The God-Idea of the Ancients; Or, Sex in ReligionGamble, Eliza Burt
Religion
The God-Idea of the Ancients; Or, Sex in Religion
Gamble, Eliza Burt
Religion; Sex -- Religious aspects; Women and religion
The marked resemblance between the characters of the Gothic Ymer and the
Chaldean Omoroka, from each of whose bodies the universe is created,
has been observed by various writers. After referring to Mallet's
conclusions upon this subject, Faber remarks:
"They are indeed evidently the same person, not only in point of
character, but, if I mistake not, in appellation: for Ymer or Umer is
Omer-Oca expressed in a more simple form. The difference of sex does by
no means invalidate this opinion, which rests upon the perfect identity
of their characters: for the Great Mother, like the Great Father, was
an hermaphrodite; or, rather, that person from whom all things were
supposed to be produced, was the Great Father and the Great Mother
united together in one compound being. Ymer and Omoroca are each the
same as that hermaphrodite Jupiter of the Orphic theology."
We have observed, however, that in all the older traditions this
hermaphrodite conception is accounted as female, it is the Great
Mother within whom is contained the male; in later ages, however, it
is represented as male, the female being concealed beneath convenient
symbols.
The Trinity of the Goths was male; yet as Odin could not create
independently of the female energy he is provided with a wife, Frigga,
to whom "all fair things belonged, and who had priestesses among the
early German tribes." Frigga when worshipped alone was both female
and male. According to one German tradition, Tiw (Zeus), which in its
earliest conception was female, was the parent of the first man. This
man begat three sons who became the fathers of the three Deutsch tribes.
Ish (or Ash) was the parent of the Franks and Allemans; Ing was the
progenitor of the Swedes, Angles, and Saxons; and Er, or Erman, was the
eponymous leader of the tribes called by the Romans Hermiones.
The Kosmogony of the Chinese is similar in all respects to that of other
countries. The first man, Puoncu, was born from an egg.
The Chinese say that this egg-born Puoncu, who is identical with Brahm,
Noah, and Adam, is not the great Creator or God, but only the first man.
Their great God or Tien is a Unity which comprehends three, and their
human triad--a triplicated being who is the parent of the human race--is
a lower expression of the same power, and to him has finally been
ascribed the office of Creator.
The Kosmogony of the Japanese begins with the opening of the sacred egg
from which all things were produced. This egg is identical with the ark,
and from it the diluvian patriarch was born. He was "Baal-Peor or the
lord of opening; and, from an idea that the Ark was an universal mother,
he was considered as the masculine principle of generation, and was
adored by his apostate descendants with all the abominations of phallic
worship."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account