reth was probably confounded with Juno, because she is the female counterpart to Baal, the chief god of the Syrians — their Jupiter, as it were ; and with Venus, because the same lascivious rites were com- mon to her worship and to that of Ashtoreth and her cognate Mylitta (Creuzer, Synibolik, ii, 23). But so great is the intermixture and confusion between the gods of pagan religions, that Munter further iden- tifies Ashtoreth — due allowance being made for differ- ence of time and place — with the female Kafir, Azio- kersa, with the Egyptian Isis, with the Paphian Ve- nus, with the Taurian and Ephesian Pinna, with the Bellona of Comana, with the Armenian AndMd, and with the Samian, Maltesian, and Lacinian Juno. She has also been considered to be the same as the Syrian jish-d<iii/, the Atergatis of 2 Mace, xii, 26, whose tem- ple appears, from 1 Mace, v, 43, to have been situated at Ashteroth-Kumain. See Atergatis. Her figure
ASHTORETH
465
ASHURITE
(in various forms) is certainly found on the Egyptian and Assyrian monuments (Layard's Nineveh, ii, 169); which likewise contain illustrations of most of the at- tributes ascribed to her in scriptural as well as profane authorities (see Jour. Sac. Lit. Oct. 1852, p. 88 sq.). As for the power of nature, which was worshipped un- der the name of Ashtoreth, Creuzer and Miinter assert that it was the principle of conception and parturition — that subordinate power which is fecundated by a superior influence, but which is the agent of all births throughout the universe. As such, Miinter maintains (Religiem der Babylonier, p. 21), in opposition to the remarks of Gesenius (Jesaias, iii, 337), that the orig- inal form under which Ashtoreth was worshipped was the moon; and that the transition from that to the planet Venus (which we will immediately notice) was unquestionably an innovation of a later date. It is evident that the moon alone can be properly called the queen of heaven ; as also that the dependent re- lation of the moon to the sun makes it a more appro- priate symbol of that sex, whose functions as female and mother, throughout the whole extent of animated nature, were embodied in Ashtoreth. See Baal. Movers (Phon. 607) distinguishes two Astartes, one Carthaginian-Sidonian, a virgin goddess symbolized by the moon, the other Syro-Phcenieian, symbolized by the planet Venus. But it seems most likely that both the moon and the planet were looked upon as sym- bols, under different aspects and perhaps at different periods, of the goddess, just as each of them may in different aspects of the heavens be regarded as the "queen of heaven" (q. v.).
The rites of her worship, if we may assume their resembling those which profane authors describe as paid to the cognate goddesses, in part agree with the few indications in the Old Testament, in part com- plete the brief notices there into an accordant picture. The cakes mentioned in Jer. vii, 18, which arc called in Hebrew C^S, kavvanim' ', were also known to the Greeks by the name yafiSivEC., and were by them made in the shape of a sickle, in reference to the new moon. Among animals, the dove, the crab, and, in later times, the lion were sacred to her, and among fruits the pom- egranate. No blood was shed on her altar ; but male animals, and chiefly kids, were sacrificed to her (Tacit. Hist, ii, 3). Hence some suppose that the reason why Judah promised the harlot a kid was that she might sacrifice it to Ashtoreth (see Tuch's note to Gen. xxxviii, 17). The most prominent part of her wor- ship, however, consisted of those libidinous orgies which Augustine, who was an eye-witness of their horrors in Carthage, describes with such indignation (De Chit. Dei, ii, 3). Her priests were eunuchs in women's attire (the peculiar name of whom is D^dlp, kadeshim', male devotees, sacri, i. e. cim-cdi, Galli, 1 Kings xiv, 24), and women (ridnp, Icedeshoth' ', female devotees, sacrce, i. e. meretrices, Hos. iv, 14, which term ought to be distinguished from ordinary harlots, niai'T), who, like the Bayaderes of India, prostituted themselves to enrich the temple of this goddess. See Sodomite. The prohibition in Deut. xxiii, 18, appears to allude to the dedication of such funds to such a pur- pose. As for the places consecrated to her worship, al- though the numerous passages in which the Auth.Vers. has erroneously rendered HTjx, Asherah, by grove, are to be deducted [see Grove], there are yet several oc- casions on which gardens and shady trees are mentioned as peculiar seats of (probably her) lascivious rites (Isa. i, 29; Ixv, 3; 1 Kings xiv* 23; Hos. iv, 13; Jer. ii, 20 ; iii, 13). She also had celebrated temples (1 Sam. xxxi, 10). As to the form and attributes with which Ashtoreth was represented, the oldest known image, that in Paphos, was a white conical stone, often seen on Phoenician remains in the figure which Tacitus thus describes, 1. c. : " The statue of the goddess bears no Go
resemblance to the human form : you see a round fig- ure, broad at the base, but growing fine by degrees, till, like a cone, it lessens to a point."' In Canaan she was probably represented as a cmo. It is said in the book of Tobit, i, 5, that the tribes which revolted sacrificed "to the heifer Baal." In Phoenicia she had the head of a cow or bull, as she is seen on coins. At length she was figured with the human form, as Lucian express- ly testifies of the Syrian goddess, which is sub- stantially the same as Ashtoreth; and she is so found on coins of Seve- rus, with her head sur- Medal of the Female Baal, rounded with rays, sitting on a lion, and holding a thunderbolt and a sceptre in either hand. What Kim- chi says of her being worshipped under the figure of a sheep is a mere figment of the rabbins, founded on a misapprehension of Deut. vii, 13. As the words " flocks (Ashtaroth) of sheep" there occurring may be legitimately taken as the loves of the flock (Veneres pecoris\ i. e. either the ewes or the lambs, the whole foundation of that opinion, as well as of the notion that the word means .sheep, is unsound.