The cause of this duality in the mythological handling of an historical event lies in the fact that the ancients themselves did not know for certain which of the planets had caused the destruction.
Some saw the pillar of cloud—Typhon defeated by Jupiter, the ball of fire that emerged from the pillar and battled with it. Others interpreted the globe as a body different from Jupiter.
The Greek authors described the birth of Athene (planet Venus), saying she sprang from the head of Jupiter. "And mighty Olympus trembled fearfully . . . and the earth around shrieked fearfully, and the sea was stirred, troubled with its purple waves."x One or two authors thought that Athene was born of Cronus. But the consensus of ancient authors makes Athene-Venus the offspring of Jupiter: she sprang from his head, and this birth was accompanied by great disturbances in the celestial and terrestrial spheres. The comet rushed toward the earth, and it could not be very well distinguished whether the planet Jupiter or its offspring was approaching. I may divulge here something that belongs to the second book of this work; namely, that at an earlier time, Jupiter had already caused havoc in the planetary family, the earth included, and it was therefore only natural to see in the approaching body the planet Jupiter.
I referred in the introductory part of this work to the modern theory which ascribes the birth of the terrestrial planets to the process of expulsion by larger ones. This appears to be true in the case of Venus. The other modern theory, which ascribes the origin of comets of short period to expulsion by large planets, is also correct: Venus was expelled as a comet and then changed to a planet after contact with a number of members of the solar system.
1 "The Homeric Hymn to Minerva" (transl. Buckley) in The Odyssey of Homer with the Hymns.
Cf. the translation on p. 168.
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Venus, being an offspring of Jupiter, bore all the characteristics known to men from early cataclysmic encounters. When a ball of fire tore the pillar of cloud and pelted the pillar with thunderbolts, the imagination of the people saw in this the planet-god Jupiter-Marduk rushing to save the earth by killing the serpent-monster Typhon-Tiamat.
It is not strange, therefore, that, in places as remote from Greece as the islands of Polynesia, it is related that "the planet Jupiter suppressed the tail of the great storm." 2 But we are told that in the same places, notably on the Harvey Islands, "Jupiter was often mistaken for the Morning Star." 3 On other islands of Polynesia, "the planets Venus and Jupiter seem to have been confused with each other." Explorers found "that the name Fauma or Paupiti was given to Venus
. . . and that the same names were given to Jupiter." *
Early astronomy shared Ptolemy's opinion that "Venus has the same powers" and also the nature of Jupiter,5 an opinion reflected also in the astrological belief that "Venus, when she becomes sole ruler of the event, in general brings about results similar to those of Jupiter." •
In one local cult in Egypt the name of Isis, as I shall show in the next volume, originally belonged to Jupiter, Osiris being Saturn. In another local cult Amon was the name for Jupiter.
Horus originally was also Jupiter.7 But when a new planet was born of Jupiter and became supreme in the sky, the onlookers could not readily recognize the exact nature of this change.
They gave the name of Isis to the planet Venus, and sometimes the name of Horus. This must have caused confusion. "One is confused by the various relations which exist between mother and son (Isis and Horus). Now he is her consort, now her brother; now a youth . . . now an infant fed at her
2 Williamson, Religious and Cosmic Beliefs of Central Polynesia, I, 123.
8 Ibid., p. 132. See also W. W. Gill, Myths and Songs from the South Pacific (1876), p. 44, and his Historical Sketches of Savage Life in Polynesia (1880).
p. 38.
4 Williamson, I, 122. See also J. A. Moerenhut, Voyages aux isles du Grand
Ocean (1837), II, p. 181.
B Ptolemy, Tetrabyblos (transl. F. E. Robbins, 1940), I, 4. «Ibid., II, 8.
t S. A. B. Mercer, Horus, Royal God of Egypt (1942).
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breast." 8 "A noteworthy representation shows her [Isis] in association with Horus as the Morning Star, and thus in a strange relation . . . which we cannot yet explain from the texts." 9
Also Ishtar of Assyria-Babylonia was in early times the name of the planet Jupiter; later it was transferred to Venus, Jupiter retaining the name of Mardulc.
Baal, still another name for Jupiter, was an earlier name for Saturn, and later on became the name of Venus, sometimes the feminine form Baalath or Belith being used.10 Ishtar, also, was at first a male planet, subsequently becoming a female planet.11
Worship of the Morning Star
Now that it has been shown it was Venus which, at an interval of fifty-two years, caused two cosmic catastrophes in the fifteenth century before the present era, we understand also the different historical connections between Venus and these catastrophes.
In numerous biblical and rabbinical passages it is said that when the Israelites went from Mount Sinai into the desert, they were covered by clouds. These clouds were illuminated by the pillar of fire, so that they gave a pale light.1 With this should be connected a statement of Isaiah: "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, the light of Noga was upon them." 2 Noga is Venus; it is, in fact, the usual name of this planet in Hebrew,3 and it is therefore an omission not to translate it so.
* Langdon, Tammuz and Ishtar, p. 24.
» W. M. Mtiller, Egyptian Mythology, p. 56.
10 ]. Bidez and F. Cumont, Les Mages hellenises (1938), II, 116.
robin-bobin
11 C. Bezold in F. Ball, Sternglauhe und Sterndeutung (1926), p. 9. 1 See the Section, "The Shadow of Death." 2 Isaiah 9 : 2.
s Tractate Shabbat 156a; Midrash Rabba, Numbers 21,245a; J. Levy, Worterbuch tiber die Talmudim und Midraschim (2nd ed. 1924), s.v. In the Hindu pantheon Naga or snake gods are apparently the comets. Cf. J. Hewitt, "Notes on the Early History of Northern India," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1827), p. 325.
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WORLDS IN COLLISION
>>Amos says that during the forty years in the wilderness the Israelites did not sacrifice to the Lord, but carried "the star of your god, which you made to yourselves." 4 St. Jerome interprets this "star of your god" as Lucifer (the Morning Star).5 ^> What image of the star was carried in the wilderness? Was it the bull (calf) of Aaron or the brazen serpent of Moses? "And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole." 6 Of this serpent it is said that it was made with the purpose of providing a cure for those bitten by snakes.7 Seven and a half centuries later this brazen serpent of Moses was broken by King Hezekiah, guided in his monotheistic zeal by the prophet Isaiah, "for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it." 8
The brazen serpent was most probably the image of the pillar of cloud and fire which appeared as a moving serpent to all peoples of the world. St. Jerome apparently had this image in view when he interpreted the star mentioned by Amos as Lucifer. Or was it the "star of David," the six-pointed star?
The Egyptian Venus-Isis, the Babylonian Venus-Ishtar, the Greek Venus-Athene were goddesses pictured with serpents, and sometimes
* Amos 5 : 26.
5 Cf. Vulgate (Latin) version of the Prophet Amos and Jerome's Commentary on the Prophets.
6 Numbers 21 : 9.
7 Those who were bitten by serpents looked at the brazen serpent for cure. Can a psychosomatic relationship go such a long way? The practices of the snake worshipers lend some credence to the physiological background of Numbers 21 : 9. But it is outside the scope of the present research to go into these details.