Chapter XL: Ichthyolatry Improbable—fish Not in Sacrifices or Auguries

Although nothing is said of sacrificial fish, it is possible that Ichthyolatry did prevail in Israel to some extent. In Deut. iv. 18,[1046] we find an express commandment or law laid down by Moses against the making of a graven image of “the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth”: in Exodus xx. 4, we read, “Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor the likeness of any form that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.”

If Ichthyolatry existed, it could hardly have sprung up among a nomad people living in the Desert, as did the Jews for years before they entered the Promised Land. Such a cult with other customs was probably adopted from the Canaanites by their conquerors. Psalm cvi. 35 ff., expressly tells us, “but they mingled themselves with the nations and learned their works; and they served their idols which became a snare unto them.” Any argument in favour of the existence of Ichthyolatry which rests mainly on Deut. iv. 18, and Ex. xx. 4, can to my mind carry little or no weight. They simply embody a comprehensive command against making a graven image of any kind whatever, celestial, terrestrial, or aquatic.

As to the observance of the commandment, Petrie writes:—[1047] “It is often assumed that the prohibition to make a graven image was as rigidly carried out in Israel as in Islam—the second monotheistic revival of the Semites. The holy of holies in Solomon’s Temple contained, however, two enormous cherubim, about 17 feet high, side by side, right across the back of the shrine.... Not only were these figures in the holiest place, but in the court stood the brazen sea on twelve oxen, and figures of lions, oxen, and cherubim covered the tanks. In earlier times Micah had a graven image, and a molten image of silver, weighing about six pounds, in his private chapel of Yahweh, served by a Levite, and they, with the ephod and teraphim, were adopted for tribal worship by part of the tribe of Dan until the captivity.”

The author adds “there was neither officially nor privately any objection to the use of images.” He also shows that even “in the holiest of all things, the Ark of Yahweh, there were cherubs, one on each side of the mercy seat, with their wings covering the mercy seat,” in which design and other religious matters he discerns clear instances of Egyptian influence.

However this may be, it is plain from Ezekiel (viii. 10-11) that the Israelites worshipped graven representations of “every form of creeping things and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the House of Israel, pourtrayed up on the wall round about. And there stood before them seventy men of the elders of Israel ... with every man his censer in his hand: and the odour of the cloud of incense went up.” Some scholars go indeed as far as the assertion that until the prophetic reformation in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C., the _popular_ religion of Israel was about on a level with unreformed Hinduism.

We stand on surer ground in the statement that Ashtoreth, a goddess of the Zidonians and Canaanites, was worshipped by Israel, for in 1 Kings xi. 5 and 33, we read “Solomon went after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians,” and, “because they have forsaken me and have worshipped Ashtoreth.”[1048] From this acknowledged worship of Ashtoreth, sometimes identified with Astarte and with Atargatis[1049]—undoubtedly a fish goddess—Ichthyolatry has been claimed for Israel.

From a coin of Hierapolis. See _Brit. Mus. Cat. of Coins_, Galatia, Pl. 18, 14, or B.V. Head, _Historia Numorum_^2 (Oxford, 1911), p. 777. For Atargatis, see _ante_, 127.]

But Cheyne, after showing that the mistake of identification arose from Carnaim, where (Maccabees v. 26) the temple of Atargatis stood, being also called (Gen. xiv. 5) Ashtoreth-Carnaim, disputes the deduction, and denies that these goddesses were one and the same. He points out that at Ascalon there were two separate temples, one to Astarte (Ashtoreth) and one to Atargatis (Derceto), standing side by side.[1050]

Strabo, however, states (XVI. p. 748) that in Hierapolis, or Bambyce, or Magog, “there was worshipped the Syrian goddess Atargatis,” and on p. 785 that this same goddess is called by the historian Ctesias Derceto, and by others Athara. In Strabo’s day apparently the name, if not the cult, of Atargatis and Ashtoreth were considered identical.[1051]

Milton, at any rate, evinces no doubt,

“Came Ashtoreth, whom the Phœnicians called
Astarte, queen of heaven, with crescent horns:
In Sion also not unsung, where stood
Her temple on the offensive Mount.”[1052]

The origin, the nature, and the worship of Dagon, the fish god of the Philistines, whose temple stood at Ashdod,[1053] are discussed in Chapter xxxiii.

The Scape-Goat is perhaps the best known of the Israelitish offerings to the deity. The annual ceremony of “the driving away” became a service of the highest pomp and solemnity. For it two goats were necessary: the first to be drawn by lot was killed as a Sin Offering unto Yahweh, the second, the Scape-Goat, after being laden by the High Priest with all the sins of the people for the past year, was sent away into the wilderness, “to Azazel” (Levit. xvi. 8, 10, R.V.).

This symbolic bearing away of the sins of the people is somewhat analogous to that in Lev. xiv. 4 ff., where for the purification of the leper one bird is killed, and the other, charged with the disease, let loose in the open field. In Zech. v. 5 ff., Wickedness is carried away bodily into the land of Shinar.

The resemblance of this periodic offering[1054] and of many other Jewish institutions to those of Babylon is striking. The letting loose and driving away of the _Mashhulduppu_, or Scape-Goat, was similarly the occasion of an annual ceremony of imposing ritual. The first account of this appears in an inscription of the Cassite period, which avows itself merely a copy of an earlier record, the original of which may well have existed in the time of Hammurabi.

To fish figuring as symbolical bearers away of sins we have references, according to Pitra,[1055] in the Talmud, though not in the Bible. On New Year’s Day (about mid-September), when in the fulness of time God will judge mankind, it was the custom (based on Micah vii., “Thou wilt cast all their sins into the sea”) to assemble near some lake or stream. If goodly numbers of fish were spied, the omen of the expiation of human sins was accepted. Forthwith the crowd jumped for joy, and shed their garments, likewise their sins, on to the fishes, who swam away, heavily laden.

Religious customs in Israel and Assyria both correspond and differ. Thus the sacrifices of fish found in Assyria are absent in Israel, although we read _passim_ of offerings of domestic animals, of wine, of pigeons, and of doves. The former (despite Sayce and Jastrow) were guiltless of human sacrifices, the latter “sacrificed their sons and their daughters” (even) “unto demons.”[1056]

From the words of Exod. xiii. 2, and Numbers xviii. 15 f., Mr. Campbell Thompson holds that the God of Israel plainly regarded the firstborn of men and the firstlings of animals as his own. The Israelites certainly offered up some of their children, generally the firstborn (cf. Isaac), either as a tribute regularly due to their Deity or to appease his anger at times of calamity or danger.[1057] Other writers disavow a general sacrificing of the firstborn as part of the religion of Israel; they attribute individual instances occurring towards the close of the monarchy to the influence of surrounding nations.[1058]

I have come across no counterpart to the Babylonian or Roman custom of taking auguries or making oracular responses from the movements, etc., of fish. If the Hebrews apparently lacked some modes of divining which were employed by the Greeks, Romans, Arabs, etc., such as observation of the flight and cries of birds, the movements of fish, the inspection of the entrails of animals (for it was a King of Babylon, not of Israel, who “looked in the liver”), the Bible reveals signs and omens resembling or identical with those in use elsewhere.

We read, for instance, of _Rhabdomancy_, or divination by rods, “my people asketh counsel at their stock, and their staff declareth unto them.”[1059] _Drawing of Lots_, probably by different coloured stones,[1060] _Astrology_,[1061] and _Oneiromancy_, or dream divination.[1062]

Strabo reports as attached to the Temple at Jerusalem a class of official dreamers, apparently for purposes of divination or prophetic deliverances. Of the important part played by dreams in both the Old and New Testaments, those of Jacob, Joseph, Solomon, and Joseph the husband of Mary, are _inter alia_ evidence. In the Temple institution[1063] may possibly be detected the continuance of the Semitic pre-Mosaic custom of sleeping places before a temple (as at Serabīt-al-Khādim) for dreamers[1064] in quest of omens, although the references to it in the O.T. itself are very slight, and only occur in connection with Bethel stones and Seers.[1065]

The Seers were a recognised class of persons, who by an exceptional gift could disclose to inquirers secrets of the present and immediate future (1 Sam. ix. 6, and x. 2-6). Samuel himself belonged to the college or class of Seers. Like the diviners, they received fees; thus Saul’s servant suggests the giving to the Seer, whose words invariably come to pass, “a quarter of a shekel of silver.”

As regards the diviners, etc., we find in Isaiah ii. 6, “Thou hast forsaken thy people the house of Jacob, because they be filled with customs from the East and are soothsayers like the Philistines,” and in Deut. xviii. 10-12, “one that useth divination, or practiseth augury, or an enchanter, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a consulter with a familiar spirit, or a wizard, or a necromancer,” all these are abominations unto the Lord.[1066]

FOOTNOTES:

[1046] Many hold that Deuteronomy was written not earlier than the seventh century, or even as late as 550 B.C., previous to which there had taken place a large influx of foreigners, especially from N.W. Mesopotamia and Babylon, where gods were represented by scores.

[1047] _Egypt and Israel_, pp. 60, 61. Objection to the use of images in Israel was not apparently general till the latter half of the eighth century B.C. Their existence may, perhaps, be explained by (A) the universal existence of such worship among the Canaanites, (B) the proportion of Israelites to Canaanites being about as small as that of the Normans to the Saxons in England.

[1048] Of the fate of this and other temples erected by Solomon we read in 2 Kings xxiii. 13, “and the high places which Solomon had builded for Ashtoreth, the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom, the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile,” _i.e._ King Josiah some three centuries and a half after.

[1049] For data on Atargatis and Derceto, and for various Syrian coins bearing fish, see J. B. Pitra, _Spicilegium Solesmense_, III. pp. 503-4 (Paris, 1855).

[1050] _Ency. Bibl._, p. 379.

[1051] In _Some Palestinian Cults in the Greek and Roman Age_ (Proceedings of British Academy, vol. V. p. 9), Mr. G. F. Hill, speaking of the worship in the two cities, concludes that the one at Ascalon is identified by Herodotus with that of Aphrodite Urania, and that at Gaza with Derceto, or Atargatis. Lucian (if he wrote _De dea Syria_) distinguishes the goddess of Ascalon from her of Hierapolis, who was worshipped in human not semi-human form, but there is little doubt of the connection between them. The Greeks identified both with Aphrodite. Other writers state that the Canaanite Ashtoreth, pre-eminently the goddess of reproduction and fecundity, became the goddess of fish (which, as sacred to her, were forbidden food) and of the pomegranate, both of which from their thousands of eggs or seeds are striking emblems of fertility.

[1052] Graf Wolf von Baudissin in Hauck’s _Protestantische Realencycl._, 3rd ed., vol. II., p. 177, _s.v._ Atargatis, “If Atargatis be, as we suppose, originally identical with Astarte, and if the latter be the representative of the generative night-sky—in particular of the Moon—then the representation of the former as a water and fish deity will be connected with the conception, so widespread in antiquity, of the Moon being the principle of generative moisture.”

[1053] 1 Sam. v. 4.

[1054] Frazer, _The Golden Bough_, I. pp. 14 and 70, gives many instances similar to the periodic offering by the Scape-Goat among the Chinese, Malayans, and Esquimaux.

[1055] Pitra, _op. cit._, p. 515 (who refers to Buxtorf, _Synag. Jud._, chapter XXIV.), is incorrect, according to the _Jewish Ency._ (New York, 1906, vol. XII. 66 f.), which states the _Tashlik_—the propitiatory rite referred to—does not occur in the _Talmud_ or the geonic writers. Fish illustrate man’s plight and arouse him to repentance, “As the fishes that are taken in an evil net,” Eccl. ix. 12; and, as they have no eyebrows and their eyes are always open, they symbolise the Guardian of Israel, who slumbereth not. See R. I. Harowitz, _Shelah_, p. 214.

[1056] Psalm cvi. 36 ff.

[1057] _Semitic Magic_, 1908.

[1058] See Bennett, _Exodus_, p. 178, where he cites Baentsch, and E. Meyer. Other writers, who admit the sacrifice, deduce its cause from some very early rite by which the bride was deflowered by some god or his representatives, the Holy Men: hence what the deity had given, the deity claimed. See _infra_, p. 435, n. 2, where this view is brought out.

[1059] Hosea, iv. 12. Cf. Herodotus, IV. 67.

[1060] 1 Sam. xiv. 41-2. _Urim_ and _Thummin_ seem pebbles kept in the Ephod.

[1061] Isaiah, xlvii. 13.

[1062] Gen. xxxi. 10-13; Judges, vii. 13.

[1063] Petrie, _op. cit._, p. 49.

[1064] Cf. the custom at certain Greek temples, whereby every person, who paid the fee and complied with the rules laid down, was allowed to sleep in or near the sanctuary for the purpose of receiving omens in a dream. The men slept in the east, the women in the west of the dormitory. Frazer, _op. cit._, II. 44. A good monograph on the subject is by Miss M. Hamilton, _Incubation_, London, 1906. Oneiromancy was highly esteemed in Israel, as in Egypt and elsewhere. Joseph’s skill (Gen. xl. and xli.) no doubt aided his rapid advancement by Pharaoh.

[1065] “Sacred stones or monoliths were regular features of Canaanite or Hebrew sanctuaries: many of these have been excavated in modern times.” Some of these Bethel stones are described “as uttering oracles in a whistling voice, which only a wizard was able to interpret.” Frazer, _op. cit._, II., p. 59 and p. 76.

[1066] T. Davies in _Magic Divination and Demonology among the Hebrews_, etc., 1898, especially in chs. ii. and iii., has much of interest on these subjects.