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The Myth of Môt and ʼAlʼeyan Baʻal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 August 2011

Vivian  and
Isaac Rosensohn Jacobs
Vivian
Affiliation:
East Orange, New Jersey
Isaac Rosensohn Jacobs
Affiliation:
East Orange, New Jersey
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Extract

The myth of Môt and ʼAlʼeyan Baʻal, who is Hadad, recounted in the texts unearthed at Ugarit, is a work of the schematizing imagination, and expressive of the ordered relations of natural phenomena conceived as embodied in gods. The systematic organization of the events in which the gods are caught, or which they dominate, shows that the myth arose from “observation of the great annual fluctuations of the seasons and a desire to explain them,” and that the authors or revisers, “brooding over the mystery of external nature,” sought “to lift the veil and explore the hidden springs that set the vast machine in motion.” We are well aware that “the civilized nations of western Asia and Egypt pictured to themselves the changes of the seasons, and particularly the annual growth and decay of vegetation, as episodes in the life of gods, whose mournful death and happy resurrection they celebrated with dramatic rites.” But in our texts we are introduced to subtle variations. Here the lapse, absorption and return of the rain are interfused with the regeneration and decline of plants in a rhythmic process to which no parallel is to be found among extant documents of similar purport and provenance. And the investigation of “nature's plan,” however cumbered with besotted notions, is so diligent as to bring the resulting depiction close to the twilight zone between mythology and the speculations of the early physical philosophers.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , April 1945 , pp. 77 - 109
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1945

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References

1 We refer particularly to II AB, I* AB and I AB.

2 The quotations are from Frazer, J. G., Adonis, Attis and Osiris, London, 1919, Vol. II, p. 158Google Scholar.

3 Frazer, J. G., Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, London, 1912, Vol. I, p. viGoogle Scholar.

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5 II AB vii 27 f.

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14 Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, Vol. CXVI, pp. 122 f.

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18 To hold with W. F. Albright (BASOR 83, p. 41, n. 16) that if Xzr be connected with Arabic ḡazîr, “its use with respect to Môt would naturally be euphemistic,” is to ride one's theories hard.

19 Rohde, E., Psyche, London and New York, 1925, p. 159Google ScholarPubMed.

20 “Works and Days,” 465, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica, tr. Evelyn-White, H. G., Loeb Classical Library, London and New York, 1914, p. 37Google Scholar.

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22 Ibid., pp. 118–125.

23 Regimen, IV, xcii, tr. Jones, W. H. S., Loeb Classical Library, London and New York, 1923, p. 443Google Scholar.

24 E. Ebeling, op. cit., pp. 165, 166; Jean, C. F., “Déités de l'Hadès Babylonien,” Revue des Études Sémitiques, 1936, p. xliGoogle Scholar; cf. Jastrow, M., Die Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens, Giessen, 1905–1912, Vol. I, p. 473Google Scholar; Böllenrücher, J., “Gebete und Hymnen an Nergal,” Leipziger Semitische Studien, Vol. I, pp. 3, 8, 9Google Scholar.

25 Jensen, P., Texte zur assyrisch-babylonischen Religion (Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek, Vol. VI, pt. 2), Berlin, 1915, pp. 50–53Google Scholar; Jeremias, A., Handbuch der altorientalischen Geisteskultur, Leipzig, 1929, pp. 149Google Scholar, 380; Langdon, S. H., Semitic Mythology, Boston, 1931, p. 147Google Scholar.

26 E. Ebeling, op. cit., p. 36, as revised by Ebeling, Mitteilungen der Altorientalischen Gesellschaft, Vol. X, pt. 2, p. 25.

27 Faulkner, R. O., “Bremner-Rhind Papyrus,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. XXII, p. 127Google Scholar.

28 Witzel, P. M., “Tammuz-Liturgien und Verwandtes,” Analecta Orientalia, Vol. X, pp. 323, 355Google Scholar.

29 E. Ebeling, op. cit., p. 5; cf. W. von Soden, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, Vol. XLIII, pp. 1–31.

30 Langdon, S. H., Tammuz and Ishtar, Oxford, 1914, pp. 114 f.Google Scholar, 126 f.

31 Jean, C. F., Le Milieu Biblique avant Jésus-Christ, Paris, 1936, Vol. III, p. 142Google Scholar.

32 S. H. Langdon, Semitic Mythology, pp. 104, 283–285.

33 Ibid., p. 78.

34 Schott, S., Urkunden Mythologischen Inhalts, Leipzig, 1929, 1939, Vol. II, p. 188Google Scholar.

35 Thus every scholar in the field, with the exception of J. A. Montgomery, misconceived and mistranslated a crucial passage in our myth (II AB viii 12 ff.; I* AB ii 15 f.) descriptive of the throne and the dominion of Môt. Having given the god a bad name, the scholars proceeded to hang him in their construction of that passage. It was publication of V AB which saved Môt from ignominy.

36 The Dying God, London, 1911, pp. 233 ff.

37 Wald- und Feldkulte, Berlin, 1904, Vol. I, pp. 155 f., 412 ff.

38 The Dying God, p. 247.

39 Ibid., p. 250.

40 Ibid., pp. 247–249.

41 W. Mannhardt, Wald- und Feldkulte, I, pp. 412–419.

42 Ibid., p. 413.

43 J. G. Frazer, The Dying God, pp. 252, 253.

44 Wald- und Feldkulte, I, pp. 419–420.

45 Durkheim, E., The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, London, 1915, p. 41Google Scholar.

46 Wald- und Feldkulte, I, p. 417; The Dying God, p. 253.

47 The Dying God, p. 253.

48 Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, II, pp. 261–262.

49 Cassirer, E., Philosophie der Symbolischen Formen, II, Das Mythische Denken, Berlin, 1925, p. 197Google Scholar. See also p. 49.

50 Taʻanit, 6a.

51 S. H. Langdon, Tammuz and Ishtar, pp. 22, 31.

52 For the meaning of ḫt'a, see the discussion of W. F. Albright, BASOR 82, pp. 47–48.

53 For this translation, see Goetze, A., “The Tenses of Ugaritic,” JAOS, Vol. LVIII, p. 272Google Scholar.

54 Following Ginsberg, H. L., Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society, 1934, p. 247Google Scholar. I AB ii 21 ff.

55 Concerning rain specifically, we have the practice of the Zulu rain-maker who, to preserve his power as controller of meteorological phenomena, eats heaven and absorbs its vital energy by consuming the warm flesh of a bullock struck by lightning (Canon Callaway, The Religious System of the Amazulu, London, 1870, pp. 380–381), and the Mashona custom of soaking the seed-corn in the blood of the slain chief to infuse it with his potency (C. G. Seligman, Egypt and Negro Africa, London, 1934, p. 31). In the Festival of Hoeing the Earth at Busiris, the earth is hoed with the blood of the companions of Set, who was a form of Baʻal (H. Grapow, Religiöse Urkunden, Leipzig, 1916, Vol. II, p. 50). And Set's power was employed in the “opening of the mouth” of Osiris, his thigh being represented by the thigh of a bull, and his very substance being used in the form of an instrument made of the ore drawn from his person (K. Sethe, Dramatische Texte zu altaegyptischen Mysterienspielen, pp. 231 ff.).

56 The grain demon captured in the last sheaf was, interestingly enough, regarded in European folklore as a voracious feeder. Mythologische Forschungen aus dem Nachlasse von Wilhehn Mannhardt, Strassburg, 1884, p. 27.

57 S. Schott, op. cit., p. 188.

58 Budge, E. A. W., The Book of the Dead, New York, 1923, p. 205Google Scholar.

59 Following H. L. Ginsberg's suggestion that ʼal has here affirmative rather than negative force. Orientalia, Vol. V, p. 181.

60 Arabic q-r-' in this sense. The translation, otherwise, is essentially Ginsberg's.

61 II AB vii 42 ff.

62 Gaster's, T. H. translation, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1935, p. 38Google Scholar.

63 Sumerian ḫilib, in parallelism with xr, the association of mountain with underworld being, of course, obvious.

64 II AB viii 1 ff.

65 Imperative of nxr, which has this meaning in our texts.

66 Following Gaster's, T. H. suggestion. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1934, p. 711Google Scholar; 1935, p. 27.

67 II AB viii 14 ff.

68 Cf. Jeremiah 22: 14 f.: “That saith: ‘I will build me a wide house and spacious chambers,’ and cutteth him out windows, and it is ceiled with cedar, and painted with vermilion. Shalt thou reign, because thou strivest to excel in cedar?”

69 II AB viii 26 ff.

70 I* AB ii 5 f.

71 I* AB ii 8 ff.

72 This concrete depiction of the rain's subservience comes out in other guise in those magical procedures — and mythology in some of its phases is only magic objectified — designed to terminate the rain's activity. When the fall of water from the skies continues beyond the period desired and thus menaces the crops with destruction, the Berbers catch the rain in an empty egg-shell and, after sealing the shell, bury it in a threshing-floor (Westermarck, E., Ritual and Belief in Morocco, London, 1926, Vol. II, p. 278)Google Scholar; in Bilaspore the rain can be imprisoned by filling a vessel with it and burying the vessel under a grinding-mill (Frazer, J. G., The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, London, 1911, Vol. I, p. 253)Google Scholar.

73 I Samuel 12: 17–18.

74 I* AB v 5 f. The first word is partially restored ([ʼaqbr]nk) on the basis of parallel passages (+ I AB 17 f.; I D iii 111 f., 126 f., 140 f., 146 f.); the phrase is a conventional one in Ugaritic literature.

75 For the translation “lamentation,” see Montgomery, J. A. and Harris, Z. S., The Ras Shamra Mythological Texts, Philadelphia, 1935, p. 87Google Scholar; “inanition” is suggested by C. Virolleaud, Syria, Vol. XV, p. 328.

76 I* AB v 6 ff.

77 + I AB 17 f.

78 I AB ii 26 ff.

79 “Von der Rhythmik und Periodik, die schon in allem unmittelbaren Dasein und Leben fühlbar ist, erhebt sich jetzt der Gedanke zur Idee der Zeitordnung als einer universellen, alles Sein und Werden beherrschenden Schicksalsordnung. Erst in dieser Fassung als Schicksal wird die mythische Zeit zu einer wahrhaft kosmischen Potenz — zu einer Macht, die nicht nur den Menschen, sondern die auch die Dämonen und Götter bindet, weil nur in ihr und kraft ihrer unverbrüchlichen Masse und Normen alles Leben und Wirken der Menschen und selbst der Götter möglich ist.” E. Cassirer, op. cit., p. 142.

80 I AB i 22 f. The translation is H. L. Ginsberg's Orientalia, Vol. V, p. 195.

81 Dussaud (Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, Vol. CXI, p. 33) has drawn an oversimplified picture of the changing fortunes of Môt and Baʻal: according to him the tomb of Baʻal is the same as the tomb of Môt, when either god is in darkness; and the throne of Baʻal is identical with the throne of Môt, when either god is in the light. Apart from all other considerations, Dussaud's depiction of Môt and Baʻal as alternative occupants of the same upperworld throne could stand only if, with Nielsen (Ras Shamra Mythologie und Biblische Theologie, Leipzig, 1936, pp. 67, n. 3, 109), we identify ʻAthtar and Môt — an implausible conjecture, to which Dussaud has not committed himself.

82 I AB ii 26 ff.

83 Taʻanit 2b. Cf. 3b; Proverbs 26: 1.

84 Canticles 2: 11–12.

85 I* AB vi 5 ff.

86 Ecclesiastes 3: 1.

87 I AB i 11 f.

88 I AB ii 11.

89 W. Mannhardt, Wald- und Feldkulte, I, pp. 212 f.; Mythologische Forschungen. p. 19; J. G. Frazer, Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, I, pp. 133–167.

90 I AB ii 30 ff.

91 Cf. J. G. Frazer, Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, I, pp. 223–225.

92 The Melanesians tell us that men once thought they had Death lying dead among them, his ghost expelled by the sound of the conch shell; but when they raised the pall which covered his corpse, they discovered that Death had eluded them, leaving his skeleton behind; Death himself had gone back to his underworld. J. G. Frazer, The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, I, pp. 83–84.

93 Cf. Adonis, Attis and Osiris, II, pp. 45–48.

94 On analogous shifting of responsibility, cf. J. G. Frazer, The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, I, p. 58; II, pp. 18, 36–37. Cf. Burkitt, F. C., The Religion of the Manichees, Cambridge, 1925, p. 45Google Scholar.

95 Études sur les Religions Semitiques, Paris, 1905, p. 307Google Scholar.

96 E. Durkheim, op. cit., p. 34.

97 W. Mannhardt, Wald- und Feldkulte, I, pp. 214, 409, 412 f., 419; Mythologische Forschungen, p. 352; J. G. Frazer, Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, I, pp. 134–135, 146, 170, 221, 224–225; Adonis, Attis and Osiris, I, pp. 237–239.

98 Op. cit., II, pp. 273–274.

99 Primitive Semitic Religion Today, Chicago, 1902, p. 114.

100 The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, I, p. 276.

101 Op. cit., II, p. 273.

102 The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, I, pp. 282–284.

103 E. Durkheim, op. cit., p. 361.

104 We have here a peculiarly apt and illuminating illustration of the “mystic relation” emphasized by Lévy-Bruhl in his analyses of “primitive mentality.” “It is not merely an artless and erroneous application of the principle of causality. It is not only direct anteriority in time which makes the connection between one fact and another. The sequence perceived or remarked may suggest the connection, but the connection itself is not in any way confused with this sequence. It consists in a mystic relation which the primitive represents to himself — and of which he is convinced as soon as he represents it to himself — between the antecedent and the consequent: the first having the power to produce the second and make it apparent.” How Natives Think, London, 1926, p. 74.

105 Lang, A., Myth, Ritual and Religion, London and New York, 1913, Vol. I, p. 295Google Scholar.

106 Tod und Leben, I, p. 25.

107 Moret, A., Le rituel du culte divin journalier en Égypte, Paris, 1902, pp. 32–35Google Scholar.

108 The king of the rain among some tribes on the Upper Nile is subjected to similar punishment. When the people desire rain, and no rain comes, despite the demands made upon the king, “they rip up his belly, in which he is believed to keep the storms.” J. G. Frazer, The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, II, p. 2. Cf. I, pp. 295, 310. Kronos swallowed the thunder and lightning in the shape of a stone; when he spewed it up, the force of thunder and lightning was released, and Zeus, probably identical with the stone, was able to function. Murray, G., “Anthropology in the Greek Epic Tradition outside Homer,” in Marett, R. R., ed., Anthropology and the Classics, Oxford, 1908, pp. 85–86Google Scholar.

109 Lévy-Bruhl, L., Primitive Mentality, London, 1923, p. 327Google Scholar.

110 I AB iii 4 ff.

111 I AB iv 25 f.

112 I AB iv 44.

113 Gilbert, O., Die Meteorologischen Theorien des griechisehen Altertums, Leipzig, 1907, pp. 405–406Google Scholar, 414–415, 442, 489; cf. Job 36: 27–28; Herodotus, II, 25, tr. Godley, A. D., Loeb Classical Library, London and New York, 1931, Vol. I, p. 303Google Scholar; Cicero, De Natura Deorum, II, xv, xix; III, xiv, ed. cit., pp. 161, 171, 321.

114 J. G. Frazer, The Dying God, pp. 254–261.

115 Following the suggestion of Albright, W. F., Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society, 1932, p. 203Google Scholar.

116 From ṣmd “to bind, join,” in parallelism with ktp “shoulder.”

117 I AB v 1 ff. Restored on the basis of V AB iv 46 f.

118 According to the text (I AB v 7 ff.), Môt reappears in the seventh year. We need not take the seven-year period literally. In Ugaritic literature seven is a number which, to use the words of Levy-Bruhl, does not “serve the purpose of arithmetical calculation”; it is “felt and not conceived.” (How Natives Think, pp. 222, 223. Cf. pp. 206, 217.) At Friedingen on the Danube, Mannhardt tells us, the vegetation demon of the previous year, grown old and weak, and impoverished by the long winter months, is called “the poor old man who has lived in the forest for seven years.” (Wald- und Feldkulte, I, pp. 350, 358.) It may be that the advent of the rains, which in the milieu of our texts was the great power of restoration and revivification, whether of the dead or of the earth and its products, endues Môt with fresh energy, and thus causes him to come up from below, eager to do battle with Baʻal. Cf. Goldziher, I., “Wasser als Dämonen abwehrendes Mittel,” Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, 1910, pp. 45 f.Google Scholar; Karge, P., Rephaim, Paderborn, 1918, pp. 570 ff.Google Scholar; Parrot, A., Le “Refrigerium” dans l'au-delà, Paris, 1937, pp. 52–53Google Scholar; Taʻanit 2a.

119 Die alphabetischen Keilschrifttexte von Ras Shamra, Berlin, 1936, p. 46Google Scholar.

120 I AB v 10 ff.

121 I AB v 16 ff. Following Goetze's translation of these lines, JAOS, Vol. LVIII, p. 271.

122 I AB vi 22 ff.

123 I AB vi 44 ff.

124 W. Mannhardt, Wald- und Feldkulte, I, p. 213; J. G. Frazer, Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, I, pp. 134–135, 205, 278, 301, 304; II, p. 20.

125 W. Mannhardt, Wald- und Feldkulte, I, p. 213, II, p. 322; Mythologische Forschungen, pp. 26, 29, 30.

126 At sowing-time, according to European peasant practice and belief, the spirit of vegetation “goes out again to the fields to resume his activity as animating force.” J. G. Frazer, Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, II, p. 7.

127 J. G. Frazer, Adonis, Attis and Osiris, II, pp. 40–45.

128 J. G. Frazer, The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, I, p. 136.

129 Ibid., p. 137.

130 Frazer, J. G., Aftermath, a Supplement to The Golden Bough, New York, 1937, p. 40Google Scholar.

131 I* AB v 18 ff.

132 Ovid, Fasti, IV 633–634.

133 J. G. Frazer, Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, I, p. 174.

134 Isaiah 55:10.

135 “Rituels agraires de l'ancien Orient à la lumière des nouveaux textes de Ras Sharara,” Mélanges Capart, Bruxelles, 1935, pp. 339 f.

136 Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, Vol. CXI, p. 33.