The fact that Moses made an image—in violation of the second commandment of the Decalogue—is not necessarily inconsistent with his being monotheist: there are many churches today where symbolic and even human figures are deified by people who profess to be monotheists. But as time passed, the presence of the serpent of Moses in the Temple of Jerusalem became so objectionable to the spirit of the prophets that in the days of Isaiah the serpent was broken into pieces. Even though its original purpose may have been curative, it being the image of the angel who was sent in the pillar of fire and cloud to save the people of Israel from slavery, the brazen serpent with the lapse of time became an object of worship.
8 II Kings 18 : 4. An astrological opinion is found in die rabbinical literature that the brazen serpent was a magic image, which obtained its power from the star under the protection of which Moses made it.
WORLDS IN COLLISION 177
represented as dragons. "Ishtar, the fearful dragon," wrote Assur-banipal.9
The Morning Star of the Toltecs, Quetzal-cohuatl (Quetzal-coatl), also is represented as a great dragon or serpent: "cohuatl" in Nahuatl is "serpent," and the name means "a feathered serpent."10 The Morning Star of the Indians of the Chichimec tribe in Mexico is called "Serpent cloud," n a remarkable name because of its relation to the pillar of cloud and the clouds that covered the globe after the contact of the earth with Venus.
When Quetzal-cohuatl, the lawgiver of the Toltecs, disappeared on the approach of a great catastrophe and the Morning Star that bore the same name rose for the first time in the sky, the Toltecs "regulated the reckoning of the days, the nights, and the hours according to the difference in the time."12
robin-bobin
The people of Ugarit (Ras-Shamra) in Syria addressed Anat, their planet Venus: "You reverse the position of the dawn in the sky." 13 In the Mexican Codex Borgia, the Evening Star is represented with the solar disc on its back.14
In the Babylonian psalms Ishtar says: 15
By causing the heavens to tremble and the earth to quake,
By the gleam which lightens in the sky,
By the blazing fire which rains upon the hostile land,
I am Ishtar.
Ishtar am I by the light that arises in heaven,
Ishtar the queen of heaven am I by the light that arises in heavep
I am Ishtar; on high I journey . . .
The heavens I cause to quake, the earth I cause to shake,
That is my fame. . . .
9 Langdon, Tammuz and Ishtar, p. 67.
10 Brasseur, Sources de I'histoire primitive du Mexique, pp. 81, 87.
11 Alexander, Latin American Mythology, p. 87.
12 Brasseur, Histoire des nations civilisees du Mexique, I, 120.
13 Virolleaud, "La deesse Anat," Mission de Ras Shamra, IV.
14 Seler, Wandmalereien von Mitla (1895), p. 45.
15 Langdon, Sumerian and Rabylonian Psalms (1909), pp. 188, 194.
178
WORLDS IN COLLISION
She that lightens in the horizon of heaven,
Whose name is honored in the habitations of men,
That is my fame.
"Queen of heaven above and beneath" let be spoken,
That is my fame.
The mountains I overwhelm altogether,
That is my fame.
The Morning-Evening Star Ishtar was called also "the star of lamentation." 16
The Persian Mithra, the same as Tistrya, descended from the heavens and "let a stream of fire flow toward the earth," "signifying that a blazing star, becoming in some way present here below, filled our world with its devouring heat." 17
In Aphaca in Syria fire fell from the sky, and it was asserted that it fell from Venus: "by which one would think of fire that had fallen from the planet Venus."18 The place became holy and was visited each year by pilgrims.
The festivals of the planet Venus were held in the spring. "Our ancestors dedicated the month of April to Venus," wrote Macrobius.1*
Baal of the Canaanites and of the Northern Kingdom of Israel was worshiped in Dan, the city of the cult of the calf, and throngs visited there during the week of Passover. The cult of Venus spread to Judea also. According to II Kings (23 : 5), King Josiah in the seventh century "put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven."
Baal, the sun, the moon, and the planets, is the division used also by Democritus: Venus, the sun, the moon, and the planets.
In Babylonia the planet Venus was distinguished from other
16 Langdon, Tammuz and Ishtar, p. 86.
17 F. Cumont, "La Fin du monde selon les mages occidentaux," Revue de Vhistoire des religions (1931), p. 41.
18 F. K. Movers, Die Phonizier (1841-1856), I, 640. Sources: Sozomen, The Ecclesiastical History ii. 5; Zosimus i. 58.
robin-bobin
19 Macrobe, Oeuvres (ed. Panckoncke, 1845), I, 253.
WORLDS IN COLLISION 179
planets and worshiped as a member of a trinity: Venus, Moon, and Sun.20 This triad became the Babylonian holy trinity in the fourteenth century before the present era.21
In the Vedas the planet Venus is compared to a bulclass="underline" "As a bull thou hurlest thy fire upon earth and heaven." 22 The Morning Star of the Phoenicians and Syrians was Ashteroth-Karnaim, Astarte of the Horns. Belith of Sidon was likewise Venus, and Izebel, wife of Ahab, made her the chief deity of the Northern Kingdom.23 The "queen of heaven," referred to repeatedly by Jeremiah, was Venus. The women of Jerusalem made cakes for the queen of heaven and worshiped her from the roofs of their houses.24
On Cyprus it was neither Jupiter nor any other god but "Kypris Queen whom they with holy gifts were wont to appease . . . pouring libations out upon the ground of yellow honey." 25 Such libation, as already mentioned, was made in Athens in commemoration of the Flood of Deucalion.
Not long ago, in Polynesia, human sacrifices were offered to the Morning Star, Venus.26 To the Arabian Morning Star, queen of the heaven—al-Uzza—boys and girls were sacrificed down to modern times.27 Likewise, human sacrifices were brought to the Morning Star in Mexico; this was described by early Spanish authors,28 and was still practiced by Indians only a generation ago.29 Quetzal-cohuatl "was called the god of winds" and of "flames of fire";30 the Greek Athene, too, was not only the planet, but also the goddess of storm
20 H. Winckler, Die babylonische Geisteskultur (1919). p. 71.
21 C. Bezold in F. Boll, Sternglaube und Stemdeutung (1926), p. 12.
22 Hymns of the Atharva-Veda (transl. Bloomfield), Hymn ix.
231 Kings 18; Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, VIII, xiii, 1; Philo of Byblos, Fragment 2. 25; D.
Chwolson, Die Ssahier und der Ssabismus (1856), II, 660.
24 Jeremiah 7 : 18; 44 : 17-25. Wellhausen, Reste arabischen Heidentums, p. 41.
25 The Fragments of Empedocles (transl. W. E. Leonard, 1908), Fragment 128, p. 59.
26 Williamson, Religious and Cosmic Reliefs of Central Polynesia, II, 242,
27 Wellhausen, Reste arabischen Heidentums, pp. 40-44, 115.
28 Manuscrit Ramirez.
29 G. A. Dorsey. The Sacrifice to the Morning Star by the Skidi Pawnee. This ceremony is described later in the present book.
30 De Sahagun, Historia general de las cosas de Nueva Espaiia, I, Chap. V.
180 WORLDS IN COLLISION
and fire. The planet Venus was Lux Divina, the Divine Light, in the worship of the Roman imperial colonies.31
In Babylonia, Venus was pictured as a six-pointed star—which is also the shape of David's shield—or as a pentagram—a five-pointed star (seal of Solomon)—and sometimes as a cross; as a cross it was pictured in Mexico, too.