Ancient Faiths And Modern / A Dissertation upon Worships, Legends and Divinities in Central and Western Asia, Europe, and Elsewhere, Before the Christian Era. Showing Their Relations to Religious Customs as They Now Exist.

by Thomas Inman

As we have before remarked, there is nothing in the mythological stories which we have just recounted that is either more or less miraculous than conception, &c., by a virgin without the intervention of a human spouse. There is, whenever a miraculous agency is presumed, no greater difficulty in believing that children may be produced without mothers, than that they should be formed without the intervention of a father. Ere a tree can rise in the soil of a field, a germ, seed, or cutting is as necessary as the existence of a moist mould, or other ground. There being then no greater probability that a crop will spring from a moist plain without seed, than that an abundant harvest will come from dry seed alone, we are necessarily thrown back upon testimony, when we are asked to believe in the paternity of man and the maternity of woman without any association of the one with the other.

The mythologists who conceived, or who recorded the fabulous history of Orion, evidently had some idea in their minds of the necessity of two elements in the formation and growth of a child, when they told the tale of the generation of that giant; and the myth connected with this individual is so curiously like one recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures, that it deserves full notice. In Genesis the narrative informs us that there was an old couple, both beyond the age at which there is any probability of either party performing the part necessary for the production of offspring (Gen. xviii. 12), both were desirous of having at least one son, but though they had been long united in marriage, their aspirations had been vain. To this couple, or rather to the husband, Jehovah is said to have appeared with two companions (Gen. xviii. 1, 2), and as the man was hospitably disposed, he ordered his wife to make some cakes, whilst he went to fetch and kill a calf for his servant to dress and cook. The visitors then partook, alone, of the good cheer, and when they had made the repast they promised the husband that his long cherished desire should be fulfilled, and that he should have a son. There does not, however, appear to be anything supernatural in the generation of the infant, except the mere facts that the father had been effete for some time, and the mother had always been barren even when young, so that conception was more surely miraculous by reason of her advanced age. The probability of pregnancy at Sarah's time of life was certainly small, but she was reminded that nothing was too hard for Jehovah to effect. Had not He already made man out of dust and woman out of man? and surely after that it was easy to cause a man and woman to act their respective parts. The reader must specially bear in mind this observation of the Lord's when he reads the Greek story following. (See Ovid's Fasti, book 5).

"Jupiter, his brother Neptune, and Mercury, were on their travels; the day was far spent and evening approached. They were spied by a venerable man, an humble farmer, who stood in the doorway of his small abode. He accosts them with the words, 'long is the road and but little of the day remains, my door too is ever open to the stranger,' and so earnest is his look of entreaty, that the gods accept his invitation."

Jupiter and the others, however, conceal their divine nature, and eat and drink like common men. But after a draught of wine, Neptune inadvertently names Jupiter, and the poor man who has thus entertained angels unawares, is frightened at their presence. After a few moments of natural embarrassment, he goes to his field and kills his only ox—the drawer of his plough—then he cuts up the animal, roasts it well, produces his best wine, and lays the feast, when ready, before his august guests. Then Jove, delighted with his hospitality and piety, says to the farmer, 'If thy inclination leads thee to desire anything, wish for it, and thou shalt receive it.' To which the old man answers, 'I once had a dear wife, known as the choice of my early youth, yet she is now gone from me and an urn contains her ashes.

To her I vowed, calling upon you my lord gods as witnesses to the oath, that I would never wed me more. I swore and will keep my word. She and I longed for a son, yet none came to bless our declining years. I yearn for one now, but will not endeavour to procure one, I wish to be a father, yet refuse to be a husband or enact his part.' To deities like Jupiter, such a request was by no means a difficult one to grant, the gods could as readily form a boy as they could fabricate Pandora—a lovely woman—and send her to Prometheus, with all the ills which flesh is heir to, confined in an ark, chest, or coffer. Yet the process of what may be designated conception was a strange one. The three simply relieved themselves of the wine which they had drunk, using the skin of the slaughtered ox instead of a more commodious vessel. The man was then ordered to bury the whole in the ground, and wait according to the time of life. The gestation of the earth was completed in ten months, and at the end of that period the venerable farmer possessed a fine lad who grew up and became famous. If, now, we substitute for the Grecian name, Hyrieus, the Hebrew title Abraham; if for Jupiter, Neptune, and Mercury, we read, Jehovah and two angels; if for the phrase, "they were on their travels," we read, "they were going down to Sodom to see if it was as bad a place as it was reported to be" (see Gen. xviii. 21); if for the ox which was roasted, we place, "a calf tender and good," we see a wonderful resemblance between the stories of the conception of Orion and Isaac. But there is this difference that in the Hebrew tale the divine gift is brought about by a transient restoration of power to Abraham and Sarah; whilst in the Grecian mythos, the old man is faithful to the memory of a beloved spouse, and refuses to renew with another the pleasure which he had in her company. We conceive that the exigency of the Jewish account, made it necessary that the son of Abraham should be of his father begotten, as well as a child of promise; whereas no one can call Orion the son of any one, although he was as surely a child of promise granted by the gods, as Isaac was, who was given by Elohim (or the gods) of the Hebrews.

We may enter now, for a short time, into a speculation whether the Grecian story was borrowed from the Hebrew or the contrary. We are disposed to believe that the tale was adopted by the Jews after they became acquainted with the Greeks. The following are our reasons:—The conception of a godhead composed of three persons, is foreign to the Hebrew thoughts of the Almighty. Still further was it from Jewish belief to think, that Jehovah would come down upon earth to acquire information, and when there, eat and drink and talk like any ordinary man. Amongst the Israelites it was generally held that no one could see the face of God and live, On the other hand, the Greeks were familiar with tales which told of gods coming down to earth in the guise of men. As an illustration of this, we may point to Acts xiv. 11-13, wherein we find that the people of Lycaonia imagined that the gods Jupiter and Mercurius had come down to them in the likeness of men, and prepared to sacrifice to them. Yet after all, Paul had simply cured a single paralytic. On the other hand, the Jews regarded as rank blasphemy, and a crime worthy of death, that Jesus should assert himself to be a son of God, even although the miracles alleged in support of the assertion were as stupendous as they were numerous.

Still, further, we cannot imagine that the degrading story of Jehovah's feasting with Abraham could have been composed, except when the Jews were no better than an untaught and grossly superstitious race. We have already, in Ancient Faiths, &c., expressed our opinion that the Israelites were at the very lowest period of their history at the time when Isaiah began his exhortations. There had been a confederacy between the men of Edom, of Moab, Gebal, Amnion, Amalek, Tyre, Philistia, and Assyria, the Ismaélites and the Hagarenes, which had attacked Jerusalem and Judea, and captured all the inhabitants, many of whom they sold to the Grecians (see Joel iii. 5-7). At, and shortly after this time, the Jews were in a condition of abject misery (see Isaiah i. 4-9), and capable of believing any story told to them, and would just as easily credit the mythology which the Grecian captives told, or their Grecian masters taught, as their successors do those which at a subsequent period filled the Hebrew Scriptures.

Whilst then, on the one hand, there is a probability of the Hebrews having borrowed the fable from Hellenistic sources, there is, on the other, the strongest objection to the supposition that the Greeks should have borrowed from the Jews. Everything which the latter say of themselves, indicates that they were exclusive to an inordinate degree, refusing to have intercourse on equal terms with any of their neighbours, that they never sought to make their history, laws, and customs, known to Gentiles, and especially those outside of Judea, and that their writings never assumed a Grecian dress until the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, who ordered the Septuagint translation to be made about B.c. 285, with the direct view of making the Hebrew Scriptures known to the Greeks.

Moreover, we know from everything which was said of the Jews by the Gentiles, that the latter treated the former with contempt and contumely, and would no more dream of imitating any of their writings, &c., than we should care to adopt the myths of Abyssinian negroes as an integral part of Christianity.

It will now be profitable if we examine the story of Sanchoniathon and the statements of the Orphic Hymns.