Ashtaroth

“ I will force my way to the queen! I will humble myself before the prince!"
"The prince!" interrupted Ishtar. "He is in Ascalon."
"Foolish girl!" replied the other. "He is even now coming out from the queen's palace to do justice amongst the people. Every second morning he rides forth on a white horse, with Assarac at his right hand. Grave has he grown, and severe, putting aside the wine-cup, speaking but a word at a time, and scarce suffering the people to look on his face. Ashtaroth, what a face it is! Surely he is more beautiful than dawn." ”

“ According to the testimony of Higgins, Aleim denotes the feminine plural. The heathen divinities Ashtaroth and Beelzebub were both called Aleim, Ashtaroth being simply Astarte adorned with the horns of a ram. Ishtar not unfrequently appears with the horns of a cow. We are informed by Inman that whenever a goddess is observed with horns—emblems which by the way always indicate masculine power—it is to denote the fact that she is androgynous, or that within her is embodied the complete Deity—the dual reproductive energy throughout Nature. The "figure becomes the emblem of divinity and power." ”

“ Temples, in which a whole pantheon of gods was worshipped, were to be seen on every hand. The pure and harmonious outlines of Greek architecture could be seen side by side with the bizarre conceptions of Oriental art. If the kings and their Greek subjects worshipped Zeus and Apollo, and, above all, Aphrodité, who had here her famous grove of Daphne, so the Syrian population were faithful to Baal and Ashtaroth. ”

“ It is only here that he can find the wood, and stone, and craftsmanship that he desires. The youth with the harp is his son. But I pray you, chief, if you would know what is before you at Troy, to come now into the outer hall of the Temple with me, for we have there a famous seer, the prophetess Alaga who is also the priestess of Ashtaroth. It may be that she can do for you what she has done for many others, and send you forth from Tyre in your hollow ships with a better heart than you came. ”

“ The farther back we go in the world’s history the nearer we approach to the original idea of monotheism, and originally there was only one goddess, Ishtar or Ashtaroth, personifying both love and war, 69but two such opposite characteristics could not long remain the leading attributes of the same deity, and hence after a time, there were mentioned three goddesses bearing the same name. ”

“ Istar, the evening star, the Chaldean Venus, the goddess of love and fertility, became the Atthar of southern Arabia, is identical with the goddess Hathor, of Egyptian mythology, and was worshipped by the Canaanites as Ashtaroth, and finally by the Greeks as Astarte.
Against this background of history and tradition, of civilization so remote, a notable figure appears about fifteen hundred and forty years later than the great Sharrukin, or 2260 B. C., in whom the most sacred traditions of later civilizations were to have their rise. ”

“ Baal and Ashtaroth, he-gods and she-gods; they made their court to sun and moon, Jupiter and Juno. Baalim signifies lords, and Ashtaroth blessed ones, both plural, for when they forsook Jehovah, who is one, they had gods many and lords many, as a luxuriant fancy pleased to multiply them. Whatever they took for their gods, they served them and bowed down to them, gave honour to them and begged favours from them.
II. The God of Israel was hereby provoked to anger, and delivered them up into the hand of their enemies, v. ”

“ The Hebrews entering Syria found it religionised by Assyria and Babylonia, whence Accadian Ishtar had passed west and had become Ashtoreth, Ashtaroth or Ashirah, [392] the Anaitis of Armenia, the Phœnician Astarte and the Greek Aphrodite, the great Moon-goddess, [393] who is queen of Heaven and Love. In another phase she was Venus Mylitta = the Procreatrix, in Chaldaic Mauludatá 230and in Arabic Moawallidah, she who bringeth forth. She was worshipped by men habited as women and vice versâ; for which reason in the Torah (Deut. xx. 5) the sexes are forbidden to change dress. ”

“ At the licentious worship of this androgyne, or two-sexed god, the men on certain occasions wore female garments, whilst the women appeared in male attire, brandishing weapons. Each of this god's names had a female counterpart; and the feminine form of Baal was Beltis, Ishtar, and Ashtarte. As he was the sun-god, she was the moon-goddess. Now, whilst the masculine name (as Bël or Bâl, Baal, Baalim,) appears nearly one hundred times in the Hebrew Old Testament, the feminine equivalent is only found three times in the singular Ashtoreth, and six times in the plural Ashtaroth ”

“ It may be you are Beelzebub, said Leandro, You deceive yourself, answered the spirit, he is the dæmon of governantes, and gentlemen ushers, or waiting men. This surprises me, said the student: I took Beelzebub for one of the greatest of your number. He is one of the least replied the dæmon; you have no true notion of our hell.
You must then, replied Don Cleofas, be either Leviathan, Belphegor; or Ashtaroth. Oh! as for, those three, said the voice, they are devils of the first rank ”

“ The civil lieutenant was about to insist on the matter being investigated, when the lay sister in her turn went into a fit, thus extricating Mignon from his embarrassment. The magistrates approached the lay sister’s bed at once, and directed Mignon to put the same questions to her as to the superior: he did so, but all in vain; all she would reply was, “To the other! To the other!”
Mignon explained this refusal to answer by saying that the evil spirit which was in her was of an inferior order, and referred all questioners to Ashtaroth, who was his superior. ”

“ He disputes most strongly the fact that Ashtaroth was situated on the hill Ashtere, because the Arabs now in Hauran assured him, that the ruins of this Tell (or hill) suggested rather a monastery or watch-tower than a large city, and associates it with the Bostra of the Greeks and Romans, the modern Bozra, partly on account of the central situation of this town, and its consequent importance to Hauran and Peraea generally, and partly also on account of the similarity in the name, as Bostra is the latinized form of Beeshterah, which we find in Jos 21:27 in the place of the Ashtaroth of 1Ch 6:56 ”

“ Fear Him, who claims to be the only God, and yet regard many others as equally and independently gods! Worship Him, all whose service is pure, and innocent, and self-emptying, and righteous and yet worship Ashtaroth, the goddess of licentious pleasure—Moloch, the god of cruelty—Chemosh, and his abominations—Belial, and his worldliness! This, my brethren, we all see is not simply a forbidden but an impossible service. The commands, the sanctions, the promises, the service of Jehovah, and of any one of these others, are so thoroughly opposite, so condemnatory of each other, that the p. ”

“ The existence of an independent goddess, unmarried and possessing all the attributes of the god, was contrary to the fundamental conceptions of the Semitic mind. Nevertheless we find in Canaan an Ashtoreth, whom the Greeks called Astarte, as well as a Baal. The cuneiform inscriptions have given us an explanation of the fact.
Ashtoreth came from Babylonia. There she was known as Istar, the evening star. She had been one of those Sumerian goddesses who, in accordance with the Sumerian system, which placed the mother at the head of the family, were on an equal footing with the gods. ”

“ Ishtar is the Truth, she has no image. She is invisible to us veiled in matter. She hides herself behind seven veils, or rather our eyes are so wrapped about that we cannot see her who is visible only in spirit. Thou knowest that in the Temple floor is a rent, and through that rent the breath of the gods ascends. I will place Helena over that rent, and she will fall into a trance, and if I say certain prayers and use certain invocations, then the veils will fall away, and in pure spiritual essence she will look into the face of Ishtar and read therein the Truth, past, present, and future. ”

“ She is generally described as the “fish-goddess.” The name is a compound of two divine names; the first part is a form of the Himyaritic ʽAthtar, the equivalent of the Old Testament Ashtoreth, the Phoenician Astarte (q.v.) , with the feminine ending omitted (Assyr. Ishtar) ; the second is a Palmyrene name ʽAthe (i.e. tempus opportunum) , which occurs as part of many compounds. As a consequence of the first half of the name, Atargatis has frequently, though wrongly, been identified with Astarte. The two deities were, no doubt, of common origin, but their cults are historically distinct. ”

“ Yet another letter gives his name as Abdi-Aš-ra-tum, in the second element of which we must see another form of Abdi-Aširti, unless the scribe has also made a mistake in this case, and written Ašratum for Aštaratum, which is just possible. In any case, it shows a close connection between the goddess Aštarte or Ištar, and the Ashera, which was in Palestine, at that date, and for centuries before and after, her emblem. To be the servant of the one was to be the servant of the other, though the bearer of the name seems to have the desire rather to be considered the priest of the goddess. ”

“ As Ashtoreth is constantly associated with the Phoenician Baal, it was long customary to identify Ashera with her, a theory op posed to the fact that Ashtoreth is represented as a chaste goddess. The key to the difficulty is probably to be sought in the Assyrian mythology, where we find that the planet Venus was worshipped as the chaste goddess Istar, when she appeared as a morning star, and as the impure Bilit or Beltis, the Mylitta of Herod. ”

“ She is the mild and gracious mother of creation, “loves the king and his priesthood,” but is also the mighty commanding goddess of war who clothes herself in fiery flame, appears as a violent destroyer and sends down streams of fire upon her enemies. “The distinguishing position of both the Babylonian and Assyrian Ishtar is her independent position. Though at times brought into close contact with Ashur she is not regarded as the mere consort to any god—no mere reflection of a male deity, but ruling in her own right on a perfect par with the great gods of the pantheon. ”

“ As the word Ashtoreth is evidently a lengthening of the name of the Assyro-Babylonian goddess Ištar, it is not to be wondered at that this goddess should be mentioned by the king of Mitanni, Dušratta, who refers to a statue of Ištar of Nineveh, which had been sent to Egypt, and requests that it may be returned to him soon. The name of Nergal, also, was evidently familiar to the king of Alašia, for he speaks of the hand of that god as having killed all his people, when wishing to refer to the prevalence of a pestilence there, Nergal being the Assyro-Babylonian god of disease and death. ”

“ ISHTAR IN HADES
From the Painting by E. Wallcousins
commands the plague demon, Namtar, to strike her with disease in all parts of her body. The effect of Ishtar's fate was disastrous upon earth: growth and fertility came to an end.
Meanwhile Pap-sukal, messenger of the gods, hastened to Shamash, the sun deity, to relate what had occurred. The sun god immediately consulted his lunar father, Sin, and Ea, god of the deep. Ea then created a man lion, named Nadushu-namir, to rescue Ishtar, giving him power to pass through the seven gates of Hades. When this being delivered his message
Allatu ... ”

“ They produce them, I am told, in houses of glass, and they force their foreign faith in the same manner; but, though they have temples, and churches, and mosques, they confess they have no miracles; they admit that they never produced a prophet; they own that no God ever spoke to their people, or visited their land; and yet this race, so peculiarly favoured by celestial communication, aspire to be missionaries!'
'I have much misapprehended you,' said Astarte; 'I thought you were both embarked in a great cause.'
'Ah, you learnt that from Darkush!' quickly replied Fakredeen. ”

“ For I am Esmunazar, king of the Sidonians, the son of King Tabnit, king of the Sidonians, and the grandson of Esmunazar, king of the Sidonians, and my mother is Am-Ashtoreth, priestess of our lady Ashtoreth, the queen, the daughter of King Esmunazar, king of the Sidonians—and it is we who have built the temples of the gods, the temple of Ashtoreth in Sidon on the shore of the sea, and have placed Ashtoreth in her temple to glorify her; and we too have built the temple of Esmun, and set the sacred grove, En Yidlal, in the mountain, and made him (Esmun) dwell there to glorify him ”

“ At first a merely local deity, she ultimately came to be regarded as the personification of fertility (both of the soil and of human and animal life) and of war. She corresponded in general to the Ashtoreth (Astarte) of the Syrio-Canaanites, save that she was conceived as ruling the planet Venus, rather than the moon, over which Ashtoreth held sway. Being the representative of the principle of fertility, Istar was regarded also as the goddess of sexual love. ”

“ Similarly, he prays that the sun-god (Shamash) and the goddess Ishtar may go before his daughter and make her in accord with the king's heart. [2] On {71} the other hand, it is 'the gods,' or Teshub and Amon (of Egypt) , [3] who will make the present alliance a lasting one, and his gods and those of his 'brother,' or Ishtar, 'lady of ladies,' and Amon who will guard the damsel on the journey and give her favour with the king.
[2] In the names in chapters vi. and vii., the more familiar Astarte is employed for Ashtart (Old Testament, Ashtoreth) . ”