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
As not alone the sun but the stars also had come to be venerated as
agencies in reproduction, the worship of these objects was, as we
have seen, closely interwoven with that of the generative processes
throughout Nature. The attempt to solve the great problem of the
origin of life on the earth led these people to contemplate with the
profoundest reverence all the visible objects which were believed to
affect human destiny. Hence both the pyramid and the tower served a
double purpose, first, as emblems of the Deity worshipped, and, second,
as monuments for the study of the heavenly bodies with which their
religious ideas were so intimately connected.
While comparing the early emblems which prefigure the primitive elements
in the god-idea, Hargrave Jennings observes:
"In the conveyance of certain ideas to those who contemplate it, the
pyramid boasts of prouder significance, and impresses with a hint of
still more impenetrable mystery. We seem to gather dim supernatural
ideas of the mighty Mother of Nature... that almost two-sexed entity,
without a name--She of the Veil which is never to be lifted, perhaps
not even by the angels, for their knowledge is limited. In short, this
tremendous abstraction, Cybele, Ideae, Mater, Isiac controller of the
Zodiacs, whatever she may be, has her representative in the half-buried
Sphinx even to our own day, watching the stars although nearly swallowed
up in the engulphing sands."(58)
58) Phallicism, p. 25.
From the time when the two religious elements began to separate in the
minds of the people, the prophets, seers, and priestesses of the old
religion, those who continued to worship the Virgin and Child, had
prophesied that a mortal woman, a virgin, would, independently of the
male principle, bring forth a child, the fulfilment of which prophecy
would vindicate the ancient faith and forever settle the dispute
relative to the superiority of the female in the office of reproduction.
Thus would the woman "bruise the serpent's head." In process of time not
only Yonigas, but Lingajas as well, came to accept the doctrine of the
incarnation of the sun in the bodies of earthly virgins. By Lingaites,
however, it was the seed of the woman and not the woman herself who was
to conquer evil. Finally, with the increasing importance of the male in
human society, it is observed that a reconciliation has been effected
between the female worshippers and those of the male. Athene herself has
acquiesced in the doctrine of male superiority.
Thalat, the great Chaldean Deity, who presided over Chaos prior to the
existence of organized matter, is finally transformed into a male God.
The Hindoo Vishnu, who as she slept on the bottom of the sea brought
forth all creation, has changed her sex. Brahm, the Creator, is male,
and appears as a triplicated Deity in the form of three sons within
whom is contained the essence of a Great Father, the female creative
principle being closely veiled.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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