2. Shamanism, or the magical side of fetishism, the religion of the Mongolian tribes, and apparently the primitive religion of China.
3. High natn7-e-icorship, the worship of the sun, moon, and stars, and of the supposed pov.'ers of nature. The old religion of the Shemitic races consisted, in the opin- ion of jMovers {Phon. i, c. 5), in the deification of the powers and laws of nature ; these powers being consid- ered either as distinct and independent, or as manifes- tations of one supreme and all-ruling being. In most instances the two ideas were co-existent. The deity, following human analog}', was conceived as male and female : the one representing the active, the other the passive principle of nature; the former the source of spiritual, the latter of physical life. The transference of the attributes of the one to the other resulted cither in their mystical conjunction in the hermaphrodite, as the Persian Mithra and Phoenician Baal, or the two combined to form a third, which symbolized the essen- tial miity of both. (This will explain the occurrence of the name of Baal with the masculme and feminine articles in the Sept. ; comp. Hos. xi, 2 ; Jer. xix, 5 ; Rom. xi, 4. Philochorus, quoted by Macrobius [^Sat. iii, 8], says that men and women sacrificed to Venus or the Moon, with the garments of the sexes interchanged, be- cause she was regarded both as masculine and feminine [see Selden, De Bis Si/r. ii, 2]. Hence Lunus and Lu- na.) With these two sujjreme beuigs all other beings are identical ; so that in different nations the same na- ture-worship appears mider different forms, rej-rescnting the various aspects under which the idea of tlio power of nature is presented. The sun and moon were early selected as outward symbols of this aU-pervading power, and the worship of the heavenly bodies was not only the most ancient, but the most prevalent sj'stem of idol- atry. Taking its rise, according to a probable hypoth- esis, in the plains of Chaldiea, it spread through EgjiDt, Greece, Scythia, and even Mexico and Ceylon ; and it is worth J' of notice that even the religion of remote India presupposes a grand symbolic representation of the divine by the worship of these great physical pow- ers (compare Lassen, Ind. A Iterth. i, 756 sq. ; Eoth, Ge- schichte der Relirjionen). See HixDUissr. It was re- garded as an offence amenable to the civil authorities in the daj'S of Job (xxxi, 26-28), and one of the statutes of the Mosaic law was directed against its observance (Deut. iv, 19 ; xvii, 3) ; the former referring to the star- worship of Arabia, the latter to the concrete form in which it appeared among the Syrians and Phoenicians. It is probable that the Israelites learned their first les- sons in sun-worship from the Egyjitians, in \vhose relig- ious system that luminary, as Osiris, held a prominent place. The city of On (Bethshemesh or Heliopolis) took its name from his temple (Jer. xliii, 13), and the
IDOLATRY
473
IDOLATRY
wife of Joseph was the daughter of his priest (Gen. xli, 45). The Phcenicians worshipped him under the title of " Lord of heaven," tS'^'pd ^S'S, Baal-shdmayim {j3t- E\ffdi.a]i', ace. to Sanchoniatho in Pliilo Byblius), and Adon, tlie Greek Adonis, and the Tammuz of Ezekiel (viii, 1-1). Sec Tamjiuz. As Molech or Milcom, the Sim was worshipped by the Ammonites, and as Chemosh by the Moabites. The Hadad of the Syrians is the same deity, whose name is traceable in Benhadad, Ha- dadezer, and Hadad or Adad, the Edomite. The As- syrian Bel or Belus is another form of Baal. According to Philo (De Vit. Cont. § 3), the Essenes were wont to pray to the sun at morning and evening (Joseph. War, ii, 8, 5). By the later kings of Judah, sacred horses and chariots were dedicated to the sun-god, as by the Persians (2 Kings xxiii, 11 ; Bochart, Ilieroz. pt. i, bk. ii, c. xi ; Selden, De Bis Sijr. ii, 8), to march in proces- sion and greet his rising (R. Solomon Jarchi on 2 Kings xxiii, 11). The Massagetro offered horses in sacrifice to him (Strabo, xi, p. 513), on the principle enunciated by Macrobius (Satvii, 7), "like rejoiceth in hke" ("simil- ibus similia gaudent ;" compare Herod, i, 216), and the custom was common to many nations.
The moon, worshipped by the Phoenicians under the name of Astarte (Lucian, de Dea Si/ra, c. 4), or Baaltis, the passive power of nature, as Baal was the active (Movers, i, 149), and known to the Hebrews as Ashta- roth or Ashtoretli, the tutelary goddess of the Zido- nians, appears early among the objects of Israelitish idolatry. But this Syro-Phocnician ;vorship of the sun and moon was of a grosser character than the piu-e star- worship of the Magi, which Movers distinguishes as Upper Asiatic or Assyro-Persian, and was equally re- moved from the Chaldraan astrology and Zabianism of later times. The former of these systems tolerated no images or altars, and the contemplation of the heavenly bodies from elevated spots constituted the greater part of its ritual.
But, though we have no positive historical account of star- worship before the Assyrian period, we may infer that it was early practiced in a concrete form among the Israelites from the allusions in Amos v, 2G, and Acts vii, 42, 43. Even in the desert they are said to have been given up to worship the host of heaven, while Chiun and Remphan, or Rephan, have on various grounds been identified with the planet Saturn. lb was to counteract idolatry of this nature that the stringent law of Deut. xvii, 3 was enacted, and with a view to withdra^ving the Israelites from undue contemplation of the material universe, Jehovah, the God of Israel, is constantly placed before them as Jehovah Sabaoth, Jehovah of Hosts, the king of heaven (Dan. iv, 35, 37), to whom the heaven and heaven of lieavens belong (Deut. x, 14). However this may be, Jlovers (Plion. i, 65, 66) contends that the later star-worship, introduced by Ahaz and followed by Manassch, was purer and more spiritual in its natiu-e than the Israelito-Phocnician Avorship of the heavenl}- bodies under symbolical forms, as Baal and Asherah; and that it was not idolatry in the same sense that the latter was, but of a simply contemplative character. He is supported, to some extent, by the fact that we find no mention of any images of the sun or moon or the host of heaven, Ijut merely of vessels devoted to their service (2 King.^ xxiii, 4). But there is no reason to believe that the divine honors paid to the " Queen of Heaven" (Jer. vii. 18; xlix, 19; or, as others render, "the frame" or "structure of the heavens") were equally dissociated from image-worship. Mr.Layard (A7M.ii,451) discovered a bas-relief at Ximroud which represented four idols car- ried in procession by Assyrian warriors. One of these figures he identifies with Hera, the Assyrian Astarte, represented with a star on ber head (Amos v, 26), and with the " queen of heaven," who appears on the rock- tablets of Pterium "standing erect on a lion, and crowned with a tower, or miu-al coronet," as in the Syr- ian temple of HierapoUs (ib. p. 456 ; Lucian, f/e Bea Si/ra, 81, 32) . But, in his remarks upon a figure which resem-