Bible Studies: Essays on Phallic Worship and Other Curious Rites and Customs. Wheeler Joseph Mazzini
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to 1 Kings viii. 9 the Ark contained two stones, but the much later writer of Heb. ix. 4 makes it contain the golden pot with manna, Aaron's rod, and the tables of the covenant.
Mr. Sellon, in the papers of the Anthropological Society of London, 1863-4, p. 327, argues: "There would also now appear good ground for believing that the ark of the covenant, held so sacred by the Jews, contained nothing more nor less than a phallus, the ark being the type of the Argha or Yoni (Linga worship) of India." Hargrave Jennings (Phallicism, p. 67) says: "We know from the Jewish records that the ark contained a table of stone.... That stone was phallic, and yet identical with the sacred name Jehovah, which, written in unpointed Hebrew with four letters, is JEVE, or JHVH (the H being merely an aspirate and the same as E). This process leaves us the two letters I and V (in another form, U); then, if we place the I in the V, we have the 'Holy of Holies'; we also have the Linga and Yoni and Argha of the Hindus, the Isvara and 'Supreme Lord'; and here we have the whole secret of its mystic and arc-celestial import confirmed in itself by being identical with the Ling-yoni of the Ark of the Covenant."
In Hosea, who finds it quite natural that the Lord should tell him "Go take unto thee a wife of whoredoms," we find the Lord called his zakar (translated memorial, xii. 5). In the same prophet we read that Jahveh declares thou shalt call me Ishi (my husband); and shalt no more call me Baali (ii. 16). Again he says to his people "I am your husband" (Hosea iii. 14); "Thy maker is thine husband; Jahveh Sabaoth is his name" (Isaiah liv. 5). I was an husband to them, saith Jahveh (Jer. xxxi. 32. See also Jer. iii. 20 and Ezek. xvi. 32). God even does not scruple to represent himself in Ezekiel xxiii. as the husband of two adulterous sisters. Taking to other deities is continually called whoring and adultery. See Exod. xxxiv. 15, 16; Lev. xx. 5; Num. xxv. 1-3; Deut. xxxi. 16; xxxii. 16-21; Jud. ii. 17; viii. 27; 1 Chron. v. 25; Ps. lxxiii. 27; cvi. 39; Jer. iii. 1, 2, 6; Ezek. xvi. 15, 17; xxiii. 3; Hos. i. 2; ii. 4, 5; iv. 13, 15; v. 3, 4; ix. 7. In the Wisdom of Solomon (xiv. 12), we read: "For the devising of idols was the beginning of spiritual fornication, and the invention of them the corruption of life." Here the word "spiritual" is deliberately inserted to pervert the meaning. Let any one reflect how such coarse expressions could continually be used unless the writers were used to phallic worship. Further consider the narrative in Numbers xxxi., where the Lord takes a maiden tribute out of 32,000 girls, who must all have been examined. Vestal virgins and nuns are all consecrated like the kadeshim to the god, and the god is personified by the priest. In this sense phallicism is the key of all the creeds.
That some remnants of phallicism may be traced even in Christianity, will be evident to the readers of Anacalypsis, by Godfrey Higgins; Ancient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names, by Dr. Thomas Inman, and Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism Exposed and Explained, by the same author; the valuable Rivers of Life, by Major-General Forlong; a little book on Idolomania, by "Investigator Abhorrens"; and another on The Masculine Cross, by Sha Rocco (New York, 1874). The sign of the cross, certainly long pre-Christian in the Egyptian sign for life, is specially dealt with in the last two works. In fig. 7 we see the connection of the Egyptian tau with the Hermæ. Of fig. 8 General Forlong (Rivers of Life, vol i., p 65) says: "The Samaritan cross, which they stamped on their coins, was No. 1, but the Norseman preferred No. 2 (the circle and four stout arms of equal size and weight), and called it Tor's hammer. It is somewhat like No. 3, which the Greek Christians early adopted, though this is more decidedly phallic, and shows clearly the meaning so much insisted on by some writers as to all meeting in the centre."
The custom of eating fish on Friday (Dies Veneris) is considered a survival of the days when a peculiar sexual signification was given to the fish, which has such a prominent place in Christian symbolism. Fig. 9 illustrates the origin of the bishop's mitre.
The vescica piscis, or fish's bladder (fig. 10), is a well-known ecclesiastical emblem of the virgin, often used in church windows, seals, etc. The symbol is equally known in India. Its real nature is shown in fig. 11, discovered by Layard at Nineveh, depicting its worshipper seated on a lotus. The vescica piscis is conspicuously displayed in fig. 12, copied from a Rosary of the Blessed Virgin, printed at Venice 1582, with the license from the Inquisition, in which the Holy Dove darts his ray, fecundating the Holy Virgin. Many instances of Christ in an elliptical aureole may be seen in Didron's Christian Iconography, fig. 71, p. 281, vol. i. strikingly resembles our figure.
CIRCUMCISION
Among the many traces that the Jews were once savages I place the distinguishing mark of their race, circumcision. Many explanations have been given of this curious custom. The account, in Genesis xvii. that God commanded it to Abraham, at the ripe age of 99, critics agree was written after the exile—that is, thirteen hundred years after the death of the patriarch. Now, there is evidence from the Egyptian monuments that circumcision was known long before Abraham's time. This constrains Dr. Kitto to say, "God might have selected a practice already in use among other nations." If so, God must have had a curious taste and an uninventive mind. Why, having made people as they are, he should order his chosen race to be mutilated, must be a puzzle to the orthodox. Some writers have absurdly argued that the Egyptians borrowed from the Jews, whom they despised (see Genesis xliii. 32). Apart from the evidence of Herodotus and of monuments and mummies to the contrary, this view is never suggested in the Bible, but the testimony of the book of Joshua (v. 9) implies the reverse.
The narrative of the Lord's attempted assassination of Moses (Exodus iv. 24-26), which we shall shortly examine, has the most archaic complexion of any of the biblical references to circumcision, and from it Dr. T. K. Cheyne argues that the rite is of Arabian origin.13 If instituted in the time of Abraham under the penalty of death, it is curious that Moses never circumcised his own son, nor saw to its performance in the wilderness for forty years, so that Joshua had personally to circumcise over a million males at Gilgal.
Let us now look at the various theories of the origin and purpose of circumcision. Rationalising Jews say it is of a sanatory character. This view, though found in Philo, may be dismissed as an after theory to meet a religious difficulty. Most Asiatic nations are uncircumcised. The Philistines did not practice the rite, nor did the Syrians in the time of Josephus. Even if in a few cases it might possibly be beneficial, that would be no sufficient reason for imposing it on a whole nation under penalty of death. The fact is, the rite is a religious one. Indeed, upon its retention the early controversy between Jews and Christians largely turned.
The view that it is an imposed mutilation of a subject race is suggested in Dr. Remondino's History of Circumcision, and has the high authority of Herbert Spencer. He instances the trophy of foreskins taken by David as a dowry for Saul's daughter (1 Sam. xviii. 27), and that Hyrcanus having subdued the Idumeans, made them submit to circumcision. This, however, may have been a part of the policy of making them one with the Jewish race in being tributary to Jahveh. It is not easy to see how a mutilation imposed from without should ever become a part of the pride of race and be enjoined when all other mutilations were forbidden.
I incline to a view which, although in accord with early sociological conditions, I have never yet seen stated. It was suggested to me by the passage where Tacitus alludes to this custom among the Jews. It is that circumcision is of the nature of savage totem and tattoo marks—a device to distinguish the tribal division from other tribes, and to indicate those with whom the tribe might marry.14 If, as has been suggested, the meaning of Genesis xxxiv. 14 is "one who is uncircumcised is as a woman to us," this view is confirmed. The Jewish abhorrence to mixed marriages and "the bed of the uncircumcised" is well known.
The Hebrew distinguishing term for male—zachar, which also means record or memorial—will agree with this view, as also with that of Dr. Trumbull, which associates circumcision with that of blood-covenanting. It seems evident from the narrative in Exodus iv., where Zipporah, after circumcising her son, says—not as generally understood to Moses—"A bloody husband art thou to me," but to Jahveh, "Thou art a Kathan of blood"—i.e.,
Encyclopaedia Britannica, article "Circumcision."
What Tacitus says is, "They do not eat with strangers or make marriages with them, and this nation, otherwise most prone to debauchery, abstains from all strange women. They have introduced circumcision in order to distinguish themselves thereby."