A	>>	B	>>	C	>>	D	>>	E
F	>>	G	>>	H	>>	I	>>	J
K	>>	L	>>	M	>>	N	>>	O
P	>>	R	>>	S	>>	T	>>	U
V	>>	W	>>			X	>>	Z

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - "The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax"

Maurice Maeterlinck - "The Unknown Guest"

Zane Grey - "Desert Gold"

Walter Dill Scott - "Increasing Efficiency In Business"

The God Idea of the Ancients or Sex in Religion

E >> Eliza Burt Gamble >> The God Idea of the Ancients or Sex in Religion




Among their mechanical arts, a few specimens of which have been
preserved, is the potter's wheel, an invention which, so far as
its utility is concerned, is declared to be absolutely
perfect--the most complete of all the instruments of the world.
"It never has been improved and admits of no improvement." In
fact all that may be gathered concerning the ancient Etrurians, a
people who by the most able writers upon this subject is believed
to have been one of the first to leave the Asiatic hive, is in
perfect accord with the facts already set forth regarding that
mighty nation, perhaps of upper Asia, who carried the study of
astronomy to a degree of perfection never again reached until
after the discovery of the Copernican system, who invented the
Neros and the Metonic Cycle, who colonized Egypt and Chaldea, and
who carried civilization to the remotest ends of the earth.

The philosophy of the Etrurians corresponds with that of the most
ancient Hindoo system, and displays a degree of wisdom
unparalleled by any of the peoples belonging to the early
historic ages. According to their cosmogony, the evolutionary or
creative processes involved twelve vast periods of time. At the
end of the first period appeared the planets and the earth, in
the second the firmament was made, in the third the waters were
brought forth, in the fourth the sun, moon, and stars were placed
in the heavens, in the fifth living creatures appeared on the
earth, and in the sixth man was produced. These six periods
comprehended one-half the duration of the cycle. After six more
periods had elapsed, or after the lapse of the entire cycle of
twelve periods, all creation was dissolved or drawn to the source
of all life. Subsequently a new creation was brought forth under
which the same order of events will take place. The involution
of life, or its return to the great source whence it sprang, did
not, however, involve the destruction of matter. The seeds of
returning life were preserved in an ark or boat--the female
principle, within which all things are contained. This indrawing
of life constituted "the night of Brahme." It was represented by
Vishnu sleeping on the bottom of the sea.

From the facts adduced in relation to the Etrurians we are not
surprised to find that their religion was that of the ancient
Nature worshippers, and that a mother with her child stood for
their god-idea. In referring to the religion of this people, and
to the great antiquity of the worship of the Virgin and Child,
Higgins remarks: "Amongst the Gauls, more than a hundred years
before the Christian era, in the district of Chartres, a festival
was celebrated in honor of the Virgin," and in the year 1747, a
mithraic monument was found "on which is exhibited a female
nursing an infant--the Goddess of the year nursing the God day."
To which he adds: "The Protestant ought to recollect that his
mode of keeping Christmas Day is only a small part of the old
festival as it yet exists amongst the followers of the Romish
Church. Theirs is the remnant of the old Etruscan worship of the
virgin and child." As a proof of the above, Higgins cites
Gorius's Tuscan Antiquities, where may be seen the figure of an
old Goddess with her child in her arms, the inscription being in
Etruscan characters. "No doubt the Romish Church would have
claimed her for a Madonna, but most unluckily she has her name,
Nurtia, in Etruscan letters, on her arm, after the Etruscan
practice."

From the monuments of Etruria the fact is observed that descent
and the rights of succession were traced in the female line, a
condition of society which indicates the high position which must
have been occupied by the women of that country.

In Oman is said to exist a fragment of the government of the old
Ethiopian or Cushite race. If this is true, then we may be able
to perceive at the present time something of the character of the
political institutions of this ancient nation. As no people
remains stationary, and as degeneracy has been the rule with
surrounding countries, we may not expect to find among the people
of Oman a true representation of ancient conditions, yet, as has
been observed, we may still be able to note some of the facts
relative to the organization of society and their governmental
institutions.

In a description furnished by Palgrave, Oman is termed a kingdom,
yet it is plain from the observations of this writer that the
existing form of government is that of a confederacy of nations
under a democratical system, identical with that developed during
the later status of barbarism. This writer himself admits that
Oman is less a kingdom than an aggregation of municipalities, and
that each of these municipalities or towns has a separate
existence and is controlled by its own local chief; but that all
are joined together in one confederacy, and subjected to the
leadership of a grand chief whom the writer is pleased to term
"the crown," but why, as is evident from the description given,
bears no resemblance to a modern monarch. The chiefs who direct
the councils of the municipalities are limited in their powers by
"the traditional immunities of the vassals," the decision of all
criminal cases and the administration of justice being in the
hands of the local judges. In the descriptions given of their
governmental proceedings, it is stated that the whole course of
law is considered apart from the jurisdiction of the sovereign,
who has no power to either change or annul the enactments of the
people.

Here, it is observed, exists almost the identical form of
government which was in use among the early historic nations,
before governments came to be founded on wealth, or on a
territorial basis[67]; or, in other words, before the monied and
aristocratic classes had drawn to themselves all the powers which
had formerly belonged to the people.

[67] See The Evolution of Woman, p. 238.


We must bear in mind the fact that under these earlier
democratical institutions, the term "people" included not only
men but women, and as the grand chief, the local rulers, and the
judges held their positions by virtue of their descent from, or
relationship to, some real or traditional leader of the gens, who
during all the earlier ages was a woman, we may believe that the
power of women to depose their political leaders so soon as their
conduct became obnoxious to them was absolute and unquestioned.

Doubtless, as we have seen, the government of Oman has undergone
a considerable degree of modification since the days of Cushite
splendor and supremacy; that, like all other nations which have
come in contact with the Aryan and Semitic races, the tendency
has been toward monarchial government; nevertheless, with its
practically free institutions, representing as they do, in a
measure, the political system of the grandest and oldest
civilizations of which we have any knowledge, it furnishes an
illustration of the degree of progress possible under gentile
organization, at the same time that it points to the source
whence has proceeded the fierce democratic spirit observed among
succeeding nations, notably the Greeks.

Modern writers agree in ascribing to the Touaricks, a people
inhabiting the Desert of Sahara, a considerable degree of
civilization. We are informed that in the Sahara, which, by the
way, is far less a barren waste than we have been taught to
suppose it, "the Touaricks have towns, cities, and an excellent
condition of agriculture"; that with them fruit is cultivated
with great success and skill. Their method of political
organization is democratic and similar in construction and
administration to the old Cushite municipalities. Baldwin,
quoting from Richardson, says: "Ghat, like all the Touarick
countries, is a republic; all the people govern. The woman of
the Touaricks is not the woman of the Moors and Mussulmans
generally. She has here great liberty, and takes an active part
in the affairs and transactions of life."[68]

[68] Prehistoric Nations, p. 341.


One who is disposed to search for it, will find no lack of
evidence going to prove that in an earlier age of the world,
prior to the written records of extant history, the human race
had attained to a stage of civilization equal in all and superior
in many respects to that of the present time.

That this remarkable stage of progress, the actual extent of
which has not yet been fully realized, was attained during a
period of pure Nature-worship, or while the earth and the sun
were venerated as emblems of the great creative energy throughout
the universe, is a proposition which, when viewed by the light of
more recently acquired facts, is perfectly reasonable, and
exactly what might be expected.

That this high stage of civilization was reached while women were
the recognized heads of families and of the gentes, and at a time
when Perceptive Wisdom, or the female energy in the Deity, was
worshipped as the supreme God, is a fact which in time will be
proved beyond a doubt. Indeed, had not the judgment of man
become warped by prejudice, and his reason clogged by
superstition and sensuality, the fact so plainly apparent in all
ancient mythologies, that in the early god-idea two principles
were contained, the female being in the ascendancy, would long
ere this have been acknowledged, and our present religious
systems, which are but outgrowths from these mythologies, would,
with the partial return of civilized conditions, have been so
modified or changed as to embrace some of the fundamental truths
which formed the basis of early religion.

Regarding the religion of the ancient race which we have been
considering, we are told that they worshipped a dual Deity, under
the appellations of Ashtaroth and Baal, and that this God
"comprehended the generative or reproductive powers in human
beings and in the sun, together with Wisdom or Light." In other
words, they adored the great moving force throughout Nature, a
force which they venerated as the Great Mother.

Before the Zend and Sanskrit branches of the Aryan race had
separated, their religion was doubtless that given them by their
Cushite civilizers. The worship of the sun and the planets, with
which were inextricably interwoven the fructifying agencies in
Nature, explains their devotion to the study of the heavenly
bodies and their advanced knowledge of astronomy. The types of
regeneration or reproduction which they venerated were symbols of
abstract principles, and, from facts connected with their
religious ceremonies as practiced by their immediate successors,
and from the pure significance attached to their emblems, we are
justified in the conclusion before referred to, that the sensuous
element, which became so prominent in later religious
developments, constituted no part of their worship.

The number of ages during which the most primitive religion,
namely, that of pure Nature-worship, prevailed among the
inhabitants of the earth may not be conjectured, and the exact
length of time during which earth and sun adoration unalloyed by
serpent and phallic faiths remained is not known. It is
probable, however, that its duration is to be measured by that of
the supremacy of the altruistic or mother element in human
affairs, and that the gradual engrafting of the later-developed
sensuous faiths upon their earlier god-idea, marks the change
from female to male supremacy.

We have observed that whenever a remnant of the civilization of
the ancient Cushites appears, exactly as might be expected, women
hold an exalted position in human affairs, at the same time that
the female principle constitutes the essential element in the
Deity.

Of the ancient Persians who received their religion and their
civilization from this older race Malcolm observes:

"The great respect in which the female sex was held was, no
doubt, the principal cause of the progress they made in
civilization. . . . It would appear that in former days the
women of Persia had an assigned and honorable place in society;
and we must conclude that an equal rank with the male creation,
which is secured to them by the ordinances of Zoroaster, existed
long before the time of that reformer, who paid too great
attention to the habits and prejudices of his countrymen to have
made any serious alteration in so important an usage. We are
told by Quintus Curtius, that Alexander would not sit in the
presence of Sisygambis, till told to do so by that matron,
because it is not the custom in Persia for sons to sit in the
presence of their mothers. There can be no stronger proof than
this anecdote affords, of the great respect in which the female
sex were held in that country, at the time of this invasion."[69]

[69] See History of Persia.


No one I think can study the sacred books of the Persians without
observing the emphasis which is there placed on purity of
character and right living. Indeed, within no extant writings is
the antithesis between good and evil more strongly marked, at the
same time that their hatred of idolatry is clearly apparent. The
same is observed in the early writings of the Hindoos. Within
the Vedas, although they have been corrupted by later writers,
may still be traced a purity of thought and life which is not
apparent in the writings of later ages. Not long ago I was
informed by a learned native of India that the original writing
of the Vedas was largely the work of women.

That the early conceptions of a Deity in which women constituted
the central and supreme figure were in Egypt correlated with the
exercise of great temporal power, may not, in view of the facts
at hand, longer be doubted. By means of records revealed on
ancient monuments, we are informed that in the age of Amunoph I.
a considerable degree of sovereign power in Egypt was exercised
by a woman, Amesnofre-are, who had shared the throne with Ames.
She occupied it also with Amunoph, and, notwithstanding the
statement of Herodotus, that women did not serve in the capacity
of priests, this Queen is represented as pouring out libations to
Amon, an office which was doubtless the highest connected with
the priesthood.

Less than forty years later, it is observed that another woman,
Amun-nou-het, shared the throne with Thotmes I. and II. and that
"she appears to have enjoyed far greater consideration than
either of them." Not alone are monuments raised in her name, but
she appears dressed as a man, and "alone presenting offerings to
the gods." So important a personage was she that she is believed
by many to be the princess who conquered the country, perhaps
even Semiramis herself. Her title was the "Shining Sun."[70]

[70] Rawlinson, History of Herodotus, app., book ii., ch. viii.


As these women doubtless belonged to the old Arabian, Ethiopian,
or Cushite race, the people who had brought civilization to
Egypt, we are not surprised to find them holding positions which
were connected with the highest civil and religious offices. The
Labyrinth, in the country of the Nile, is described by ancient
writers as containing three thousand chambers. Strabo says of it
that the enclosure contained as many palaces as there formerly
were homes, and that there the priests and priestesses of each
department were wont to congregate to discuss difficult and
important questions of law.

According to the Greeks, the Egyptian God Osiris corresponds to
their Jupiter; and Sate, the companion of Kneph, is identical
with Juno. It is quite evident, however, that the Greeks
understood little of the true significance of the gods which they
had borrowed, or which they had inherited from older nations. It
would seem that as a people their conceit prevented them from
acknowledging the dignity even of their gods, hence, they endowed
them with the attributes best suited to their own depraved taste
or pleasure, and then worshipped them as beings like themselves.

It has been observed of the Egyptians that they were wont to
ridicule the Greeks for regarding their gods as actual beings,
while in reality "they were only the representations of the
attributes and principles of Nature." Unlike the religions which
succeeded it, Egyptian mythology, as understood by the learned,
was essentially philosophical, and dealt with abstractions and
principles rather than with personalities.

Notwithstanding the importance which in process of time came to
be claimed by males, and the consequent stimulation which was
given to the animal tendencies, it is evident, from certain
historical and undeniable proofs in connection with this subject,
that although woman's power in Egypt, as in all other countries,
gradually became weakened, the effect of her influence on manners
and social customs was never wholly extinguished.

Regarding the existence of polygamy, it has been said that the
high position occupied in ancient Egypt by the mother of the
family, the mistress of the household, is absolutely
irreconcilable with the existence of polygamy as a general
practice, or of such an institution as the harem. Although the
plurality of wives does not appear to have been contrary to law,
it "certainly was unusual," and although Egyptian kings
frequently had many wives, "they followed foreign rather than
native custom."[71]

[71] Renouf, Religion of Ancient Egypt, p. 81.


Herodotus says of the women of Egypt: "They attend the markets
and trade while the men sit at home at the loom"[72]; and
Diodorus informs us that in Egypt "women control the men."

[72] Book ii., ch. xxxv.


Were we in possession of no direct historical evidence to prove
that down to a late period in the history of Egypt women had not
lost their prestige, sufficient evidence would be found in the
fact that, notwithstanding the growing tendency of mankind in all
the nations of the globe to suppress the female instincts and to
reject, conceal, or belittle the woman element in the Deity,
still Isis, the gracious mother, retained a prominent place in
the god-idea of that country.

I am not unmindful of the remarks which a reference to a past age
of intellectual and moral greatness will call forth; indeed, I
can almost hear some devotee of the present time remark: "So we
are asked to regard as a sober fact the existence in the past of
a golden age; also to believe that man was created pure and holy,
and that he has since fallen from his high estate; in other
words, we are to have faith in the ancient tradition of the 'fall
of man.'" If by the fall of man we are to understand that a
great and universal people, who in a remote age of the world's
history had reached a high stage of civilization, gradually
passed out of human existence, and that a lower race, which was
incapable of attaining to their estate, and which, by the over-
stimulation of the lower propensities, sank into a state of
barbarism, in which the original sublime conceptions of a Deity
were obscured and the great learning of the past was lost, I can
see no reason to disbelieve it, especially as all the facts, both
of tradition and history, bearing upon this subject unite in
proclaiming its truth.

After stating that in Chaldea has been found rather the debris of
science than the elements of it, Bailly asks:

"When you see a house built of old capitals, columns, and other
fragments of beautiful architecture, do you not conclude that a
fine building has once existed? . . . If the human mind can
ever flatter itself with having been successful in discovering
the truth, it is when many facts, and these facts of different
kinds, unite in producing the same results."

That the descendants of a once mighty nation lapsed into
barbarism, forgetting the profound knowledge of the sciences
possessed by their ancestors, is a fact too well attested at the
present time to be doubted by those who have taken the pains to
acquaint themselves with the evidence at hand.

Regarding the manner in which this ancient civilization was
reached, or concerning the way in which it was achieved, history
and tradition are alike silent, although it is believed that the
present methods of investigation will, at least in a measure,
unravel the mystery. At present we only know that, as far in the
remote past as human ken can reach, evidences of a high stage of
civilization exist which it must have required thousands upon
thousands of years to accomplish.



CHAPTER VII.

CONCEALMENT OF THE EARLY DOCTRINES.

After the decline of Nature-worship, and when through the
constantly increasing power gained by the ruder elements in human
society a knowledge of the scientific principles underlying
ancient religion had been partially lost or forgotten, it became
necessary for philosophers to conceal the original conception of
the Deity and to clothe their sacred writings in allegory. Hence
it is observed that every ancient form of religion has a cabala
containing its secret doctrines--doctrines the inner meaning of
which was known only to the few. In order that these truths
might be preserved, they were inscribed on the leaves of trees in
characters or symbols understood only by the initiated. The
allegories beneath which these higher truths were concealed were
handed down as traditions to succeeding generations--traditions
in which history, astrology, and mythology are strangely
combined.

After long periods, through war, conquest, and the various
changes incidental to shifting environment, these traditions were
in the main forgotten. Fragments of them, however, were from
time to time gathered together, and, intermingled with later
doctrines, were used by the priests as a means of increased
self-aggrandizement and power.

It is now thought that the Iliad (Rhapsodies) of Homer is only a
number of "detached songs" which perhaps for centuries were
delivered orally, and that they contain the secret doctrines of
the priests. Porphyry says that "we ought not to doubt that
Homer has secretly represented the images of divine things under
the concealment of fable." It has been said of Plato that he
banished the poems of Homer from his imaginary republic for the
reason that the people might not be able to distinguish what is
from what is not allegorical. Hippolytus informs us that the
Simonists declared that in Helen resided the principle of
intelligence; "and thus, when all the powers were for claiming
her for themselves, sedition and war arose, during which this
chief power was manifested to nations." These songs which were
gathered together by Pisistratus and revised by Aristotle for the
use of Alexander, have generally been regarded merely as a bit of
history recounting a severe and protracted struggle between the
Greeks and Trojans.

Within the earliest historical accounts which we have of the
Egyptians, we observe that their ceremonies and symbols have
already become multitudinous, the true meaning of the latter
being concealed. The masses of the people, who had grown too
sensualized and ignorant to receive the higher divine
"mysteries," and too gross to be entrusted with their true
significance, had become idolaters.

Not only the Egyptian and Chaldean priests, but Moses and the
Jewish doctors were well versed in religious symbolism. The fact
is observed, also, that as late as medieval Christianity, the
fathers in the Church, the Christian painters, sculptors, and
architects, still employed signs and symbols to set forth their
religious doctrines. Even at the present time, many of the
emblems representing certain ideas connected with the creative
principles, and which were part and parcel of the pagan worship,
are still in use. The masses of the people, however, are without
a knowledge of their origin or early significance.

Everywhere, throughout the early historic nations, were
worshipped symbols of the attributes or functions of the dual or
triune God. Each symbol represented a distinctive female or male
quality. Animals, trees, the sea, plants, the moon, and the
heavens were, at a certain stage of religious development,
symbolized as parts of the Deity and worshipped as possessing
certain female or male characteristics or attributes.

It is plain that, with the decline of female power, and the
consequent stimulation of the animal instincts in man, the pure
creative principles involved in Nature-worship gradually became
unsuited to the sensualized capacities and tastes of the masses;
but in addition to this were other reasons why the female
principle in the Deity should be concealed. Women were already
deposed from their former exalted position as heads of families
and as leaders of consanguine communities. All their rightful
prerogatives had been usurped. The highest development in Nature
had become the slave of man's appetites, and motherhood, which
had hitherto been accepted as the most exalted function either in
heaven or on the earth, trailed in the dust.

Under these conditions it is not perhaps singular that the
capacity to bring forth, and the qualities and attributes of
women which are correlated with it, namely, sympathy--a desire
for the welfare of others outside of self, or altruism,--should
no longer have been worshipped as divine, or that in their place
should have been substituted the leading characters developed in
man. From the facts at hand it is plain that at a certain stage
of human growth physical might and male reproductive energy, or
virility, became the recognized God. With passion as the highest
ideal of a Creator, the female element appeared only in a
sensualized form and simply as an appendage to the god which was
dependent upon her ministrations. Under the above conditions it
is not in the least remarkable that by the priests it should have
been deemed necessary to conceal from women the facts bound up in
their nature. Woman's importance as a creative agency and as a
prime and most essential factor in the universe must be
concealed. "Isis must be veiled."

Copyright (c) 2007. fullstories.net. All rights reserved.