The celestial struggle at the Sea of Passage is depicted in the familiar image of the Archangel Michael slaying the dragon. Michael produces fire by touching the earth, and it was the emanation of this archangel that was seen in the burning bush. He has his abode in heaven and is the forerunner of Shehina or God's presence, but as Lucifer, Michael falls from heaven and his hands are bound by God. All these attributes and acts of the Archangel Michael13 lead us to recognize which planet he represents: it is Venus.
The Archangel Michael, or the planet Venus, and the Archangel Gabriel, or the planet Mars, saved the people of Israel on two dramatic occasions. At the Sea of Passage, when the hosts of Egypt, pursuing the fleeing slaves, could be seen in the distance ("the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians marched after them; and they were sore afraid" 14), the sea was torn apart, and the slaves walked on the bottom of the sea and reached the other shore. Their enemies were thrown high by the released tides, which fell down when a spark passed between Venus and the earth.
Eight hundred years passed after the Exodus. The Assyrian hosts, which a generation earlier had removed the Ten Tribes of Israel to an exile from whence they never returned, invaded Judea with the express purpose of crushing rebellious Judah and removing him from his homeland and from the scene of history. A blast from the planet Mars fell upon the camp of the Assyrians and annihilated it. Those rabbinical sources which ascribed this act to both archangels were 12 Pirkei Rabbi Elieser 42.
13 An extensive literature on the Archangel Michael can be found in Ginzberg, Legends, Index Volume, under "Michael."
" Exodus 14 : 10.
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not wrong. Venus pushed Mars toward the earth, and thus both were instrumental in the destruction.
The author of the apocryphal book of the Ascension [Assumption] of Moses knew that "Venus and Mars are each as large as the whole Earth."15
Because of their intervention at moments when the national existence of Israel was at stake, Michael and Gabriel were looked upon as "guardian angels" of the eternal people.
Gabriel is the Hebrew Hercules (Heracles). Actually the classic authors made it clear that Hercules is another name for the planet Mars.18 In the Gospel of Luke (1 : 26) Gabriel is the angel of Annunciation to the Virgin.
In the Roman Catholic Church Michael is the conqueror of Satan, "head of the host of heaven and first of the saints after Mary."
Planet Worship in Judea in the Seventh Century
In the Northern Kingdom the process of disassociating the deity from the celestial object had not yet been completed when the Kingdom was destroyed (—723 or —722), and its population was led away into captivity, from which they did not return. "And they [the tribes of the Northern Kingdom] left all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made a grove, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal" (II Kings 17 : 16).
Only a few years after the deliverance of Judea from the hand of Sennacherib, Manasseh, son of Hezekiah, "built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord" (II Kings 21 : 5). "For he [Manasseh] built again high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down, and he reared up altars for Baalim, and he made groves, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them" (II Chronicles 33 : 3).
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is Ginzberg, Legends, II, 307.
10 See note 1, the Section, "The Worship of Mars." Plutarch wrote in Of the Fortune of Romans, Chap. XII: "It is asserted that Hercules was conceived in a long night, the day having been rolled back and retarded against the order of nature and the sun arrested."
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*
It was in the time of Josiah, grandson of Manasseh, and shortly before the exile of Judah to Babylon, that a pure monotheism emerged as an outcome of the progress the Jewish people had made during its long struggle for national existence, on the one hand, and for purification of its concept of God, on the other. "And the king [Josiah] commanded Hilkiah the High Priest ... to bring forth out of the Temple of the Lord all the vessels that were made for Baal and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven: and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them into Bethel. And he 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" (II Kings 23 : 4-5).
The Scriptures do not hide the fact that in Judea, as well as in Israel, the planetary cult was the official cult with the priests and with kings, with many prophets and with the people. Thus Jeremiah, contemporary of King Josiah, says: "At that time, saith the Lord, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves: and they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshipped" (Jeremiah 8 : 1-2). And again he says: "And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, shall be defiled as the place of Tophet, because of all the houses upon whose roofs they have burned incense unto all the host of heaven" (Jeremiah 19 : 13).
In the days of Jeremiah and King Josiah, a scroll was found in a chamber of the Temple (II Kings 22). It is generally thought that it was the book of Deuteronomy, the last book of the Pentateuch. The text of the scroll made a strong impression on the king.
"And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the
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Lord thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven" (Deuteronomy 4 : 19).
"Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath . . ." (5:8), which is a passage of the Decalogue (Exodus 20 : 4) verbatim.
"If there be found among you . . . man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness . . . and hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded . . . then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman . . .
and shall stone them with stones, till they die" (17: 2^5).
Thus we see the centuries-long struggle for the Jewish God, Creator and not unanimated planet, itself a creation, being carried on in the closing decades before the exile to Babylon with the help of the book whose authorship was ascribed to Moses.
When the people of Jerusalem were exiled to Babylon, and groups of refugees succeeded in escaping to Egypt, taking with them Jeremiah, they said to him: "But we will certainly . . . burn our incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals and were well, and saw no evil. But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have robin-bobin
wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine" (Jeremiah 44 : 17-18).