chapter xxx

, verse 7, calls Egypt “the silent Rahab,” and means, therefore, something evil and hostile. Rahab is the well-known whore of Jericho, who later, as the wife of Prince Salma, became the ancestress of Christ. Here Rahab appeared as the old dragon, as Tiâmat, against whose evil power Marduk, or Jehovah, marched forth. The expression “the ransomed” refers to the Jews freed from bondage, but it is also mythological, for the hero again frees those previously devoured by the whale. (Frobenius.)

_Psalm_, lxxxix:10:

“Thou hast broken Rahab in pieces, as one that is slain.”

_Job_ xxvi:12–13:

“He divideth the sea with his power, and by his understanding he smiteth through the proud.

“By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens, his hand hath formed the crooked serpent.”

Gunkel places Rahab as identical with Chaos, that is, the same as Tiâmat. Gunkel translates “the breaking to pieces” as “violation.” Tiâmat or Rahab as the mother is also the whore. Gilgamesh treats Ishtar in this way when he accuses her of whoredom. This insult towards the mother is very familiar to us from dream analysis. The dragon Rahab appears also as Leviathan, the water monster (maternal sea).

_Psalm_ lxxiv:

(13) “Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters.

(14) “Thou brakest the heads of Leviathan in pieces and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.

(15) “Thou didst cleave the fountain and the flood: thou didst dry up mighty rivers.”

While only the phallic meaning of the Leviathan was emphasized in the first part of this work, we now discover also the maternal meaning. A further parallel is:

_Isaiah_ xxvii:1:

“In that day, the Lord with his cruel and great and strong sword shall punish Leviathan, the piercing serpent, even Leviathan that crooked serpent, and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.”

We come upon a special motive in Job, chap. xli, v. 1:

“Canst thou draw out Leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down? Canst thou put an hook in his nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn?”

Numerous parallels to this motive are to be found among exotic myths in Frobenius, where the maternal sea monster was also fished for. The comparison of the mother libido with the elementary powers of the sea and the powerful monsters borne by the earth show how invincibly great is the power of that libido which we designate as maternal.

We have already seen that the incest prohibition prevents the son from reproducing himself through the mother. But this must be done by the god, as is shown with remarkable clearness and candor in the pious Egyptian mythology, which has preserved the most ancient and simple concepts. Thus Chnum, the “moulder,” the “potter,” the “architect,” moulds his egg upon the potter’s wheel, for he is “the immortal growth,” “the reproduction of himself and his own rebirth, the creator of the egg, which emerged from the primitive waters.” In the Book of the Dead it says:

“I am the sublime falcon (the Sun-god), which has come forth from his egg.”

Another passage in the Book of the Dead reads:

“I am the creator of Nun, who has taken his place in the underworld. My nest is not seen and my egg is not broken.”

A further passage reads:

“that great and noble god in his egg: who is his own originator of that which has arisen from him.”[532]

Therefore, the god Nagaga-uer is also called the “great cackler.” (Book of the Dead.) “I cackle like a goose and I whistle like a falcon.” The mother is reproached with the incest prohibition as an act of wilful maliciousness by which she excludes the son from immortality. Therefore, a god must at least rebel, overpower and chastise the mother. (Compare Adam and Lilith, above.) The “overpowering” signifies incestuous rape.[533] Herodotus[534] has preserved for us a valuable fragment of this religious phantasy.

“And how they celebrate their feast to Isis in the city of Busiris, I have already previously remarked. After the sacrifice, all of them, men and women, full ten thousand people, begin to beat each other. But it would be sin for me to mention for whom they do beat each other.

“But in Papremis they celebrated the sacrifice with holy actions, as in the other places. About the time when the sun sets, some few priests are busy around the image; most of them stand at the entrance with wooden clubs, and others who would fulfil a vow, more than a thousand men, also stand in a group with wooden cudgels opposite them.

“Now on the eve of the festival, they take the image out in a small and gilded temple into another sacred edifice. Then the few who remain with the image draw a four-wheeled chariot upon which the temple stands with the image which it encloses. But the others who stand in the anterooms are not allowed to enter. Those under a vow, who stand by the god, beat them off. Now occurs a furious battle with clubs, in which they bruise each other’s bodies and as I believe, many even die from their wounds: notwithstanding this, the Egyptians consider that none die.

“The natives claim that this festival gathering was introduced for the following reason: in this sanctuary lived the mother of Ares.[535] Now Ares was brought up abroad and when he became a man he came to have _intercourse with his mother_. The servants of his mother who had seen him did not allow him to enter peacefully, but prevented him; at which he fetched people from another city, who mistreated the servants and had entrance to his mother. Therefore, they asserted that this slaughter was introduced at the feast for Ares.”

It is evident that the pious here fight their way to a share in the mystery of the raping of the mother.[536] This is the part which belongs to them,[537] while the heroic deed belongs to the god.[538] By Ares is meant the Egyptian Typhon, as we have good reasons to suppose. _Thus Typhon represents the evil longing for the mother_ with which other myth forms reproach the mother, according to the well-known example. The death of Balder, quite analogous to the death of Osiris (attack of sickness of Rê), because of the wounding by the branch of the mistletoe, seems to need a similar explanation. It is recounted in the myth how all creatures were pledged not to hurt Balder, save only the mistletoe, which was forgotten, presumably because it was too young. This killed Balder. Mistletoe is a parasite. The female piece of wood in the fire-boring ritual was obtained[539] from the wood of a parasitical or creeping plant, the fire mother. The “mare” rests upon “Marentak,” in which Grimm suspects the mistletoe. The mistletoe was a remedy against barrenness. In Gaul the Druid alone was allowed to climb the holy oak amid solemn ceremonies after the completed sacrifice, in order to cut off the ritual mistletoe.[540] This act is a religiously limited and organized incest. That which grows on the tree is the child,[541] which man might have by the mother; then man himself would be in a renewed and rejuvenated form; and precisely this is what man cannot have, because the incest prohibition forbids it. As the Celtic custom shows, the act is performed by the priest only, with the observation of certain ceremonies; the hero god and the redeemer of the world, however, do the unpermitted, the superhuman thing, and through it purchase immortality. The dragon, who must be overcome for this purpose, means, as must have been for some time clearly seen, the resistance against the incest. Dragon and serpent, especially with the characteristic accumulation of anxiety attributes, are the symbolic representations of anxiety which correspond to the repressed incest wish. It is, therefore, intelligible, when we come across the tree with the snake again and again (in Paradise the snake even tempts to sin). The snake or dragon possesses in

## particular the meaning of treasure guardian and defender. The phallic,

as well as the feminine, meaning of the dragon[542] indicates that it is again a symbol of the sexual neutral (or bisexual) libido, that is to say, a symbol of the _libido in opposition_. In this significance the black horse, Apaosha, the demon of opposition, appears in the old Persian song, Tishtriya, where it obstructs the sources of the rain lake. The white horse Tishtriya makes two futile attempts to vanquish Apaosha; at the third attempt, with the help of Ahuramazda, he is successful.[543] Whereupon the sluices of heaven open and a fruitful rain pours down upon the earth.[544] In this song one sees very beautifully in the choice of symbol how libido is opposed to libido, will against will, the discordance of primitive man with himself, which he recognizes again in all the adversity and contrasts of external nature.

The symbol of the tree encoiled by the serpent may also be translated as the mother defended from incest by resistance. This symbol is by no means rare upon Mithraic monuments. The rock encircled by a snake is to be comprehended similarly, because Mithra is one born from a rock. The menace of the new-born by the snake (Mithra, Hercules) is made clear through the legend of Lilith and Lamia. Python, the dragon of Leto, and Poine, who devastates the land of Crotopus, are sent by the father of the new-born. This idea indicates the localization, well known in psychoanalysis, of the incest anxiety in the father. The father represents the active repulse of the incest wish of the son. The crime, unconsciously wished for by the son, is imputed to the father under the guise of a pretended murderous purpose, this being the cause of the mortal fear of the son for the father, a frequent neurotic symptom. In conformity with this idea, the monster to be overcome by the young hero is frequently a giant, the guardian of the treasure or the woman. A striking example is the giant Chumbaba in the Gilgamesh epic, who protected the garden of Ishtar;[545] he is overcome by Gilgamesh, whereby Ishtar is won. Thereupon she makes erotic advances towards Gilgamesh.[546] This data should be sufficient to render intelligible the rôle of Horus in Plutarch, especially the violent usage of Isis. Through overpowering the mother the hero becomes equal to the sun; he reproduces himself. He wins the strength of the invincible sun, the power of eternal rejuvenation. We thus understand a series of representations from the Mithraic myth on the Heddernheim relief. There we see, first of all, the birth of Mithra from the top of the tree; the next representation shows him carrying the conquered bull (comparable to the monstrous bull overcome by Gilgamesh). This bull signifies the concentrated significance of the monster, the father, who as giant and dangerous animal embodies the incest prohibition, and agrees with the individual libido of the sun-hero, which he overcomes by self-sacrifice. The third picture represents Mithra, when he grasps the head ornament of the sun, the nimbus. This act recalls to us, first of all, the violence of Horus towards Isis; secondly, the Christian basic thought, _that those who have overcome attain the crown of eternal life_. On the fourth picture Sol kneels before Mithra. These last two representations show plainly that Mithra has taken to himself the strength of the sun, so that he becomes the lord of the sun as well. He has conquered “his animal nature,” the bull. The animal knows no incest prohibition; man is, therefore, man because he conquers the incest wish, that is, the animal nature. Thus Mithra has sacrificed his animal nature, the incest wish, and with that has overcome the mother, that is to say, “the terrible death-bringing mother.” A solution is already anticipated in the Gilgamesh epic through the formal renunciation of the horrible Ishtar by the hero. The overcoming of the mother in the Mithraic sacrifice, which had almost an ascetic character, took place no longer by the archaic overpowering, but through the renunciation, the sacrifice of the wish. The primitive thought of incestuous reproduction through entrance into the mother’s womb had already been displaced, because man was so far advanced in domestication that he believed that the eternal life of the sun is reached, not through the perpetration of incest, but through the sacrifice of the incest wish. This important change expressed in the Mithraic mystery finds its full expression for the first time in the symbol of the crucified God. A bleeding human sacrifice was hung on the tree of life for Adam’s sins.[547] The first-born sacrifices its life to the mother when he suffers, hanging on the branch, a disgraceful and painful death, a mode of death which belongs to the most ignominious forms of execution, which Roman antiquity had reserved for only the lowest criminal. Thus the hero dies, as if he had committed the most shameful crime; he does this by returning into the birth-giving branch of the tree of life, at the same time paying for his guilt with the pangs of death. The animal nature is repressed most powerfully in this deed of the highest courage and the greatest renunciation; therefore, a greater salvation is to be expected for humanity, because such a deed alone seems appropriate to expiate Adam’s guilt.

[Illustration: BULL-SACRIFICE OF MITHRA]

As has already been mentioned, the hanging of the sacrifice on the tree is a generally widespread ritual custom, Germanic examples being especially abundant. The ritual consists in the sacrifice being pierced by a spear.[548] Thus it is said of Odin (Edda, Havamal):

“I know that I hung on the windswept tree Nine nights through, Wounded by a spear, dedicated to Odin I myself to myself.”

The hanging of the sacrifice to the cross also occurred in America prior to its discovery. Müller[549] mentions the Fejervaryian manuscript (a Mexican hieroglyphic kodex), at the conclusion of which there is a colossal cross, in the middle of which there hangs a bleeding divinity. Equally interesting is the cross of Palenque;[550] up above is a bird, on either side two human figures, who look at the cross and hold a child against it either for sacrifice or baptism. The old Mexicans are said to have invoked the favor of Centeotls, “the daughter of heaven and the goddess of wheat,” every spring by nailing upon the cross a youth or a maiden and by shooting the sacrifice with arrows.[551] The name of the Mexican cross signifies “tree of our life or flesh.”[552]

An effigy from the Island of Philae represents Osiris in the form of a crucified god, wept over by Isis and Nephthys, the sister consort.[553]

The meaning of the cross is certainly not limited to the tree of life, as has already been shown. Just as the tree of life has also a phallic sub-meaning (as libido symbol), so there is a further significance to the cross than life and immortality.[554] Müller uses it as a sign of rain and of fertility, because it appears among the Indians distinctly as a magic charm of fertility. It goes without saying, therefore, that it plays a rôle in the sun cult. It is also noteworthy that the sign of the cross is an important sign for the keeping away of all evil, like the ancient gesture of Manofica. The phallic amulets also serve the same purpose. Zöckler appears to have overlooked the fact that the phallic Crux Ansata is the same cross which has flourished in countless examples in the soil of antiquity. Copies of this Crux Ansata are found in many places, and almost every collection of antiquities possesses one or more specimens.[555]

Finally, it must be mentioned that the form of the human body is imitated in the cross as of a man with arms outspread. It is remarkable that in early Christian representations Christ is not nailed to the cross, but stands before it with arms outstretched.[556] Maurice[557] gives a striking basis for this interpretation when he says:

“It is a fact not less remarkable than well attested, that the Druids in their groves were accustomed to select the most stately and beautiful tree as an emblem of the deity they adored, and cutting off the side branches, they affixed two of the largest of them to the highest part of the trunk, in such a manner that those branches extended on each side like the arms of a man, and together with the body presented the appearance of a huge cross; and in the bark in several places was also inscribed the letter Τ (tau).”[558]

“The tree of knowledge” of the Hindoo Dschaina sect assumes human form; it was represented as a mighty, thick trunk in the form of a human head, from the top of which grew out two longer branches hanging down at the sides and one short, vertical, uprising branch crowned by a bud or blossom-like thickening.[559] Robertson in his “Evangelical Myths” mentions that in the Assyrian system there exists the representation of the divinity in the form of a cross, in which the vertical beam corresponds to a human form and the horizontal beam to a pair of conventionalized wings. Old Grecian idols such, for example, as were found in large numbers in Aegina have a similar character, an immoderately long head and arms slightly raised, wing-shaped, and in front distinct breasts.[560]

I must leave it an open question as to whether the symbol of the cross has any relation to the two pieces of wood in the religious fire production, as is frequently claimed. It does appear, however, as if the cross symbol actually still possessed the significance of “union,” for this idea belongs to the fertility charm, and especially to the thought of eternal rebirth, which is most intimately bound up with the cross. The thought of “union,” expressed by the symbol of the cross, is met with in “Timaios” of Plato, where the world soul is conceived as stretched out between heaven and earth in the form of an X (Chi); hence in the form of a “St. Andrew’s cross.” When we now learn, furthermore, that the world soul contains in itself _the world as a body_, then this picture inevitably reminds us of the mother.

(_Dialogues of Plato._ Jowett, Vol. II, page 528.)

“And in the center he put the soul, which he diffused through the whole, and also spread over all the body round about, and he made one solitary and only heaven, a circle moving in a circle, having such excellence as to be able to hold converse with itself, and needing no other friendship or acquaintance. Having these purposes in view he created the world to be a blessed god.”

This highest degree of inactivity and freedom from desire, symbolized by the _being enclosed within itself_, signifies divine blessedness. The only human prototype of this conception is the child in the mother’s womb, or rather more, the adult man in the continuous embrace of the mother, from whom he originates. Corresponding to this mythologic-philosophic conception, the enviable Diogenes inhabited a tub, thus giving mythologic expression to the blessedness and resemblance to the Divine in his freedom from desire. Plato says as follows of the bond of the world soul to the world body:

“Now God did not make the soul after the body, although we have spoken of them in this order; for when he put them together he would never have allowed that the elder should serve the younger, but this is what we say at random, because we ourselves too are very largely affected by chance. Whereas he made the soul in origin and excellence prior to and older than the body, to be the ruler and mistress, of whom the body was to be the subject.”

It seems conceivable from other indications that the conception of the soul in general is a derivative of the mother-imago, that is to say, a symbolic designation for the amount of libido remaining in the mother-imago. (Compare the Christian representation of the soul as the bride of Christ.) The further development of the world soul in “Timaios” takes place in an obscure fashion in mystic numerals. When the mixture was completed the following occurred:

“This entire compound he divided lengthways into two parts, which he joined to one another at the center like the figure of an X.”

This passage approaches very closely the division and union of Atman, who, after the division, is compared to a man and a woman who hold each other in an embrace. Another passage is worth mentioning:

“After the entire union of the soul had taken place, according to the master’s mind, he formed all that is corporeal within this, and joined it together so as to penetrate it throughout.”

Moreover, I refer to my remarks about the maternal meaning of the world soul in Plotinus, in