Forlong - Rivers of Life

Serpent and Phallic Worship.
presumed to put the ark or altar away from “the Lord’s presence”—the orient window,
any more than he would presume to separate husband and wife; and so inseparable are
these—the ark and her Lord, that as the faith advanced in literature and to a somewhat
purer phase, we find that the presence of the ark is held to be the presence of the
Lord himself, and its oracle may be trusted to be his, just as we often accept the wife or
her sayings for those of her husband. Nevertheless, we observe in several IOnik shrines
of Syria and Mesopotamia, as that of Juno at Emesa and elsewhere, that none presumed to
sit on Sol’s throne; it is ever vacant, none daring even to put an image in that almighty
one’s vacant chair, be it one of his female energies or of himself as great Serapis or Siva,
for Sar-Apis, or Soorya (Sun) and Apis—the rider of the Bull, is a true name for him.
The pious and orthodox but honest Kitto tells us, though regretfully of course, in his
Pictorial Bible, (I. 240) that biblical scholars started with pain when the “eminently
learned Spencer, in his great work De Legibus Hebræorum” followed by many others,
showed that the poor wandering Edumeans had only badly copied the great faiths
around them. Kitto says justly that Christians “appear to be utterly unconscious of
the new sources of evidence which have been opened within the present century, and
by which the state of the question as to the religion, rites and ark, &c., of the Jews
and those of their neighbours, have been entirely altered from one of argument to one of
fact;” so that it is now clear 1 “beyond all further dispute, that very important similar-
ities do exist, and which can be denied by no one, without betraying great ignorance of
plain matters of fact.” This is pretty well for a very orthodox D.D. of the English
Church to admit, and highly orthodox churchmen to publish, but it is honest so far as
it goes, which is not of course nearly far enough; still it is a great step for churchmen to
face “facts,” and if they would only do this towards all faiths, and leave the results in
the hands of God, we should soon agree with each other.
With reference to those quaint little figures of man
and woman in my illustration, No. 73, p. 191, I wish to
draw attention to what I consider is their reappearance
in the rays of the Egyptian Sun—a very natural place
for them, as well as for Cruces Ansatæ, especially
during the time of Linga and yoni-worship, which we
have in this Fig. 78 from Mr. Samuel Sharpe’s very
excellent book on Egyptian Mythology. Here the Sun,
upheld by serpents on each side, is shedding hand-like
rays which appear to me the ark deity of my Fig. 73 re-
versed; and here we have man and woman engaged
in worshipping the procreative symbols, or as we
say in India “at Lingapooja”—the Supreme Sacrifice of Creation, in the
immediate and active presence of the Sun, for the serpent and hand denote the
1 Kitto’s Pic. Bible, I., Ex. xxv.
199
Fig 78—THEBAN WORSHIP OF AMON-RA.