The reply to the objection that one and the same word is not likely to have been used by the same or contemporaneous writers in two different senses, and that the word has a uniform traditional interpretation, is that in the Hebrew, as in the English, considerable ambiguity occurs, and that the same word sometimes has two meanings of the most distinct and irreconcilable character. As regards the second objection, says Dr. Beke, which is based on the unbroken chain of tradition for about two thousand years, it can only hold good on the assumption that the originators of the tradition were infallible. If not, an error, whether committed intentionally or unintentionally in the first instance, does not become a truth by dint of repetition; any more than truth can become error by being as persistently rejected. The Doctor contends that when the Jews became intimately connected with Egypt, and witnessed there the adoration of the sacred bull Apis, they fell into the error of regarding as a golden calf the egel, or conical representation of the flame of fire, which their forefathers, and after them the Ten Tribes, had worshipped as the similitude of the Eternal, but of which they themselves, as Jews, had lost the signification. If this was the case, it is only natural that the error should have been maintained traditionally until pointed out.
So stands the argument with regard to the theory of its being a golden cone, and not the figure of a calf that Aaron made out of the people’s ornaments, and the worship of which so naturally provoked the wrath of Moses. There is much to be said in its favour, though not enough, perhaps, to make it conclusive. The propounder of it expressed his regret that he was under the necessity of protesting against the allegation that he had imputed to the Israelites what he calls the obscene phallic worship. “Most expressly,” he says, “did I say that the molten golden image made by Aaron at Mount Sinai was a plain conical figure, intended to represent the God who had delivered the people from their bondage in the land of Mitzraim, in the form in which alone He had been manifested to them and to their inspired leader and legislator, namely that of the flame of fire.” This is perfectly true, but those who are intimately acquainted with the phallic faiths of the world will find it difficult to disassociate the conical form of idol from those representations of the human physical organ which have been found as objects of adoration in so many parts of both the eastern and western hemispheres.
Supposing the philological argument to possess any weight—and that it does has been admitted even by those who regret the cone theory,—there are other circumstances which certainly may be adduced in confirmation thereof. For instance, the word chéret translated graving-tool, may mean also a mould. Again, it does not appear at all likely that the quantity of gold supplied by the ear-rings of the people would be sufficient to make a solid calf of the size. True, it may have been manufactured of some other material and covered with gold; but the easier solution of the difficulty certainly seems that which suggests that Aaron took these ornaments and melted them in a crucible of the ordinary form, afterwards turning out therefrom, when cold, the golden cone to which the people rendered idolatrous worship.
The whole subject is surrounded with difficulty, and men of equal learning and ability have taken opposite sides in the discussion, supporting and refuting in turn. Passing over the dispute as to whether Aaron simply received the ear-rings in a bag or whether he graved them with an engraving tool,—the first warmly argued by Bochart, and the latter by Le Clerc—a dispute we can never settle owing to the remarkable ambiguity of the language, we may briefly notice the question, supposing it was a calf made by Aaron, what induced and determined the choice of such a figure? Nor must it be supposed that here we are upon undebatable ground; on the contrary, the same divergence of opinion prevails as with respect to the previous question. Fr. Moncæus said that Aaron got his idea on the mountain, where he was once admitted with Moses; and on another occasion with Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders. This writer and others tell us that God appeared exalted on a cherub which had the form of an ox.
Patrick says that Aaron seems to him to have chosen an ox to be the symbol of the Divine presence, in hope that people would never be so sottish as to worship it, but only be put in mind by it of the Divine power, which was hereby represented,—an ox’s head being anciently an emblem of strength, and horns a common sign of kingly power. He contends that the design was simply to furnish a hieroglyphic of the energy and power of God.
The usual explanation is that Aaron chose a calf because that animal was worshipped in Egypt. That the Israelites were tainted with Egyptian idolatry is plain from Joshua’s exhortation:—“Now therefore, fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt, and serve ye the Lord” (Josh, xxiv., 14). Also Ezekiel xx., 7 and 8:—“They did not every man cast away the abominations of their eyes, neither did they forsake the idols of Egypt.”
There is no deficiency of evidence respecting the worship of the ox in Egypt. Strabo says one was kept at Memphis, which was regarded as a divinity. Pliny repeats the story and says that the Egyptians called this ox Apis, and that it had two kinds of temples, the entrance to one being most pleasant, to the other frightful. Herodotus says of this idol:—“Apis or Epatus, is a calf from a cow which never produced but one, and this could only have been by a clap of thunder. The calf denominated Apis, has certain marks by which it may be known. It is all over black, excepting one square mark; on its back is the figure of an eagle, and on its tongue that of a beetle.”
It certainly seems tolerably clear that the worship of the calf came out of Egypt, but so much difficulty surrounds the question of whether the Egyptian worship preceded or followed that of Aaron’s calf, that we are inclined to endorse the opinion of a modern writer, and say we suspend our judgment respecting the precise motive which determined Aaron to set up a calf as the object of Israelitish worship, and conclude that had he offered any other object of worship, whether some other animal, or any plant, or a star, or any other production of nature, the learned would have asked, “Why this rather than some other?” Many would have been the divisions of opinion on the question; each one would have found in antiquity, and in the nature of the case, probabilities to support his own sentiment, and perhaps have exalted them into demonstrations.[16]
The mention of a cone in connection with the matter now under consideration, and as the form of Aaron’s idol, suggests other examples of the same figure which are said to have had a phallic form. The Paphian Venus, for instance, was represented by a conical stone: of which Tacitus thus speaks:—“The statue of the goddess bears no resemblance to the human form. It is round throughout, broad at one end, and gradually tapering to a narrow span at the other, like a goat; the reason of this is not ascertained. The cause is stated by Philostratus to be symbolic.”
Lajard (Recherches sur la Cult de Venus) says:—“In all Cyrian coins, from Augustus to Macrinus, may be seen in the place where we should anticipate to find a statue of the goddess, the form of a conical stone. The same is placed between two cypresses under the portico of the temple of Astarte, in a medal of Ælia Capitolina; but in this instance the cone is crowned. In another medal, struck by the elder Philip, Venus is represented between two Genii, each of whom stands upon a cone or pillar with a rounded top. There is reason to believe that at Paphos images of the conical stone were made and sold as largely as were effigies of Diana of the Ephesians.