meaning of the name; Clemens Alexandrinus says, 'the mystic name of four letters,' the sacred Tetragrammaton YaHVeH, 'which was affixed to those alone to whom the adytum was accessible, is called Iaou, which is interpreted, "Who is and shall be."'1 Mr. King observes, 'Theodoret states that the four letters of the Holy Name were pronounced by the Samaritans IA BE; by the Jews, IA. Jerome (Ps. viii.), "The name of the Lord amongst the Hebrews is of four letters, Jod, He, Vau, He; which is properly the name of God, and may be read as I AHO, and is held by the Jews for ineffable."'2 Bunsen, very reasonably, considers it questionable whether the real etymology of the word is Hebrew, but remarks, The sublime idea, "I am that I am," i.e. the Eternal, is certainly the right one in a Hebrew point of view.' 3 As Iau appears in the cuneiform, it has very probably a further meaning. The Rev. J. M. Rodwell translates 'exalter of Yav,' by the help of Assur and Yav the great gods &c.,' and observes, 'The god Yav may be the Yaveh of the Moabite stone.' But this reading is exceedingly doubtful. Professor Oppert prefers Bin; the Rev. A. H. Sayce, Rimmon; and Mr. George Smith has given Daddi, Teiseba, and Vul as the Syrian, Armenian, and Assyrian values.' Movers connects Iao (pronounced with an aspirate) with IAkchOs, with the Bakchik cry Eua,' with Hyes, the name of Dionysos connected with fertilising moisture, and with the Phrygian cry Hyes Attes,' or 'Atys lives,' which belonged to the rites of 1 Strom. v. 6. 2 The Gnostics, 84, note 1. 3 Egypt's Place, iv. 193, note. "The existent,' Bishop Browne, Speaker's Commentary, i. 26. 'He is, or He makes to be,' Bishop Colenso, New Bible Commentary critically examined, i. 66. In the scrolls entombed with the [Egyptian] dead in 4 those days [i.e. the time of Moses] the name of God is never mentioned save in the guise of the phrase Nukpu-nuk, which means I am that I am,' Literary Remains of Emmanuel Deutsch, 166. 4 Records of the Past, iii. 37 et seq. Annals of Assur-nazir-pal [Sardanapalos]. 6 Sabazios and the great Mother.1 This view possesses a very high amount of probability; Iao is more especially the autumn-sun-power with its mysterious life-awaking juice.' Iao, again, is identical with Sabazios,2 or the more especial Thrakian and Phrygian varient of Dionysos; and that Adonis was known also by the name Iao cannot be doubted.' 3 Iao in Gnostic Art, which is mainly interesting as illustrative of more archaic ideas, frequently appears as identified with Abraxas. The name IAW, when it appears on gems surrounded with the timeserpent tail in mouth, typifies the endless course of the supreme solar power through the ever-revolving year. Another gem is explained by Mr. King as the Gnostic Pleroma, or combination of all the Aeons; expressed by the outline of a man holding a scroll, or perhaps serpent, and filled in with innumerable letters, in which the name only of Iao may be recognised.' Mr. James Fowler elegantly illustrates the application by mediaeval Christendom of some of the earlier thoughts respecting Time and his Master. After noticing various mediaeval Zodiacal representations, and emblems of the months, he observes, 'The course of the sun through the Zodiac represented the course of the Sun of Righteousness through the festivals of the Church, which marked the divisions of the ecclesiastical year as the signs of the Zodiac did the divisions of the natural. . . . As the natural sun is replaced in these examples by the Sun of Righteousness, so are the signs of the Zodiac by the Apostles, the first to reflect the light from Our opposite title-page, fig. 4; plate op- 5 Vide inf. VIII. ii. Serpent. Lord; and as the stars of the Zodiac possessed an interest to the ancient astronomer which no other stars possessed, so the Apostles here shine forth as a kind of synecdoche of that greater company of Saints which are as the stars in multitude.'1 Subsection IV.-Dionysos and Zeus. The connection in the Orphik Theogony between Dionysos and Zeus is naturally exceedingly close, for all things in God or Zeus, and God in all things or Dionysos, though so widely different in meaning and effect, may seem to many almost interchangeable phases and phrases. We have seen Dionysos represented as the Spirit of the Kosmogony, which, as our great Pantheistic poet tells us, appears in sun and star, in wind and tree. How, then, does the poet describe Zeus? Zeus is 'the first and the last '-the Alpha and Omega. 'He is head and middle, the origin of earth and of starry heaven, the breath of winds, the fury of the tireless flame, the root of sea, sun, and moon, First Cause of all things, oneness of force, unity of divinity, mighty ruler of all, one kingly frame from whom all things have sprung, fire and water, earth, air, night and day. He is Mind, and Love delighting in its works.' How is he these? and, if he be these, is he not the equivalent of the kosmic Dionysos? No; for the poet connects him with the manifestations of visibility because he is their maker. They breathe and whisper to the wise of a divine origin, declare his glory and show his handiwork, so that in the beautiful words of Mr. Martineau, 'We must look upon the sublime face of the Book of Nature as the living appeal of thought to thought.' Zeus is not their inherent and indwelling 1 Archaeologia, xliv. 1; Mediaeval Representations of the Months and Seasons, 184-5. divinity; on the contrary, they have sprung from him, and he is their origin, not their vital force. He is not merely the working demiurge who brings order out of chaos and sustains the course of nature; he is the great First Cause of all things, a oneness of force, and a unity of divinity. All these things' are not Him, but are encircled in Him, for all things lie in the mighty frame of Zeus.' This is a grand old creed,2 a noble declaration of faith, a belief in the one God and Father of whom are all things, whose luminous and ever-present divinity encircles His great store of starry worlds, which lie in His bosom like children,' and whose vastly delighting love eternally rejoices in His works, and sees with divine satisfaction In gradual growth His full-leaved will Pindaros truly tells us that Zeus obtained something more than what the gods possessed.' But, although the nature of Zeus is here nobly described, and clearly distinguished from that of Dionysos, yet the two concepts, at once so similar and dissimilar, soon necessarily clash in the mind of the poet and become intermixed and confounded. Zeus assumes a kosmogonic phase, and Dionysos becomes a kind of Zeus. In the line So father Zeus governs all things, and Bakchos, he governs also, the poet labours hard to give both divinities a kind of equal sway. And, again, when the solar concept pre 1 Orphik Frag. vi. 2 Platon alludes to the passage as 'an archaic statement' (Laws, iv.). 3 The Voluntas Dei may be thought by some but a poor reason for the constitution and course of the universe, but no other can be suggested; for the view of Spinoza' that God is the Universe, producing a series of necessary movements or acts, in consequence of intrinsic energy' (Draper, Conflict between Religion and Science, 179), is merely a re-statement of things as they are, or, at most, an imaginary reason drawn only from nescience. dominates, both Zeus and Dionysos fade away into Helios, who becomes Zeus Dionysos, sire of sea, of earth, of all things.' The poet thus concludes his description of the kosmic Zeus-Dionysos: Would you behold his head and his fair face, It is the resplendent heaven, round which his golden locks On each side are the two golden taurine horns, The risings and settings, the tracks of the celestial gods; His infallacious mind the royal incorruptible ether.1 The golden horns or track of the solar photosphere belong to Dionysos as Chrysokeros.2 Subsection V.-The Neo-Platonik Orphik Hymns. The eighty-eight so-called Orphik Hymns which have come down to us are evidently the work of Neo-Platonists, though, perhaps, some fragments of them may be of earlier date; but they are, nevertheless, interesting in many respects as presenting to a considerable extent 'a faithful reflection of ancient ideas.' Many points relating to Dionysos which occur in them I notice elsewhere. Hymn xxix. describes him as the son of Persephone, and Hymn xliv. as the son of Semele. This, however, is not contradictory, even supposing that Persephone and Semele are two distinct personages; for the god is also said to be Dimetor, Bimatris, Son-of-twomothers. He is the son of Semele from his connection with the Phoenician house of Kadmos, and he is the son of Persephone, daughter (Kore) of earth (Demeter), in consequence of his kosmogonic affinities. The Awful Damsel represents what we might really expect from 4 1 Cory, Ancient Fragments, 290. 2 Vide inf. IV. iii. 2, VIII. i. IX. iii. iv. 3 Cf. Poseidon, xl. |