In the doctrine relating to the Virgin Mary as held by the Church of Rome, there is a remarkable resemblance to the teaching of the ancients respecting the female constantly associated with the triune male deity. Her names and titles are many, and though diversified, mostly pointing to the same idea. Some of these are as follows:—“The Virgin,” conceiving and bringing forth from her own inherent power. The wife of Bel Nimrod; the wife of Asshur; the wife of Nin. She is called Multa, Mulita, or Mylitta, or Enuta, Bilta or Bilta Nipruta, Ishtar, Ri, Alitta, Elissa, Bettis, Ashtoreth, Astarte, Saruha, Nana, Asurah. Amongst other names she is known as Athor, Dea Syria, Artemis, Aphrodite, Tanith, Tanat, Rhea, Demeter, Ceres, Diana, Minerva, Juno, Venus, Isis, Cybele, Seneb or Seben, Venus Urania, Ge, Hera. “As Anaitis she is the ‘mother of the child;’ reproduced again as Isis and Horus; Devaki with Christna; and Aurora with Memnon.” Even in ancient Mexico the mother and child were worshipped. Again she appears as Davkina Gula Shala, Zirbanit, Warmita Laz. In modern times she reappears as the Virgin Mary and her son. There were Ishtar of Nineveh and Ishter of Arbela, just as there are now Marie de Loretto and Marie de la Garde.
She was the Queen of fecundity or fertility, Queen of the lands, the beginning of heaven and earth, Queen of all the Gods, Goddess of war and battle, the holder of the sceptre, the beginning of the beginning, the one great Queen, the Queen of the spheres, the Virgo of the Zodiac, the Celestial Virgin, Time, in whose womb all things are born. She is represented in various ways, and specially as a nude woman carrying an infant in her arms.[13]
The name Multa, Mulita, or Mylitta, Inman contends is derived from some words resembling the Hebrew meal, the “place of entrance,” and ta, “a chamber.” The whole being a place of entrance and a chamber. The cognomen Multa, or Malta, signifies, therefore, the spot through which life enters into the chamber, i.e., the womb, and through which the fruit matured within enters into the world as a new being. By the association of this virgin goddess with the sacred triad of deities is made up the four great gods, Arba-il.
We are here reminded of the well-known symbol of the Trinity which seems to have been as abundantly used in ancient times, at least in some countries—Egypt for instance. This is the triangle—generally the equilateral—which of course symbolised both the trinity in unity and the equality of the three. Sometimes we get two of those triangles crossing each other, one with the point upwards, the other with the point downwards, thus forming a six-rayed star. The first represents the phallic triad, the two together shew the union of the male and female principles producing a new figure, each at the same time retaining its own identity. The triangle with the point downwards, by itself typifies the Mons Veneris, the Delta, or door through which all come into the world.
The question has arisen:—“How comes it that a doctrine so singular, and so utterly at variance with all the conceptions of uninstructed reason, as that of a Trinity in Unity, should have been from the beginning, the fundamental religious tenet of every nation upon earth?”
Inman without hesitation declares “the trinity of the ancients is unquestionably of phallic origin.” Others have either preceded this writer or have followed suit, contending that the male symbol of generation in divine creation was three in one, as the cross, &c., and that the female symbol was always regarded as the Triangle, the accepted symbol of the Trinity. The number three, was employed with mystic solemnity, and in the emblematical hands which seem to have been borne on the top of a staff or sceptre in the Isiac processions, the thumb and two forefingers are held up to signify the three primary and general personifications. This form of priestly blessing, thumb and two fingers, is still acknowledged as a sign of the Trinity.
The ancients tell us plainly enough that they are derived from the cosmogonic elements. They are primarily the material and elementary types of the spiritual trinity of revelation—types established by revelation itself, and the only resource of materialism to preserve the original doctrine. The spirit, whether physical or spiritual, is equally the pneuma; and the light, whether physical or spiritual, equally the phos of the Greek text: so that the materialist of antiquity had little difficulty in preserving their analogies complete.
The Dahomans are said by Skertchley to deny the corporeal existence of the deity, but to ascribe human passions to him; a singular medley. “Their religion,” he says, “must not be confounded with Polytheism, for they only worship one god, Mau, but propitiate him through the intervention of the fetiches. Of these, there are four principal ones, after whom come the secondary deities. The most important of these is Bo, the Dahoman Mars; then comes Legba, the Dahoman Priapus, whose little huts are to be met with in every street. This deity is of either sex, a male and female Legba often residing in the same temple. A squat swish image, rudely moulded into the grossest caricature on the human form, sitting with hands on knees, with gaping mouth, and the special attributes developed to an ungainly size. Teeth of cowries usually fill the clown-like mouth, and ears standing out from the head, like a bat’s, are only surpassed in their monstrosity by the snowshoe-shaped feet. The nose is broad, even for a negro’s, and altogether the deity is anything but a fascinating object. Round the deity is a fence of knobbed sticks, daubed with filthy slime, and before the god is a flat saucer of red earthenware, which contains the offerings. When a person wishes to increase his family, he calls in a Legba priest and gives him a fowl, some cankie, water, and palm oil. A fire is lighted, and the cankie, water, and palm oil mixed together and put in the saucer. The fowl is then killed by placing the head between the great and second toes of the priest, who severs it from the body by a jerk. The head is then swung over the person of the worshipper, to allow the blood to drop upon him, while the bleeding body is held over a little dish, which catches the blood. The fowl is then semi-roasted on a fire lighted near, and the priest, taking the dish of blood, smears the body of the deity with it, finally taking some of the blood into his mouth and sputtering it over the god. The fowl is then eaten by the priest, and the wives of the devotees are supposed to have the children they crave for.”
The principal Dahoman gods, described by Skertchley, are thus mentioned by Forlong:—
Legba, the Dahoman Priapus, and special patron of all who desire larger families.