The moon was regarded in the old Syrian superstition as subject to the sun's influence, which was worshipped as the active and generative power of nature, while the moon was reverenced as the passive and producing power. The moon, accordingly, was looked upon as feminine. Herein Oriental usage agrees with our own. But this usage was by no means universal. The gender of mond in German is an exception in modern days, which may justify the inference that even among the Northern nations the moon lias masculine qualities as- cribed to it. By the people of Carran, in Mesopotamia, the moon was worshipped as a male deity, and called Lunus. Spartian tells us these people were of the opin- ion that such as believe the moon to be a goddess, and not a god, will be their wives' slaves as long as they live; but, on the contrary, those who esteem her to be a god will ever be masters of their wives, and never be overcome by their artifices. The same author tells us that there were remaining several medals of the Nysre- ans, Magnesians, and otlier Greek nations, which repre- sented the moon in the dress and under the name of a man, and covered with an Armenian bonnet. The Egyp- tians also represented their moon as a male deity, Ihoth; and WDkinson {Anc.Egijpt.x,b) remarks that "the same custom of calling it male is retained in the East to the present day, while the sun is considered feminine, as in the language of the Germans. Ihoth, in the character of Lunus, the moon, has sometimes a man's face, with the crescent of the moon upon his head supporting a disk." Plutarch says the Egyptians " call the moon the mother of the world, and hold it to be of both sexes :
female, as it receives the influence of the sun ; male, as it scatters and disperses through the air the principles of fecundity." In other countries also the moon was held to be hermaphrodite. Another pair of dissimilar qualities was ascribed to the moon — the destructive and the generative faculty — whence it was worshipped as a bad as well as a good power. The Egyptians sacrificed to the moon when she was at the full. The victims of- fered to her were swine, which the Egyptians held to be impure animals, and were forbidden to offer them to any other deities but that planet and Bacchus. When they sacrificed to the moon, and had kiUed the victim, they put the end of the tail, with the spleen and fat, into the caul, and burned them on the sacred fire, and ate the rest of the flesh on the day of the new moon. Those whose poverty would not admit of the expense of this sacrifice moulded a bit of paste into the shape of a hog, and offered up that (Herodotus, i, 2). In India this goddess bore the name of Maja ; among the Syr- ians, Mylilta ; among the Phcenicians, Astarte or Ash~ loreth; among the Greeks, Artemis; and among the Romans, Diana (see Biihr, Symbol, i, 436 sq., 478 ; ii, 222, 232). In these nations, however, tlie moon was usually the representative of the benign or prolific power of nature. See Carpzov, /l;;iparrt^p. 510; Frischmuth,i>e Melecheth Call (Jen. 1663) ; A. Calov, De Selenolatria (Vit. 1680). See Astrology.
In the Western world also the moon has been, and continues even now to be worshipped or superstitiously regarded. In Europe there are several countries in which untold superstitious acts are performed, depend- ing upon the moon's rotation (BQ&'Bta.i-iA, Popular An- tiquities of Great Britain, Index in vol. iii). In Great Britain and the Northern wilds the moon is placed highest in the scale of nature-worship. In America the wild man, like other heathen, both of civilized and bar- barous races, has been long accustomed to the thought that all the heavenly bodies are possessed of animation, and even gifted with some measure of intelligence. To each, accordingly, has been ascribed an independent, vi- talizing sold. The sun-god, for example, is the living sun itself, and worship is never paid to it symbolically, as if it were the representative of some invisible or absent spirit, but because it is an actual depository of the supersensuous, an embodiment of the divine. As the sun stands for the Creator, so the moon is con- nected, as in Babylonian mythology, with the thought of some evil principle. Says M tiller {Amei-ikanische Urreligionen), "The rude American was haunted by the thought of some co-equal and co-ordinate array of hos- tile deities, who manifested their malignant nature by creating discord, sickness, death, and every possible form of evil. These were held in numerous cases to obey the leadership of the moon, which, owing to its changeful aspects, have become identical with the ca- pricious, evil-minded spirit of American Indians" (p. 53 ; comp. 170, 272; comp. also Brinton, Myths of the Neio Woiid, p. 130-140). In Africa moon-worship prevails to a considerable extent, and is spoken of by Living- stone (Travels in South Africa, p. 235).
4. In the figurative language of Scripture the moon is frequently noticed as presaging events of the greatest importance through the teraporarj' or permanent with- drawal of its hght (Isa. xiii, 10 ; Joel ii, 31 ; Matt, xxiv, 29 ; Mark xiii, 24) : in these and similar passages we have an evident allusion to the mysterious awe with wliich eclipses were viewed by the Hebrews in common with other nations of antiquity (comp. Jer. xiii, 16; Ezek. xxxii, 7, 8 ; Rev. viii, 12). With regard to the symbolic meaning of the moon in Rev. xii, 1, we have only to observe that the ordinary explanations, viz. the sublunary world, or the changeableness of its affairs, seem to derive no authority from the language of the O. T., or from the ideas of the Hebrews.— Kitto; Smith; Winer.