Flies (Cuspi) were sacrificed to the Sun by the ancient Peruvians.[989]
“To let a Flee (Fly) stick i’ the wa’” is, in Scotland, not to speak on some particular topic, to pass it over without remark.[990]
“Certes, a strange thing it is of these Flies,” says Pliny, “which are taken to be as senselesse and witlesse creatures, yea, and of as little capacity and understanding as any other whatsoever: and yet at the solemne games and plaies holden every fifth yeare at Olympia, no sooner is the bull sacrificed there to the Idoll or god of the Flies called Myiodes, but a man shall see (a wonderful thing to tell) infinit thousand of flies depart out of that territorie by flights, as it were thick clouds.”[991]
This Myiodes or Maagrus, the “Fly-catcher,” was the name of a hero, invoked at Aliphera, at the festivals of Athena, as the protector against Flies. It was also a surname of Hercules.
The following rendering of the second verse of the first chapter of the Second Book of Kings, by Josephus, contains an allusion to the worship of Baalzebub under the form of a Fly: “Now it happened that Ahaziah, as he was coming down from the top of his house, fell down from it, and in his sickness sent to the Fly (Baalzebub), which was the god of Ekron, for that was this god’s name, to enquire about his recovery.”[992]
With reference to this worship, we read in Purchas’s
Pilgrims: “At Accaron was worshipped Baalzebub, that is, the Lord of the Flies, either of contempt of his idolatrie, so called; or rather of the multitude of Flies, which attended the multitude of his sacrifices, when from the sacrifices at the Temple of Jerusalem, as some say, they were wholly free: or for that hee was their Larder-god (as the Roman Hercules) to drive away flies: or for that from a forme of a Flie, in which he was worshipped.… But for Beelzebub, he was their Æsculapius or Physicke god, as appeareth by Ahaziah who sent to consult with him in his sickness. And perhaps from this cause the blaspheming Pharisies, rather applyed the name of this then any other Idoll to our blessed Saviour (Math. x. 25) whom they saw indeed to performe miraculous cures, which superstition had conceived of Baalzebub: and if any thing were done by that Idoll, it could by no other cause bee effected but by the Devill, as tending (like the popish miracles) to the confirmation of Idolatrie.”[993]
This god of the Flies was so called, thinks Whiston, as was Jove among the Greeks, from his supposed power over Flies, in driving them away from the flesh of their sacrifices, which otherwise would have been very troublesome to them.[994]
It has been conjectured that the Fly, under which Baalzebub was represented, was the Tumble-bug, Scarabæus pilluarius; in which case, says Dr. Smith, Baalzebub and Beelzebub might be used indifferently.[995]
“Urspergensis saith that the Devil did very frequently appear in the form of a Fly; whence it was that some of the heathens called their familiar spirit Musca or Fly: perchance alluding to that of Plautus: