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 association of the words signifying mother and father indicates
that it is to such conjunction we must refer creative power. With such
an androgyne element the sun was associated by ancient mythologists.
Jupiter was himself sometimes represented as being female; and the word
hermaphrodite is in itself a union between Hermes and Aphrodite, the
male and female creative powers. We may fairly conclude, from the
existence of names like the above, that there was at one time in Western
as there was in Eastern Asia a strong feud between the adorers of On
and Am, the Lingacitas and the Yonijas, and that they were at length
partially united under Ammon, as they were elsewhere under Nebo or the
Nabhi of Vishnu."(80)
80) Ancient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names, vol. i., p. 237.
Inman relates that once when a friend of his was conversing with a very
high-caste Hindoo he casually uttered this word Amm or Om, whereupon
the man was so awe struck that he could scarcely speak, and, in a voice
almost of terror, asked where his friend had learned the word. Of this
word Inman says:
"To the Hindoos it was that incommunicable name of the Almighty, which
no one ventured to pronounce except under the most religious solemnity.
And here let me pause to remark that the Jews were equally reverent with
the name belonging to the Most High; and that the third commandment was
very literal in its signification."
The same writer remarks that in Thibet, too, where a worship very nearly
identical in ceremony and doctrine with that of the Roman papists exists
amongst the Lamas, the name of Om is still sacred.
The Iav of the Jews was equally revered, but in the later ages of their
career they seem to have lost sight of its true meaning.
According to Inman's testimony and that of other etymological students,
the true signification of the cognomen Jacob is the female principle.
It is believed by various writers that the story of Jacob and Esau as
related in Genesis has an esoteric as well as an exoteric meaning--that
Jacob has reference to the female creative energy throughout Nature,
or, rather, to the great mass of people who in an early age of the human
race believed in the superior importance of the female in the office of
reproduction, and that Esau signifies the male. Attention is called to
the fact that Esau is represented as a "hairy" man, rough-voiced and
easily beguiled, while Jacob, on the other hand, is smooth-faced,
soft-voiced, and the favorite of his mother.
There is indeed much in this myth which seems to indicate that it is
an allegory beneath which are veiled certain facts connected with the
struggle between two early contending sects regarding the relative
importance of the sexes in reproduction. Of this Inman says:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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