In the exoteric doctrine of Greece and Rome, the characters of
Cybele, the mother of the gods, and of Venus, the goddess of
love, are generally very distinct, insomuch that some minds may
perhaps find no slight difficulty in regard to the identification
of these two divinities. But that difficulty will disappear, if
the fundamental principle of the Mysteries be borne in mind--viz,
that at bottom they recognised only Adad, "The One
God" (see ante, pp. 14, 15, 16, Note). Adad being
Triune, this left room, when the Babylonian Mystery of Iniquity
took shape, for three different FORMS of divinity--the father,
the mother, and the son; but all the multiform divinities with
which the Pagan world abounded, whatever diversities there were
among them, were resolved substantially into so many
manifestations of one or other of these divine persons, or rather
of two, for the first person was generally in the background. We
have distinct evidence that this was the case. Apuleius tells us
(vol. i. pp. 995, 996), that when he was initiated, the goddess
Isis revealed herself to him as "The first of the
celestials, and the uniform manifestation of the gods and
goddesses.... WHOSE ONE SOLE DIVINITY the whole orb of the earth
venerated, and under a manifold form, with different rites, and
under a variety of appellations;" and going over many
of these appellations, she declares herself to be at once "Pessinuntica,
the mother of the gods [i.e. Cybele], and Paphian Venus" (Ibid.
p. 997). Now, as this was the case in the later ages of the
Mysteries, so it must have been the case from the very beginning;
because they SET OUT, and necessarily set out, with the doctrine
of the UNITY of the Godhead. This, of course, would give rise to
no little absurdity and inconsistency in the very nature of the
case. Both Wilkinson and Bunsen, to get rid of the
inconsistencies they have met with in the Egyptian system, have
found it necessary to have recourse to substantially the same
explanation as I have done. Thus we find Wilkinson saying: "I
have stated that Amun-re and other gods took the form of
different deities, which, though it appears at first sight to
present some difficulty, may readily be accounted for when we
consider that each of those whose figures or emblems were
adopted, was only an EMANATION, or deified attribute of the SAME
GREAT BEING to whom they ascribed various characters, according
to the several offices he was supposed to perform" (WILKINSON,
vol. iv. p. 245). The statement of Bunsen is to the same effect,
and it is this: "Upon these premises, we think ourselves
justified in concluding that the two series of gods were
originally identical, and that, in the GREAT PAIR of gods, all
these attributes were concentrated, from the development of
which, in various personifications, that mythological system
sprang up which we have been already considering" (BUNSEN,
vol. i. p. 418).
The bearing of all this upon the question of the
identification of Cybele and Astarte, or Venus, is important.
Fundamentally, there was but one goddess--the Holy Spirit,
represented as female, when the distinction of sex was wickedly
ascribed in the Godhead, through a perversion of the great
Scripture idea, that all the children of God are at once begotten
of the Father, and born of the Spirit; and under this idea, the
Spirit of God, as Mother, was represented under the form of a
dove, in memory of the fact that that Spirit, at the creation, "fluttered"--for
so, as I have observed, is the exact meaning of the term in Gen.
i. 2--"on the face of the waters." This
goddess, then, was called Ops, "the flutterer," or
Juno, "The Dove," or Khubele, "The
binder with cords," which last title had reference to "the
bands of love, the cords of a man" (called in Hosea xi.
4, "Khubeli Adam"), with which not only does
God continually, by His providential goodness, draw men unto
Himself, but with which our first parent Adam, through the
Spirit's indwelling, while the covenant of Eden was unbroken, was
sweetly bound to God. This theme is minutely dwelt on in Pagan
story, and the evidence is very abundant; but I cannot enter upon
it here. Let this only be noticed, however, that the Romans
joined the two terms Juno and Khubele-or, as it is commonly
pronounced, Cybele--together; and on certain occasions invoked
their supreme goddess, under the name of Juno Covella-(see
STANLEY's philosophy, p. 1055)--that is, "The dove that
binds with cords." In STATIUS (lib. v. Sylv. 1, v. 222,
apud BRYANT, vol. iii. p. 325), the name of the great goddess
occurs as Cybele-
"Italo gemitus Almone Cybele
Ponit, et Idaeos jam non reminiscitur names."
If the reader looks, in Layard, at the triune emblem of
the supreme Assyrian divinity, he will see this very idea visibly
embodied. There the wings and tail of the dove have two bands
associated with them instead of feet (LAYARD's Nineveh and its
Remains, vol. ii. p. 418; see also accompanying woodcut , from
BRYANT, vol. ii. p. 216; and KITTO's Bib. Cyclop., vol. i. p.
425).
In reference to events after the Fall, Cybele got a new
idea attached to her name. Khubel signifies not only to "bind
with cords," but also "to
travail in birth;" and therefore Cybele
appeared as the "Mother of the gods," by
whom all God's children must be born anew or regenerated. But,
for this purpose, it was held indispensable that there should be
a union in the first instance with Rheia, "The
gazer," the human "mother
of gods and men," that the ruin she had
introduced might be remedied. Hence the identification of Cybele
and Rheia, which in all the Pantheons are declared to be only two
different names of the same goddess (see LEMPRIERE'S Classical
Dictionary, sub voce), though, as we have seen, these goddesses
were in reality entirely distinct. This same principle was
applied to all the other deified mothers. They were deified only
through the supposed miraculous identification with them of Juno
or Cybele--in other words, of the Holy Spirit of God. Each of
these mothers had her own legend, and had special worship suited
thereto; but, as in all cases, she was held to be an incarnation
of the one spirit of God, as the great Mother of all, the
attributes of that one Spirit were always pre-supposed as
belonging to her. This, then, was the case with the goddess
recognised as Astarte or Venus, as well as with Rhea. Though
there were points of difference between Cybele or Rhea, and
AStarte or Mylitta, the Assyrian Venus, Layard shows that there
were also distinct points of contact between them. Cybele or Rhea
was remarkable for her turreted crown. Mylitta, or Astarte, was
represented with a similar crown (LAYARD'S Nineveh, vol. ii. p.
456). Cybele, or Rhea, was drawn by lions; Mylitta, or Astarte,
was represented as standing on a lion (Ibid). The worship of Mylitta, or Astarte, was a mass of moral pollution
(HERODOT.,
lib. i. cap. 199, p. 92). The worship of Cybele, under the name
of Terra, was the same (AUGUSTINE, De Cavitate, lib. vi. cap. 8,
tom. ix., p. 203).
The first deified woman was no doubt Semiramis, as the
first deified man was her husband. But it is evident that it was
some time after the Mysteries began that this deification took
place; for it was not till after Semiramis was dead that she was
exalted to divinity, and worshipped under the form of a dove.
When, however, the Mysteries were originally concocted, the deeds
of Eve, who, through her connection with the serpent, brought
forth death, must necessarily have occupied a place; for the
Mystery of sin and death lies at the very foundation of all
religion, and in the age of Semiramis and Nimrod, and Shem and
Ham, all men must have been well acquainted with the facts of the
Fall. At first the sin of Eve may have been admitted in all its
sinfulness (otherwise men generally would have been shocked,
especially when the general conscience had been quickened through
the zeal of Shem); but when a woman was to be deified, the shape
that the mystic story came to assume shows that that sin was
softened, yea, that it changed its very character, and that by a
perversion of the name given to Eve, as "the
mother of all living ones," that is, all
the regenerate (see Note I), she was glorified as the authoress
of spiritual life, and, under the very name Rhea, was recognised
as the mother of the gods. Now, those who had the working of the
Mystery of Iniquity did not find it very difficult to show that
this name Rhea, originally appropriate to the mother of mankind,
was hardly less appropriate for her who was the actual mother of
the gods, that is, of all the deified mortals. Rhea, in the
active sense, signifies "the Gazing
woman," but in the passive it signifies "The
woman gazed at," that is, "The
beauty," * and thus, under one and the
same term, the mother of mankind and the mother of the Pagan
gods, that is, Semiramis, were amalgamated; insomuch, that now,
as is well known, Rhea is currently recognised as the "Mother
of gods and men" (HESIOD, Theogon., v.
453, p. 36). It is not wonderful, therefore, that the name Rhea
is found applied to her, who, by the Assyrians, was worshipped in
the very character of Astarte or Venus.
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