Yet, whilst fully admitting an early and perhaps concurrent admixture of Sabaism,[127] I consider that the facts and evidence contained in the pages of Rawlinson will enable us to arrive at the history of idolatry by a mode much more direct than conjecture. The pages of Rawlinson prove the identity of Nimrod and Belus, and his worship in the earliest times. On the other hand, there has been a pretty constant tradition[128] that Nimrod first raised the standard of revolt against the Lord; and the erection of the tower of Babel seems to show a state of things ripe for idolatry. Here recent discovery and ancient tradition concur in establishing hero-worship as among the earliest forms of idolatry. But further, the Arab tradition of Nimrod’s apotheosis, analogous to the mysterious and miraculous disappearance of Enoch (vide infra, [p. 192]), suggests how hero-worship might become almost identical with the worship of spirits, which L’Abbé Gainet inclines to think the first and most natural mode. If there was a tradition among them that one of their ancestors was raised up to heaven,[129] why may they not have argued, when their minds had become thoroughly corrupted, that their immediate ancestor, the mighty Nimrod, had been so raised? and when one ancestor was deified the rest would have been deified in sequence, or according to their relationship to him. What, again, more likely than that, when through the corruptions of mankind the communications of the Most High ceased, they should turn to those to whom the communications had been made, at first perhaps innocently in intercession, and, as corruption deepened, in worship?[130]
L’Abbé Gainet, in another part of his work, draws attention to the worship of ancestors in China, and asks whether the idols of Laban had reference to more than some such secondary objects?
It will be recollected that it was precisely the extent to which this veneration was to be considered culpable which was the subject-matter of the unfortunate disputes between certain religious orders in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (vide Huc’s “Chinese Empire,” and Cretineau Joly’s “Hist. de la Com. de Jesus,” vol. iii. chap. iii., and vol. v. chap. i.) Indeed, among the Semitic races it may never have degenerated into idolatry. Still it appears to me that weight should be attached to this tendency, more especially in primitive times, when the recollection of ancestors who had been driven out of Paradise, to whom direct revelations had been made, and who were naturally reputed to have been “nearer to the gods” (Plato, Cicero[131]), would have been all in all to their descendants. Then, again, as we have just seen, there was the tradition among them of one man who had been carried up into heaven, and accordingly, when hero-worship culminated in the deification of man, we are not surprised to find it taking the form of this apotheosis as in the identification of Nimrod and Enoch.
This tendency to idolatry through hero-worship seems to me so natural and direct, that I think, apart from the facts à priori, I should have been led to the conclusion that it was the actual manner in which it was brought about.[132] It is not denied, on the other hand, that there always has been a tendency to nature-worship also; and, indeed, there is probably a stage during which every mythology will be found to have come under its influence. But the inclination at the present moment is unmistakably to an exclusive astral or solar system. The point of interest which excites me to this inquiry is simply to determine the value of the historical traditions which may lie embedded in these systems; and I shall be content to find them, whether or not they form the primary nucleus, or whether only subsequently imported into, and blended with, solar mythology. It is easy to conceive how a mythology embodying historical traditions could pass into an astral system. In this case incongruity would not startle; but it is difficult to imagine a pure astral system which would not be too harmonious and symmetrical to admit of the grossness, inconsistency, and incongruity to which the process of adaptation would inevitably give rise, and to which hero-worship is inherently prone. As Mr Gladstone says (Homer, ii. 12):—
“There is much in the theo-mythology of Homer which, if it had been a system founded on fable, could not have appeared there. It stands before us like one of our old churches, having different parts of its fabric in the different styles of architecture, each of which speaks for itself, and which we know to belong to the several epochs in the history of the art when their characteristic combinations were respectively in vogue.”
Mr Gladstone (passim) victoriously combats the theory of nature-worship as applied to Grecian mythology; but it appears to me that his argument and mode of reasoning would apply with tenfold effect to the Chaldean mythology, where there is a likelihood at least that we shall view idolatry in its early commencements. I consider that this view is borne out by the following passage from Professor Rawlinson’s “Ancient Monarchies,” i. 139:—
“In the first place, it must be noticed that the religion was to a certain extent astral. The heaven itself, the sun, the moon, and the five planets, have each their representative in the Chaldean Pantheon among the chief objects of worship. At the same time it is to be observed, that the astral element is not universal, but partial; and that even where it has place, it is but one aspect of the mythology, not by any means its full and complete exposition. The Chaldean religion even here is far from being mere Sabeanism—the simple worship of the ‘host of heaven.’ The ether, the sun, the moon, and still more the five planetary gods, are something above and beyond those parts of nature. Like the classical Apollo and Diana, Mars and Venus, they are real persons, with a life and a history, a power and an influence, which no ingenuity can translate into a metaphorical representation of phenomena attaching to the air and to the heavenly bodies. It is doubtful, indeed, whether this class of gods are really of astronomical origin, and not rather primitive deities, whose characters and attributes were, to a great extent, fixed and settled before the notion arose of connecting them with certain parts of nature. Occasionally they seem to represent heroes rather than celestial bodies; and they have all attributes quite distinct from their physical and astronomical character.
“Secondly, the striking resemblance of the Chaldean system to that of the classical mythology, seems worthy of particular attention. This resemblance is too general and too close in some respects to allow of the supposition that mere accident has produced the coincidence.”
The evidence in the “Ancient Monarchies;” seems to me to decide the point, not only for perhaps the earliest mythology with which we are acquainted, but also for the Grecian mythology, which has generally been the ground of dispute. It is curiously in illustration, however, of the common origin of mythology, that the mythology of Greece should be equally well traced to Assyria and Egypt. As evidence of the theory according to the Assyrian origin, let us turn, for instance, to Professor Rawlinson’s identification of Nergal with Mars. It is true he appears as the planet Mars under the form of “Nerig,” and he also figures as the storm-ruler; but can anything well be more human than the rest of his titles?
“His name is evidently compounded of the two Hamitic roots ‘nir’ = a man, and ‘gula’ = great; so that he is ‘the great man’ or ‘the great hero.’ His titles are ‘the king of battle,’ ‘the champion of the gods,’ ‘the strong begetter,’ ‘the tutelar god of Babylonia,’ and ‘the god of the chase.’... We have no evidence that Nergal was worshipped in the primitive times. He is just mentioned by some of the early Assyrian kings, who regard him as their ancestor.... It is conjectured that, like Bil-Nipru, he represents the deified hero Nimrod, who may have been worshipped in different parts of Chaldea under different titles.... It is probable that Nergal’s symbol was the man-lion. Nir is sometimes used in the inscriptions in the meaning of lion, and the Semitic name for the god himself is ‘aria,’ the ordinary term for the king of beasts both in Hebrew and Syriac. Perhaps we have here the true derivation of the Greek name for the god of war ‘Ares’ (Αρης), which has long puzzled classical scholars. The lion would symbolise both the hunting and the fighting propensities of the god, for he not only engages in combats, but often chases his prey and runs it down like a hunter. Again, if Nergal is the man-lion, his association in the buildings with the man-bull would be exactly parallel with the conjunction which we so constantly find between him and Nin in the inscriptions”[133]—Rawlinson, i. 172–174.