cherub; though in those found at Khorsabad this head-dress is replaced by a square or cylindrical mitre, terminating in a circle of upright feathers; it carries the usual encircling horns, and is studded with rosettes. Generally the human-headed cherubs are beasts from the neck downward, but they are somietimes figured with human arms, carrying a lamb or kid, exactly in the manner of the priests. Sometimes they are vulture-headed, like the hieracosphinx of Egypt; two of these in one place are attacking an ibex; in another, one is apparently killing or about to devour a prostrate ibex; in another, two vulture-sphinxes, with girded loins, attack a gazelle; one of them has seized the victim on the flanks with both fore-paws, just as a lion might do. These circumstances appear to connect themselves with sacrifice. But still more remarkable are two figures embroidered on a robe at Nimroud.* Two bearded priests are seen wearing the one-horned cap; they are human to the waist, with bestial hindparts, and a short curved dog's-tail, but the legs become those of a bird, and terminate in eagles' feet: they have the usual two pairs of priestly wings, stand erect in a human attitude, present the fir-cone in the right hand, and hold the basket in the left. The winged bull and the winged horse are occasionally figured in pairs, with the sacred tree between them, either kneeling or rearing towards it. From the manner in which winged bulls and sphinxes are made to interchange with lions, antelopes, and other wild animals on the embroideries, Layard's Mon. of Nin. pl. 44. SYMBOLIC FIGURE. we have sometimes been inclined to think that the artist intended to represent real existences; and that popular ignorance supposed such compound forms actually to exist in the remote forests, just as the vulgar believe in the existence of mermaids, &c., now. A form of religious worship, which has prevailed in Chaldea and Persia from very early times, and which is not yet extinct, is the adoration of fire. At first, light and darkness were considered as two independent, original, antagonist principles, the rulers of the universe; the former for good, the latter for evil. In the address of Jehovah by the prophet Isaiah to Cyrus, nearly a century and a half before he was born, there is an express allusion to this false notion, the origin of light and darkness being attributed to the creative fiat of God. I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me : I girded thee, though thou hast not known me: that they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. Isa. xlv. 5-7. The reformation of this ancient form of superstition by Zoroaster went so far as to recognise a supreme overruling Deity, who had created two subordinate but mighty beings, typified by light and darkness respectively. The essence of this religion may be summed up in the doctrine said to have been given by Ormuzd, the good spirit, to Zoroaster in vision. "Teach the nations," said he, "that my light is hidden under all that shines: wherever you turn your face towards the light, following my commands, Ahriman (the spirit of darkness) will immediately flee. There is nothing in the universe superior to light."* * Fire-worship, associated with star-worship, must have been very widely spread in the early ages. The Vedas or Sacred Books of the Hindoos, written, according to the best archæologists, in the sixteenth century, B. c. (or during the Israelites' sojourn in Egypt) distinctly recognise both. The Yajur Veda, for example, is mainly occupied with the sacrifice to the sun, or to its representative on earth, the consecrated fire. See Colebrooke's Essays, i. passim, and Rammohun Roy on the Upanishad of the Yajur Veda, § 10, 11. In the hymns of the Rig Veda, probably the oldest uninspired composition extant, the chief deity, Agni, comprises the element of fire under three aspects the principle of heat and life on earth, lightning in the sky, and the sun in heaven. The Sun is acknowledged as a divinity, but The adoration of the spirit of light soon degenerated into fire-worship, the idolatry of the Guebres or Parsees. The sun, as the most glorious luminary in the universe, was worshipped by prostration, at his rising, on the summits of mountains, and on the tops of lofty edifices. Fire, also, was an object of idolatrous homage, originally kindled from the sun's rays, and maintained from year to year, without being suffered to go out. Traces of this worship are seen in the later Assyrian monuments, as in the ac FIRE-WORSHIP. companying scene found at Khorsabad. A slender altar is surmounted with a cone, which, being painted red, is supposed to represent flame. Before it stand two eunuchs, side by side, with their right hands elevated; one of them carries in his hand the sacred basket. On the opposite side of the altar is a table, does not hold that prominent place in the Vedic liturgy, which he seems to have held in that of the ancient Persians, being chiefly venerated as the celestial representative of Fire. We find, however, no traces of the worship of the constellations or of the planets, so characteristic of the Chaldee Zabaism, except an occasional somewhat enigmatic allusion to the moon.-Wilson's Rig Veda (Introd.). covered with a table-cloth, on which is laid a bundle, probably of fragrant wood, to feed the sacred flame.* The service is represented as within a fortified castle or intrenched camp.† On the Assyrian and Babylonian cylinders altars of similar form are common, surmounted, like this, with the conical pyre (see Cullim. 19, 21, 22, 23, 89, 114); and others are seen analogous in form, but topped with figures of the sun's disk, and of stars, instead of the fire-cone (Ib. 113, 116). Mr. Layard gives an engraving of another representation of fire-worship from Kouyunjik. Two eunuchs are again seen worshipping before the sacred fire on a slender altar, while behind them a man leads a goat to the sacrifice. In this, as well as in the Khorsabad scene, there is a table behind the altar, on which are placed objects, that look like bowls containing some fruit. Behind the table are two poles, from which two serpents are suspended by the neck, which carry on their heads an appendage closely like the conventional ostrich-feather, so generally worn by the idols of Egypt. This scene, also, takes place within a fortified camp. A chariot A fire on all the hearth Blaz'd sprightly, and, afar diffused, the scent Odyss. v. 68. The sacred fire of the Brahmins, mentioned in the preceding note must be maintained with bundles of palàs wood (Butea frondosa), each containing twenty-one pieces, a cubit long.-See Stevenson's Sama Veda, (Lond. 1842) Pref. and p. 204. + See post, pp. 330, 507. |