RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Summenhart
Sun and Sun Worship
of Charing Cross) Sept. 6, 1862. He studied at Eton, 1791-98, and at King's College, Cambridge (B.A., 1803; M.A., 1807; D.D., 1828). In 1802 he became assistant master at Eton; was rector of Maple Durham, 1820-48; became canon of Durham, 1820; bishop of Chester, 1828; archbishop of Canterbury, 1848. He was untiring in his efforts to provide for schools and to further the erection of churches, and had consecrated more than 200 new churches by 1847 He was the leader of the " evangelical party " in the Church of England, and earnestly opposed to Romanism and the Oxford movement. His primacy covered the restoration of the Roman Catholic hierarchy to England, the period of Essays and Reviews (q.v.), and the revival of the synodical power of convocation . His publications include commentaries on Matthew and Mark (London, 1831), Luke (1832), John (1835), on Romans and I Corinthians (1843), II Corinthians, and Galatians,
Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians (1845), and Thessalonians (1851); also, A Treatise on the Records of the Creation, and on the Moral Attributes of the Creator; with particular Reference to the Jewish History, and to the Consistency of the Principle of Population with the Wisdom and Goodness of the Deity (2 vols., 1816); The Evidence of Christianity, Derived from its Nature and Reception (1824) ; (Sermons on the Principal Festivals of the Christian Church; to which are added three Sermons on Good Friday (1827); Four Sermons on Subjects Relating to the Christian Ministry (1828); Christian Charity, its Obligations and Objects, with Reference to the Present State of Society, in a Series of Sermons (1841) ; On Regeneration and Grace (1850); Practical Reflections on Select Passages of the New Testament (1859); and numerous occasional sermons.
Bibliography: DNB, lv. 168-170 (gives references to scattering notices).
SUN AND SUN WORSHIP.
I. Among the Hebrews. Names and Titles (§ 1). General Conceptions (§2). Worship (§ 3). Date of Introduction (§ 4). II. In Other Lands.
I. Among the Hebrews: In the Old Testament
the usual name for the sun is shemesh, a name which,
with various vocalization, appears in most of the
Semitic languages, as in Babylonian-Assyrian,
Aramaic, Arabic, Phenician, and Pal-
i. Names myrene (cf. the name of the god and Titles. Shamash, Babylonia, VII., 2, § 4, and see below, II., 2). The signification of the word is unknown (Brown-Driver-Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon, p. 1039, Boston, 1906). The word is in the Hebrew prevailingly masculine,* but sometimes feminine (as in Gen. xv. 7), as is the Aramaic shemsha; the Assyrian-Babylonian form is invariably masculine, andvthe Arabic (shams) is always feminine (Albrecht, in ZATW, xv., 1895, p. 324). Poetical names for the sun in Hebrew are Jiammah (probably " the glowing one "; Job xxx. 28), and heres (Job ix. 7; meaning of the root- of the word doubtful). In Gen. i. (where the sun is not called shemesh, but is spoken of as the greater of the " two great fights ") the purpose of the sun is given as " to rule the day," " to divide the light from the darkness," ancLi' to be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years "; that is, the function of the sun was conceived as being to indicate morning, noon, and evening, the seasons of the year, and therefore the religious festivals in their
Arabs and Nabatseans (§ 4).
5. The Hittites.
6. India.
7. China and Japan.
8. Western Indo-European Peoples.
9. Primitive Peoples.
* An interesting question is raised with reference to the ?ender of shemesh in Gen. xxxvii. 9. The " sun and the moon and the eleven stars " [signs of the zodiac] represent Jacob, Rachel, and the eleven brethren of Joseph (cf. verse 10). But the word for " moon " is invariably masculine, and it is argued that consequently shemesh must here be feminine. On the other hand, the order in verse 9 is as above and the sun corresponds in place to Jacob, the moon to " thy mother," and so on. Moreover, where Semitic Babylonian influence prevails the male is the superior (note the insignificance of Babylonian female deities after Sumerian influence had become decadent; see Assyria, VII., § 1), and in theology the sun takes precedence of the moon.
1. In General.
2. Babylonia.
3. Egypt.
4. Aramea, Syria, and Phenicia. Place Names (§ 1). Personal Names (§ 2). Monumental Testimony (§ 3).
recurring times. The sun as a measurer of time naturally comes into connection with both the Day and the Year (qq.v.; see also Moon; and Time, Biblical Reckoning of). The arrangement for an intercalated month in later times reveals the fact that the lunar year was made to square, at least approximately, with the solar year, at any rate in the later period of Jewish history.
The Hebrew notions regarding the sun were those of the region in which Palestine was situated, and of the period when Babylonian influence prevailed. The luminary was regarded as " going forth " in
the morning from his pavilion at the
2. General eastern end of the heaven (cf . the seals
Conceptions, in which the Babylonian Shamash is
represented as issuing from a gate, represented by posts, in W H. Ward, Seal Cylinders of Western Asia, chap, xiii., Washington, 1910) with the joy and confidence of a bridegroom (Ps. xix. 5), while his setting is called an " entering " (i. e., of gates in the West; cf. the cognate Babylonian thought, P. Jensen, Kosmologie der Babylonier, p. 9, Strasburg, 1890); and this involved the idea of a subterranean course in the night in order to be in his place of rising in the morning (Ps. xix. 5-7; Eccles. i. 5, the latter a conception slightly more developed). An eclipse or darkening of the sun was considered to be ominous of evil, and is one of the signs constantly associated with the Day of the Lord (q.v.; cf. Job iii. 5; Isa. xiii. 10; Joel ii. 10, iii. 15; Amos viii. 9; Matt, xxiv. 29, and often). Interference with the orderly course of the sun is conceived as within God's power (Job ix. 7), and its progress is reported to have been stayed to work salvation in battle for Israel (Josh. x. 12-13) or even reversed as a sign to Hezekiah (the shadow of the dial or steps is reversed, II Kings xx. 9-11; the sun itself, Isa. xxx viii. 8). With the
Sun and Sun Worship