: FIRE FROM STRANGE ALTARS. REV. J. NfFRADENBURGH, Ph. D., D. D. u AUTHOR OF "WITNESSES FROM THE DUST ; OR, THE BIBLE ILLUSTRATED FROM THE MONUMENTS." "LIVING RELIGIONS; OR, THE GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE ORIENT FROM SACRED BOOKS AND MODERN CUSTOMS." " BEAUTY CROWNED ; OR, THE STORY OF ESTHER, THE JEWISH MAIDEN." " OLD HEROES, THE HITTITES OF THE BIBLE," ETC. CINCINNATI : CRANSTON & STOWE. NEW YORK HUNT & EATON. \\-.^, ^v^"^ ^^A Copyright By CRANSTON <& STO^A^E, 1891, BOOPCS BY J. K. Fradmburgh, Ph. D., D. D. WITNESSES FROM THE DUST; or, The Bible Illustrated f/om the Monuments. Illustrated, i2mo,%i.6o. LIVING RELIGIONS; or, The Great Re- ligions of the Orientfrom Sacred Books and Modern Customs. Illustrated, i2mo, %i .50. BEA UTY CRO IVNED ; or. The Story of Esther, thefeivish Maiden. Illustrated, izmo, go cents. OLD HEROES; The Htttites of the Bible. l2mo, Cloth, js cents. Paper, 50 cents. FIRE FROM STRANGE ALTARS. Illustrated, i2>'no. TO • •• REV. DANIEL STEELE, D. D., My Early Preceptor, BipB j^rljrilarsljip anti 3i^^ f>nlj3 IjaoB bsen fo ntc Jin ^napirafion, THIS VOLUME IS GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED. PREFACE. IN obedience to the call of God, Abraham, with his family and dependents, had left his own kindred, and gone out from his own country to seek a home in a strange land. In the Land of Promise he became the founder of the Patriarchal Religion, which afterward developed into the organized religious system of the Israelites. The Canaanite was still in the land. Various re- ligious cults surrounded " the friend of God." They were so closely related that we may speak of them as forming one religion, which we may call, for want of a more appropriate name, the Phoenician. Other cults were added or devel- oped at a later period, but did not materially change the general character of the religion. Besides this setting in which the religion of Israel was placed, it was brought into frequent and close contact with two other great and powerful religions, the Babylonian and the Egyp- tian. These religions possessed all the advan- 8 PREFACE. tages of great antiquity, support of strong gov- ernments, learned and influential priesthoods, extensive literatures, magnificent temples, and brilliant services. In the struggle for existence, the peculiar people of God would have scarcely a chance. The religion of the Israelites alone survived. The nation suffered from wars and conquests, oppressions and captivities, but these only served to assist the religion to a more healthful growth and a more spiritual worship. The exigencies of war and political revolutions do not fully account for the decay and final extinction of sur- rounding religions. They are not to be forgotten in the solution of the problem, but there is a point beyond which they are silent. These heathen faiths lacked some element of moral strength, or suffered from some incurable spiritual malady which fixed their doom. The religion of Israel lived in obedience to the law of the survival of the fittest. It was adapted to the intellectual and moral nature of man. When we study these several faiths side by side, we learn the reasons why the religions of the Babylonians, the Phoenicians, and the Egyptians, PREFACE. 9 went down in irremediable ruin, while the re- ligion of the Bible flourished, and sent its in- fluence abroad till all nations felt its touch. The Bible grew up in the midst of such sur- roundings and under such influences as the histories of these nations suggest. The Israel- itish religion was a growth, and was not presented once for all in its completed form, lifted up out of all connections with other faiths. That many of its forms were borrowed and adapted, can admit of no question. Can we prove a transmission of spiritual ideas ? Was it a mere natural growth, or was there a divine element with which we must reckon when we study the subject? The roots of the Bible religion are to be dis- covered deeply imbedded in other soils. Con- nections may be traced in the style of poetic compositions, the words of many a psalm and prayer, and in the general religious feeling. Myths of other religions have left survivals in the Bible. Names of heathen gods are woven in the very constitution of the Hebrew language. This is especially noteworthy in the proper names of persons and places. Several of the old gods of Assyria and Egypt extended their influence as far 10 PREFACE. as Canaan, and found admission in the pantheon of native divinities. Magic, both Egyptian and Chaldsean, is frequently mentioned in the Bible. Altars, temples, sacred furniture, orders of priests, sacrifices, laws concerning clean and unclean, pu- rificatory rites,—these should be studied, not only in the Bible and other Hebrew writings, but also in the religious ceremonies of other peoples. The most interesting, the most reliable, the most authoritative, and the best of all com- mentaries on the Holy Bible is extant in three goodly volumes, and these volumes are Babylonia, Palestine, and Egypt. There are portions of the Pentateuch and historic books of the Bible which should be read while sitting by the temples and palaces, pyramids and tombs of the dead empires of the East. The ten plagues of the Exodus, in their selection and import, yield to no explanation except when studied in the presence of the gods of Egypt. There are passages in the Prophets which can not be understood except when read in the light of clay tablets, stone obelisks, arid ancient papyri. There are psalms which are to be interpreted by the murmuring streams, leafy coverts, and rocky PREFACE. 11 hills of Palestine. These silent witnesses, who are rising from beneath the dust of the ages, are eloquent advocates in behalf of the Bible as the inspired Word. The most important ciiapters in this great commentary are those which enable us to feel the beatings of the hearts of the peo- ple as they reverently approach their gods in the attitude of worshipers. As we study these old religions in the pres- ence of an open Bible, many questions hitherto insoluble answer themselves. The subject opens to us new and delightful fields, full of interest and abundant in rewards. The present volume will not, we are sure, prove itself an unwelcome contribution to the subject. Decembek 25, 1890. CONTENTS. RELIGION IN THE LAND BETWEEN THE RIVERS. Page. I. Literature, Priests, and Temples, . 17 IL The Black Art, 41 III. Transitions and Transformations, . 67 IV. Gods and No-Gods. Part First, . 95 V. Gods and No-Gods. Part Second, . 121 VI. The Beginnings of Things, . 146 II THE GODS OF THE PHCENICIANS I. My Lord Baal, 169 II. Gods, and Other Matters, . 186 III. THE FAITH OF THE PHARAOHS. I. Language and Literature, . , .211 II. Two Great Circles of Gods, . 241 III. Ptah, Amon, and Other Divinities, . 261 IV. Doctrines, Temples, Worship, . 282 ILLUSTRATIONS. Page. Babylonian Tablets, 19 Clay Tablet, .... 22 Ruins of the Temple at Khorsabad, 29 Assyrian Figure, 35 Chald.ean Priests, .... 39 Evil Geno, 42 Winged Lion with Human Head, . 69 The Tree of Life, 82 Ur of the Chaldees, 104 NiSROCH of Assur, 142 Sarcophagus of Esmunazar, . 170 Phcenician Gem, .... 172 Face of Baal at Baalbec, 173 Astarte, ..... 175 Effigy of Baal, .... 176 The Phoenician Ashtoreth, . 179 Ruins of Ancient Tyre, 182 Dagon, 187 Amon, 195 Obelisk and Plain of On, . 242 Signet Ring, with Scarab^us, 243 Osiris, 249 ISIS AND NePHTHIS, .... 252 Apis, 290 Rock Tombs on the Nile, 296 Columns at Karnak, 303 BBligion in fIjB lanti IJBftti?:en fIjB HiDBr0. I. LITERATURE, PRIESTS, AND TEMPLES. THE discovery of a literature from twenty- five hundred to four thousand years old, which had been buried more than two thousand years in the ruins of the dead cities of Babylonia and Assyria, the recovery of the lost languages in which it is written, and their translation into modern tongues, are among the remarkable tri- umphs of nineteenth-century scholarship. The geographical position of these mighty empires, the richness of their soil, the size and magnifi- cence of their great cities, the wideness of their sway in the days of their glory, the influence they exerted on early Eastern thought, and in molding and modifying religions and mytholo- gies, the place they fill in Oriental history, and their intimate relations with the chosen people of God,—these considerations lend importance to any new discoveries which may be made con- cerning their early history, and the thoughts which moved the hearts of their peoples. Here was the home of Abraham, " the friend of God," and, in the light of recent Assyrian discoveries, we may now believe that he carried 18 FIRE FROM STRANGE ALTARS. with him, in his migration to Canaan, the con- tents of the sacred books of the kingdom of Ur, embracing the earliest traditions of the Creation, the Flood, and other facts recorded by his great descendant under the pjuidance of the Spirit of God in the Book of Genesis. By public and private liberality and enter- prise, the literary treasures of these ancient na- tions have had a glorious resurrection, and the modern scholar has breathed into them the breath of life, and they now speak to us and reveal wonderful secrets concerning the political, social, and religious history of many peoples. The lan- guage in which this history is written, with its difficult syllabary and strange cuneiform charac- ters, is being slowly yet surely and thoroughly deciphered and interpreted, and already we have grammars, dictionaries, texts, reading-books, com- mentaries, translations, professorships, classes, and societies devoted to the work of presenting to our own generation the records which have been re- covered from the tombs of these cemeteries of dead empires.