum ego loquar de quaestione e fontibus fide dignis testium integerrimorum. Burckhardt enim asserit “clavim” magis idoneam putari a plebecula in Ægypto Superiori in examine hoc instituendo quam digitum.

Footnote 650:

Burckhardt meminit differentiae cuiusdam huiusmodi; constat tamen eum morem camisiam sponsae adhibendi nonnisi cognovisse.

EXHIBITING THE EVIDENCES.

In Syria, veluti in Ægypto, tela cruenta, vel indusium sanguine maculatum loco probae castitatis testimoniique matrimonii habetur. In Sinis “linteolum” ferculo a famulo offertur sponso, ubi is cubiculum nuptiale primum intrat, quod his thalamo insternit, parentibus sponsae, sanguine inquinatum ad praeservandum traditurus.[651] Apud Dahomeanos thalamus, nocte nuptiarum gossypina nova impressa (vulgo “calico”) consternitur, postero autem die, si cuncta e sententia successerint, _godo_ (ligatura, quae Anglis “T bandage” sonat) ad amicos sponsae cum triumpho deportatur ... dum sponsus lodiculam thalami exhibet.[652]

In Ægypto indumenta nuptialia, vestigiis manus cruentae notata, “erant post nuptias supra fores domus rustici suspensa.”[653] Alias sponsa poterat postridie nuptiarum amicis se sistere indusio sanguine maculato supra alias vestes induta, atque in responsum coram eis congratulantibus saltare rogata.[654] Soluit, porro, indusium hoc amicis visum venientibus exhiberi, aut vero ad examinandum a vicinis in domos circumferri.[655] Mores consimiles in quibusdam etiam Syriae partibus usuvenerunt.

Ubi mappa vel pannus specialis in Ægypto Superiori adhibetur, haec, quamprimum madere cruore contingat, a sponso mulieribus praestolantibus foras exporrigitur. Mater sponsae, eam obtentam marito tradit, hic autem tiarae (Turcis _turban_) suae apponit, seque primoribus senioribusque populi in aedibus suis ut hospites congregatis sistit. Hi, testimonium istud illibatae filiae suae castitatis servatae intelligentes, atque insimul eam nunc foedere matrimonii in uxorem accitam, inclinatione reverenter facta, ei apprecantes aiunt: “Fidem facio.”[656]

In oris Africae occiduis, apud populos magis primaevos, indumentum sanguine commaculatum vicinis exhiberi consuevit. Quinimo et apud humaniores Christianorum gentes mos viget vestem hanc die Solis post nuptias in fana, ut a cunctis cernatur, deferendi atque exhibendi.[657] Siquidem absque veste hac cruentata indicium matrimonii est nullum.

Ritus nuptiales apud veteres Aztec atque Nahuas, gentes Americae Centralis, a ritibus Ariorum priscorum haud fuerunt absimiles. Quum enim sponsa a suis amicis ad novum deduceretur domicilium, ibidem a sponso excipiebatur. Utrisque erat thuribulum thusque cremabant, in matta coram focum domesticum simul sedentes. Tum sacerdos accessit, atque eos ritu sacro in matrimonium coniugavit. Hinc se in fanum contulerunt, in limine cuius sacerdotes praestolantes eos exceperunt. In cubiculo proprio in fano morantes, triduum tresque noctes exercitiis pietatis dediti, secum ipsis transigere debebant, tribus vetulis custoditi atque invigilati. Nocte quarta, quum connubium consummandum erat, sacerdotes duo thalamum suum praepararunt, tumque relicti sunt secum ipsi soli. “Nonnullis in locis proba virginitatis iuvencae postridie nuptiarum postulabatur. In quibuslibet nuptiis moris erat ut sponsores cubiculum, ubi nupturientes pernoctassent, intrarent, atque camisiam sponsae tradi postularent; quam, si cruore infectam reperissent, foras proferrent, perticae appenderent, atque ceu testimonium, sponsam virginem fuisse, visui exhiberent; tum choreae institutae totaque loca peragrata saltando, debacchando summaque laetitia exsultando; quae omnia ‘camisiam saltare’ appellari consueverunt. Si quando camisiam sanguine non maculari contigerit, gaudia lacrymis ac plangori cesserunt locum, non secus ac maledicta, sugillationes dicteriaque soluerunt in sponsam iactari, insimul vero et marito ius erat eam libello repudii donare.”[658]

“Si Muhammadanus puellam in uxorem ducit, atque lege pacti connubialis eam virginem castam esse oportere stipulaverit, indicia eiusdem interdum exigere consuevit. Quandoquidem familia eam, casu quo indicio hoc caruerit, repudio remittendam exspectare debeat, pater sollicita cura cavebit ut habeat quo se, si forte filia sua iacturam indicii virginitatis fecisset, purgare possit. Halebii versanti mihi audire contigit Arabem quemdam a Cadi documentum impetrasse, atque a testibus subsignari curasse, quo ostenderetur filiam camelo delapsam detrimentum tulisse.