Belief that men and women may be the offspring of a god.
Customs like the foregoing may serve to explain the belief, which is not confined to Syria, that men and women may be in fact and not merely in metaphor the sons and [pg 079] daughters of a god; for these modern saints, whether Christian or Moslem, who father the children of Syrian mothers, are nothing but the old gods under a thin disguise. If in antiquity as at the present day Semitic women often repaired to shrines in order to have the reproach of barrenness removed from them—and the prayer of Hannah is a familiar example of the practice,[252] we could easily understand not only the tradition of the sons of God who begat children on the daughters of men,[253] but also the exceedingly common occurrence of the divine titles in Hebrew names of human beings.[254] Multitudes of men and women, in fact, whose mothers had resorted to holy places in order to procure offspring, would be regarded as the actual children of the god and would be named accordingly. Hence Hannah called her infant Samuel, which means “name of God” or “his name is God”;[255] and probably she sincerely believed that the child was actually begotten in her womb by the deity.[256] The dedication of such children to the service of God at the sanctuary was merely giving back the divine son to the divine father. Similarly in West Africa, when a woman has got a child at the shrine of Agbasia, the god who alone bestows offspring on women, she dedicates him or her as a sacred slave to the deity.[257]
The saints in modern Syria are the equivalents of the ancient Baal or Adonis.
Thus in the Syrian beliefs and customs of to-day we probably have the clue to the religious prostitution practised in the very same regions in antiquity. Then as now women looked to the local god, the Baal or Adonis of old, the Abu Rabah or St. George of to-day, to satisfy the natural craving of a woman's heart; and then as now, apparently, the part [pg 080] of the local god was played by sacred men, who in personating him may often have sincerely believed that they were acting under divine inspiration, and that the functions which they discharged were necessary for the fertility of the land as well as for the propagation of the human species. The purifying influence of Christianity and Mohammedanism has restricted such customs within narrow limits; even under Turkish rule they are now only carried on in holes and corners. Yet if the practice has dwindled, the principle which it embodies appears to be fundamentally the same; it is a desire for the continuance of the species, and a belief that an object so natural and legitimate can be accomplished by divine power manifesting itself in the bodies of men and women.
Belief in the physical fatherhood of God not confined to Syria. Sons of the serpent-god.
The belief in the physical fatherhood of God has not been confined to Syria in ancient and modern times. Elsewhere many men have been counted the sons of God in the most literal sense of the word, being supposed to have been begotten by his holy spirit in the wombs of mortal women. Here I shall merely illustrate the creed by a few examples drawn from classical antiquity.[258] Thus in order to obtain offspring women used to resort to the great sanctuary of Aesculapius, situated in a beautiful upland valley, to which a path, winding through a long wooded gorge, leads from the bay of Epidaurus. Here the women slept in the holy place and were visited in dreams by a serpent; and the children to whom they afterwards gave birth were believed to have been begotten by the reptile.[259] That the serpent was supposed to be the god himself seems certain; for Aesculapius repeatedly appeared in the form of a serpent,[260] and live serpents were kept and fed in his sanctuaries for the healing of the sick, being no doubt regarded as his incarnations.[261] Hence the children born to women who had [pg 081] thus visited a sanctuary of Aesculapius were probably fathered on the serpent-god. Many celebrated men in classical antiquity were thus promoted to the heavenly hierarchy by similar legends of a miraculous birth. The famous Aratus of Sicyon was certainly believed by his countrymen to be a son of Aesculapius; his mother is said to have got him in intercourse with a serpent.[262] Probably she slept either in the shrine of Aesculapius at Sicyon, where a figurine of her was shown seated on a serpent,[263] or perhaps in the more secluded sanctuary of the god at Titane, not many miles off, where the sacred serpents crawled among ancient cypresses on the hill-top which overlooks the narrow green valley of the Asopus with the white turbid river rushing in its depths.[264] There, under the shadow of the cypresses, with the murmur of the Asopus in her ears, the mother of Aratus may have conceived, or fancied she conceived, the future deliverer of his country. Again, the mother of Augustus is said to have got him by intercourse with a serpent in a temple of Apollo; hence the emperor was reputed to be the son of that god.[265] Similar tales were told of the Messenian hero Aristomenes, Alexander the Great, and the elder Scipio: all of them were reported to have been begotten by snakes.[266] In the time of Herod a serpent, according to Aelian, in like manner made love to a Judean maid.[267] Can the story be a distorted rumour of the parentage of Christ?
Women fertilized by stone serpents in India.
In India even stone serpents are credited with a power of bestowing offspring on women. Thus the Komatis of Mysore “worship Nága or the serpent god. This worship is generally confined to women and is carried on on a large [pg 082] scale once a year on the fifth day of the bright fortnight of Srávana (July and August). The representations of serpents are cut in stone slabs and are set up round an Asvattha tree on a platform, on which is also generally planted a margosa tree. These snakes in stones are set up in performance of vows and are said to be specially efficacious in curing bad sores and other skin diseases and in giving children. The women go to such places for worship with milk, fruits, and flowers on the prescribed day which is observed as a feast day.” They wash the stones, smear them with turmeric, and offer them curds and fruits. Sometimes they search out the dens of serpents and pour milk into the holes for the live reptiles.[268]