male divinity, this latter must of necessity have been the Great God. And who is this Being? I shall not at this point of the enquiry consider Dionysos in his primal home; but it is evident that the Great God is the mighty Demiurge, and all-animating, all-sustaining Being, the husband of the Great Goddess, the Baal of Ashtoreth, the Sabazios of Kybele, the Uasar of Uasi, and thus on, like the Great Goddess many-named, one and yet many, Zagreus, highest of all gods,' Iao who changes with the seasons, but still One Zeus, one Aïdes, one Helios, ONE DIONYSOS.' The grand old oracle of Apollon Klarios rings true through all the changes of time and locality; and Herodotos, who, as we have seen, displays in his consideration of Dionysos a critical acumen that makes the wild Euemeristic stories of a writer like Diodoros Sikelos seem mere imbecility, spoke most advisedly when he identified Dionysos and Orotal. Can it then be pretended that Herodotos regarded the Dionysos of his countrymen as being only a simple rustic Wine-god? As regards the name Orotal, Sir G. Wilkinson observes, Urotal has been supposed to be" Allah-taal," the same name as now used by the Arabs for the Deity, signifying "God the exalted," '1 like Zeus the Most High, and Zagreus the Highest. And after alluding to the opinion of Scaliger and Selden that Alilat was the moon,2-a view undoubtedly correct in itself, though not containing an exhaustive explanation of the nature of the goddess-he remarks: If so, Urotal should be referred to the day, or [rather to] the sun, the Aor "light" of Hebrew.' Sir Henry Rawlinson, when speaking of the Kaldean divinity who is the god of the atmosphere, and whose name has not yet been satisfactorily deciphered, observes, 'If we looked 1 Rawlinson, Herodotus, ii. 336. 3 This personage has been called Vul, Iva, Yem, Ao, Hu, Bin, etc. to mere local tradition, a more probable reading would seem to be Air, or Aür, well-known gods in the Mendaean Pantheon, who presided over the firmament; and we might then further explain the Orotal of Herodotus, as a compound term [i.e. Ur and Tal], including the male and female divinities of the material heaven,'1 in fact, as being a sort of 'two-natured Iakchos.' Orotal is thus a god of light, of sun-light, and of the air; and the Sun himself, the 'one Helios' of the oracle, Hyperion the Climber, or Most High, in Akkadian and Hamitic Kaldean called San the Bright-one, whilst his Semitic name is Shamas, Shemesh, Chemosh, the Servitor, the exact opposite of Baal, Molekh, or Malek, the Lord, is undoubtedly the divinity referred to, or at all events the most remarkable phase of that divinity. Mr. King, alluding to the leontokephalic man on Gnostic talismans, remarks, May not this figure be the great god of the ancient Arabians, Ourotal, God of Light, whom Herodotus takes for Dionysos, and thus again equivalent to the later Pater Bromius?' 2 Similarly, the solar phase is the most remarkable feature in the concept of Uasar; and when Dionysos is traced to his origin, the same fact will also appear with respect to him; although in his adopted Hellenik home this aspect may not, perhaps, at first sight, be particularly prominent. But the solar character of Orotal is susceptible of further illustration; for, as Mr. Fox Talbot observes, 'It is certain that the Arabians worshipped the Sun, and the Assyrian records confirm this by saying that tribute was brought by the Queen of the Arabians, who used to worship the sun.' But Orotal is said to have been the only god whom the Arabians worshipped: therefore, Orotal and the Sun are identical. The Arabian cult was 4 1 Rawlinson, Herodotus, i. 498. 2 The Gnostics, 118. 3 Vide inf. XII. 4 Trans. Soc. Bib. Archaeol. ii. 33. certainly of a Tsabaistic or star-worshipping nature, and among all star-worshippers that nebulous star we call the Sun' would naturally and necessarily have the first place. The astral character of the old Arabian idolatry,' observes Canon Rawlinson, 'is indubitable. The Bacchus and Urania of Herodotus are therefore with reason taken to represent the Sun and the Moon." So M. Lenormant, when speaking of the ancient religion of Yemen, remarks, "Bil, Rahman ["the merciful"], Yathaa ["the Saviour "2], Haubas ["the Shining"], Samah the Elevated "7 Simidan ["the Powerful"], Dhamar ["the Protector"], all represent the Sun under different points of view.'3 But we notice, moreover, that the Arabian votary of the solar Orotal, on plighting his faith, like the Syrian votary of the solar Baal, cuts himself till the blood gushes out upon him, and this savage custom obtained over the whole of Western Asia. Thus we find on an Assyrian tablet : : He who stabs his flesh in honour of Ishtar, the goddess unrivalled, Like the stars of heaven he shall shine; 5 like the river of night he shall flow! 6 "By "the river of night," says Mr. Fox Talbot, with great ingenuity and probability, 'I understand the Milky Way.' Here, then, the Tsabaist, or worshipper of the host of heaven, is encouraged to self-wounding by the prospect of shining with a glory equal to that of his divinities. Let the reader compare with this strange and fierce ritual the stern and ruthless side of the Dionysiak cult. The Arabian next proceeded to moisten with his blood seven stones lying in the midst,' which would 1 Rawlinson, Herodotus, ii. 336. 2 Cf. Dionysos Soter. 3 Anct. Hist. of the East, ii. 324. Cf. 1 Kings, xviii. 28. 5 Cf. Dan. xii. 3. 6 Trans. Soc. Bib. Archaeol. ii. 53. 7 Sup. IV. iii. 2, 3. appear to have formed a kind of rude altar; their number being significant and symbolical, as the twelve stones which formed the rude extempore altar of Elijah represented the twelve tribes of Israel.1 Here the symbolism is evident; the Tsabaist worships in his oath the sacred seven planets, whose cult reappears in the seven gates of the city of Thebai. I have already quoted an extract from the Assyrian version of the Song of the Seven Spirits, and their connection with the seven sons of Ptah is sufficiently obvious; not, however, that the Kabeiroi were merely the planets or planetary influences, but the astral, kosmogonic, and psychical phases and ideas are as usual intermixed in their concept." The last noticeable feature in the account of Herodotos further illustrates the solar character of Orotal. He describes the Arabians as saying that they follow or imitate their divinity in their mode of cutting the hair, which, from his account, they appear to have cut or shaved in a circular form; in fact, they seem to have worn a kind of tonsure, a practice particularly forbidden to the priests of Israel, but followed by those of Uasar, a being who, according to Macrobius, is nothing else but the Sun.' The Skythai, whose oaths were accompanied by similar mutilations, seem also to have cut their hair in a similar manner. And, agreeably, we find that the ceremony of tonsure was an old practice of the priests of Mithra, who in their tonsures imitated the solar disk.' Mr. C. W. King remarks that the devotees of Uasi' carried into the new priesthood the former badges of their profession, the obligation to celibacy, the tonsure, The sacred image still moves in procession, as when etc. 6 1 1 Kings, xviii. 31–2. 2 As to the number 7, cf. Mr. Fox Talbot in Trans. Soc. Bib. Archaeol. ii. 58-60. Vide inf. X. 1. 3 Lev. xxi. 5. 4 Macrob. i. 21. 5 Cf. Herod. iv. 70-1. 6 Maurice, Indian Antics. vii. 851. Vide inf. XII. i. 4. Juvenal laughed at it, escorted by the tonsured train.'1 The solar significance of the tonsure is undoubted. In illustration of the connection between Dionysos and Arabia,2 may lastly be noticed the opinion of the poet Antimachos and others already referred to,3 that Lykourgos was king of Arabia, and that Nysa was there situate. Euripides, too, as we have seen, describes Dionysos as having come to Thebai from Arabia the Happy. Later writers frequently place Nysa in Arabia, or in Asia, or in both. Mr. Sharpe remarks that the birthplace of Uasar was Mount Sinai, called by the Egyptians Mount Nissa.'5 These various mythic legends illustrate the ancient connection between Arabia and the solar cult of Dionysos-Orotal. SECTION VII. EIKON OF THE DIONYSOS OF HERODOTOS. The Dionysos of Herodotos is a divinity of widespread and extended sway. In Kam, he appears as Uasar; in Arabia, as Orotal; in Asia Minor, as Sabazios; while he is found alike in Phoenicia, Skythia, Thrake, and Hellas. His mysteries and sufferings are similarly commemorated on the circular lake of Sa, in the tragic choruses of Sikyon, and at the sacred shrine of Eleusis. Nysa, far in the Outer-world, is his early home; and Kadmos and his Phoenician companions first introduced the Dionysiak cult into continental Hellas, where it was adopted by the illustrious seer Melampous. As Cf. Apollod. i. 6, iii. 4; Diod. i. 1 The Gnostics, 71. 2 Called in Hebrew Arab, in Assyrian Arabu, and in Egyptian Punt. 3 Sup. IV. ii. 1. 19, iii. 64. 5 Egyptian Mythology, 10. |