CHAPTER V.
The Golden Calf of Aaron—Was it a Cone or an Animal?—The Prayer to Priapus—Hymn to Priapus—The Complaint of Priapus.
In the thirty-second chapter of the Book of Exodus we have the following remarkable account of certain Israelitish proceedings in the time of Moses and Aaron:—“When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. And Aaron said unto them, break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me. And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron; and he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf, and they said, ‘These be thy gods O Israel, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt.’ And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, ‘To-morrow is a feast to the Lord.’ And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.”
There is no doubt this is a most remarkable, and, for the most part, inexplicable transaction. That it was an act of the grossest idolatry is clear, but the details of the affair are not so readily disposed of, and some amount of discussion has in consequence arisen, which has cast imputations upon the conduct of the ancient Jews not very favourably regarded by the moderns.
The conduct of Aaron is certainly startling, to say the least of it, for when the people presented their outrageous demand, coupled with their insolent and contemptuous language about the man Moses, he makes no remonstrance, utters no rebuke, but apparently falls in at once with their proposal and prepares to carry it out. The question is, however, what was it that was really done? What was the character of the image or idol, he fashioned out of the golden ornaments which he requested them to take from the ears of their wives, their sons, and their daughters?
The suggestion that anything of a phallic nature is to be attributed to this transaction has been loudly ridiculed and indignantly spurned by some who have had little acquaintance with that species of worship, but it is by no means certain that the charge can be so easily disposed of. That phallic practises prevailed, more or less, amongst the Jews is certain, and however this matter of the golden image may be explained, it will be difficult to believe they were not somehow concerned in it.
It may be a new revelation to some to be told that in the opinion of some scholars the idol form set up by those foolish idolators was not that of a calf at all, but of a cone. The Hebrew word egel or ghegel has been usually taken to mean calf, but, say these gentlemen, erroneously so, its true signification being altogether different. It is pleaded that it was not at all likely that the Israelites should, so soon after their miraculous deliverance from the house of bondage, have so far forgotten what was due from them in grateful remembrance of that, as to have plunged into such gross and debased idolatry as the adoration of deity under the form of an animal. Also that it would have been inconsistent with their exclamation when they saw the image, “This is thy God, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt,” and with Aaron’s proclamation, after he had built an altar before the idol for the people to sacrifice burnt offerings on, “To-morrow is a feast to the Lord.” It is urged from these expressions that the only reasonable and legitimate inference is, that the golden idol was intended to be the similitude or symbol of the Eternal Himself, and not of any other God.
Certainly it is, as we have said, remarkable, and presents a problem not at all easy of solution. Dr. Beke contends that in any case, it is inconceivable that the figure of a calf should have been chosen to represent the invisible God—he concludes, therefore, that the word egel has been wrongly translated.