Forlong - Rivers of Life

Fire Worship.
worshippers of idols, but this depends very much upon what we call an “Idol;” I do
not think Idol-worship has anywhere ceased to the present day. Zoroastrians,
Asyrians, Persians and Jews were Sun-worshippers all through the days of the Jewish
prophets, or up to the 3d century B.C., and therefore; undoubtedly more or less
Phallic in cultus. Ezekiel’s god. was evidently a “burning fire-god.” His “appearance
was as Fire, amber, and burning, whose smoke went up between the cherubim or
Solar figures” (see fig. 76, p. 194) which overshadowed that Ark-box on which sat, we
are told, “Israel’s God.” From Ezekiel 1 and Jewish tradition, we gather, that as a
punishment, this Jahveh was to desolate these phallo-solar and Fire altars, because,
amongst other reasons, they there also worshipped animals, “every form of creeping
thing, and abominable beast,” as well as “pictures of idols” on walls, to which, like
their brother Arabs following “the prophet,” the natural instinct of this race was opposed.
Yet it was not so at all times, for as the Southern Arabs had Hobab and Alilat, so had
their Northern brethren Belus and Ashera, Jehovah-Nissi, Ark, Serpent, Rod, Ephod,
&c., and if there were these holy objects and gods, so also statues, sculpturings and drawings
of these would exist on sacred walls and rocks; we gather from Arabian history
that such existed in Arabia till Mahomed destroyed them. The Arabic goddess Alilat is
the Hebrew Deleh “the Moon.” Her companion is Orotal, Hel, Aor, or Ur, “Light;”
and Ta-al “exalted;” Orotal is therefore “the exalted Light” or the Sun, 2 and Orotal
and Alilat correspond to Bacchus and Urania. Asheras or groves, and Baals were but
the Jewish forms of the worship of Adonis and Venus, which continued all over Syria,
and especially at Byblus and Emesa, down to long after the Christian era, see plate X.
Fig. 8, where I give the famous temple of the Sun at Emesa with the celebrated Lingam,
and over all, Luna or Isis. Strabo and others say that this Adonis was a handsome
god who, slighting the wishes of Venus, was killed by a boar—clearly a solar myth,
and so connected with Vishnoo’s third or Boar Avatār sent to slay and destroy a
mighty giant, or Daitya—a solar name. Proserpine, the Juno Inferna, restored Adonis
to life, on condition of his living six months with Venus, which evidently has to do
with the seed which lies dormant in the earth.
This temple at Byblus had women attached to it just as that of the Jews had, nor
do we hear that the Israelites raised any voice against such officials or their practices,
except once in the case of the sons of the High Priest Eli, 3 who perhaps exceeded
the customary grossness of the times. Most eastern temples, more especially those
connected with solar cult, had, and for the most part still have, Deva-dasis—temple,
or “God’s women,” the followers of Mylita, though generally not seated so confessedly
nor so prominently as those whom Herodotus describes. They were doubtless the
women with mirrors (Exod. xxxviii.) who wept for Tamuz the Sun-god..
No one can study the customs of all these temples and their officials without seeing
that the deities were practically the same; the dancing, weeping, hair-cutting, joys
1 Ezek. i. 8-10.
2 Herod. iii. 8.
3 1 Sam. ii. 22.
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