Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions by T. W. Doane
CHAPTER V.
2259 words | Chapter 52
JACOB'S VISION OF THE LADDER.
In the 28th chapter of Genesis, we are told that Isaac, after blessing
his son Jacob, sent him to Padan-aram, to take a daughter of Laban's
(his mother's brother) to wife. Jacob, obeying his father, "went out
from Beer-sheba (where he dwelt), and went towards Haran. And he lighted
upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was
set. And he took of the stones of the place, and put them for his
pillow, and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold,
a _ladder_ set upon the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. _And
he beheld the angels of God ascending and descending on it._ And,
behold, the Lord stood above it, and said: 'I am the Lord God of Abraham
thy father, and the God of Isaac, the land whereon thou liest, to thee
will I give it, and to thy seed.' . . . And Jacob awoke out of his
sleep, and he said: 'Surely the Lord is in this place, and I know it
not.' And he was afraid, and said: 'How _dreadful_ is this place, _this
is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of Heaven_.'
And Jacob rose up early in the morning, _and took the stone that he had
put for his pillow, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the
top of it_. And he called the name of that place _Beth-el_."
The doctrine of Metempsychosis has evidently something to do with this
legend. It means, in the theological acceptation of the term, the
supposed transition of the soul after death, into another substance or
body than that which it occupied before. The belief in such a transition
was common to the most civilized, and the most uncivilized, nations of
the earth.[42:1]
It was believed in, and taught by, the _Brahminical Hindoos_,[42:2] the
_Buddhists_,[42:3] the natives of _Egypt_,[42:4] several philosophers of
ancient _Greece_,[43:1] the ancient _Druids_,[43:2] the natives of
_Madagascar_,[43:3] several tribes of _Africa_,[43:4] and _North
America_,[43:5] the ancient _Mexicans_,[43:4] and by some _Jewish_ and
_Christian_ sects.[43:5]
"It deserves notice, that in both of these religions (_i. e._,
_Jewish_ and _Christian_), it found adherents as well in
ancient as in modern times. Among the _Jews_, the doctrine of
transmigration--the Gilgul Neshamoth--was taught in the
mystical system of the _Kabbala_."[43:6]
"All the souls," the spiritual code of this system says, "are
subject to the trials of transmigration; and men do not know
which are the ways of the Most High in their regard." "The
principle, in short, of the _Kabbala_, is the same as that of
_Brahmanism_."
"On the ground of this doctrine, which was shared in by Rabbis
of the highest renown, it was held, for instance, that the
soul of _Adam_ migrated into _David_, and will come in the
_Messiah_; that the soul of _Japhet_ is the same as that of
_Simeon_, and the soul of _Terah_, migrated into _Job_."
"Of all these transmigrations, biblical instances are adduced
according to their mode of interpretation--in the writings of
Rabbi Manasse ben Israel, Rabbi Naphtali, Rabbi Meyer ben
Gabbai, Rabbi Ruben, in the Jalkut Khadash, and other works of
a similar character."[43:4]
The doctrine is thus described by Ovid, in the language of Dryden:
"What feels the body when the soul expires,
By time corrupted, or consumed by fires?
Nor dies the spirit, but new life repeats
Into other forms, and only changes seats.
Ev'n I, who these mysterious truths declare,
Was once Euphorbus in the Trojan war;
My name and lineage I remember well,
And how in fight by Spartan's King I fell.
In Argive Juno's fame I late beheld
My buckler hung on high, and own'd my former shield
Then death, so called, is but old matter dressed
In some new figure, and a varied vest.
Thus all things are but alter'd, nothing dies,
And here and there the unbodied spirit flies."
The Jews undoubtedly learned this doctrine after they had been subdued
by, and become acquainted with other nations; and the writer of this
story, whoever he may have been, was evidently endeavoring to strengthen
the belief in this doctrine--he being an advocate of it--by inventing
this story, _and making Jacob a witness to the truth of it_. Jacob would
have been looked upon at the time the story was written (_i. e._, after
the Babylonian captivity), as of great authority. We know that several
writers of portions of the Old Testament have written for similar
purposes. As an illustration, we may mention the book of _Esther_. This
book was written for the purpose of explaining the origin of the
festival of _Purim_, and _to encourage the Israelites to adopt it_. The
writer, _who was an advocate of the feast_, lived long after the
Babylonish captivity, and is quite unknown.[44:1]
The writer of the seventeenth chapter of Matthew has made Jesus a
teacher of the doctrine of Transmigration.
The Lord had promised that he would send Elijah (Elias) the prophet,
"before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord,"[44:2] and
Jesus is made to say that he had already come, or, _that his soul had
transmigrated unto the body of John the Baptist_, and they knew it
not.[44:3]
And in Mark (viii. 27) we are told that Jesus asked his disciples,
saying unto them; "Whom do men say that _I_ am?" whereupon they answer:
"Some say Elias; and others, one of the prophets;" or, in other words,
that the soul of Elias, or one of the prophets, had transmigrated into
the body of Jesus. In John (ix. 1, 2), we are told that Jesus and his
disciples seeing a man "_which was blind from his birth_," the disciples
asked him, saying; "Master, who did sin, _this man_ (in some former
state) or his parents." Being _born_ blind, how else could he sin,
_unless in some former state_? These passages result from the fact,
which we have already noticed, that some of the Jewish and Christian
sects believed in the doctrine of Metempsychosis.
According to some Jewish authors, _Adam_ was re-produced in _Noah_,
_Elijah_, and other Bible celebrities.[44:4]
The Rev. Mr. Faber says:
"Adam, and Enoch, and Noah, might in outward appearance be
_different_ men, but they were really the _self-same_ divine
persons who had been promised as the seed of the woman,
successively animating various human bodies."[44:5]
We have stated as our belief that the vision which the writer of the
twenty-eighth chapter of Genesis has made Jacob to witness, was intended
to strengthen the belief in the doctrine of the Metempsychosis, that he
was simply seeing the souls of men ascending and descending from heaven
_on a ladder_, during their transmigrations.
We will now give our reasons for thinking so.
The learned Thomas Maurice tells us that:
The _Indians_ had, in remote ages, in their system of theology, _the
sidereal ladder of seven gates_, which described, in a symbolical
manner, the _ascending and descending of the souls of men_.[45:1]
We are also informed by Origen that:
This descent (_i. e._, the descent of souls from heaven to
enter into some body), was described in a symbolical manner,
_by a ladder which was represented as reaching from heaven to
earth_, and divided into _seven_ stages, at each of which was
figured a gate; the eighth gate was at the top of the ladder,
which belonged to the sphere of the celestial firmament.[45:2]
That souls dwell in the _Galaxy_ was a thought familiar to the
_Pythagoreans_, who gave it on their master's word, that the souls that
crowd there, _descend and appear to men as dreams_.[45:3]
The fancy of the _Manicheans_ also transferred pure souls to this column
of light, _whence they could come down to earth and again return_.[45:4]
Paintings representing a scene of this kind may be seen in works of art
illustrative of _Indian Mythology_.
Maurice speaks of one, in which he says:
"The souls of men are represented as ascending and descending
(on a ladder), according to the received opinion of the
sidereal Metempsychosis in Asia."[45:5]
Mons. Dupuis tells us that:
"Among the mysterious pictures of the _Initiation_, in the
cave of the Persian God Mithras, there was exposed to the view
_the descent of the souls to the earth, and their return to
heaven_, through the seven planetary spheres."[45:6]
And Count de Volney says:
"In the cave of Mithra _was a ladder with seven steps_,
representing the seven spheres of the planets by means of
which _souls ascended and descended_. This is precisely the
ladder of Jacob's vision. There is in the Royal Library (of
France) a superb volume of pictures of the Indian gods, in
which the ladder is represented with the souls of men
ascending it."[45:7]
In several of the Egyptian sculptures also, the Transmigration of Souls
is represented by the ascending and descending of souls from heaven to
earth, _on a flight of steps_, and, as the souls of wicked men were
supposed to enter pigs and other animals, therefore pigs, monkeys, &c.,
are to be seen on the steps, descending from heaven.[45:8]
"And he dreamed, _and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and
the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God
ascending and descending on it_."
These are the words of the sacred text. Can anything be more
convincing? It continues thus:
"And Jacob awoke out of his sleep . . . and he was afraid, and
said . . . this is none other but the house of God, _and this
is the gate of heaven_."
Here we have "the gate of heaven," mentioned by Origen in describing the
_Metempsychosis_.
According to the ancients, the _top_ of this ladder was supposed to
reach _the throne_ of _the most high God_. This corresponds exactly with
the vision of Jacob. The ladder which he is made to see reached unto
heaven, _and the Lord stood above it._[46:1]
"And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the _stone_
that he had put for his pillow, _and set it up for a pillar,
and poured oil upon the top of it_."[46:2]
This concluding portion to the story has evidently an allusion to
_Phallic_[46:3] worship. There is scarcely a nation of antiquity which
did not set up these stones (as emblems of the reproductive power of
nature) and worship them. Dr. Oort, speaking of this, says:
Few forms of worship were so universal in ancient times as the homage
paid to sacred stones. In the history of the religion of even the most
civilized peoples, such as the Greeks, Romans, Hindoos, Arabs and
Germans, we find traces of this form of worship.[46:4] The ancient
_Druids_ of Britain also worshiped sacred stones, which were _set up on
end_.[46:5]
Pausanias, an eminent Greek historian, says:
"The _Hermiac_ statue, which they venerate in Cyllenê above
other _symbols_, is an erect _Phallus_ on a pedestal."[46:6]
This was nothing more than a smooth, oblong _stone_, set erect on a flat
one.[46:7]
The learned Dr. Ginsburg, in his "Life of Levita," alludes to the
ancient mode of worship offered to the heathen deity Hermes, or Mercury.
A "Hermes" (_i. e._, a _stone_) was frequently set up on the road-side,
and each traveller, as he passed by, paid his homage to the deity by
either throwing a stone on the heap (which was thus collected), or by
_anointing_ it. This "Hermes" was the symbol of Phallus.[46:8]
Now, when we find that _this form of worship was very prevalent among
the Israelites_,[47:1] that these sacred stones which were "set up,"
were called (by the heathen), BÆTY-LI,[47:2] (which is not unlike
BETH-EL), and that _they were anointed with oil_,[47:3] I think we have
reasons for believing that the story of Jacob's _setting up_ a stone,
_pouring oil upon it_, and calling the place _Beth-el_, "has evidently
an allusion to Phallic worship."[47:4]
The male and female powers of nature were denoted respectively by an
upright and an oval emblem, and the conjunction of the two furnished at
once the altar and the _Ashera_, or grove, against which the Hebrew
prophets lifted up their voices in earnest protest. In the kingdoms,
both of Judah and Israel, the rites connected with these emblems assumed
their most corrupting form. Even in the temple itself, stood the
_Ashera_, or the upright emblem, on the circular altar of Baal-Peor, the
Priapos of the Jews, thus reproducing the _Linga_, and _Yoni_ of the
Hindu.[47:5] For this symbol, the women wove hangings, as the Athenian
maidens embroidered the sacred peplos for the ship presented to Athênê,
at the great Dionysiac festival. This _Ashera_, which, in the authorized
English version of the Old Testament is translated "_grove_," was, in
fact, a pole, or stem of a tree. It is reproduced in our modern
"Maypole," around which maidens dance, as maidens did of yore.[47:6]
FOOTNOTES:
[42:1] See Chambers's Encyclo., art. "Transmigration."
[42:2] Chambers's Encyclo., art. "Transmigration." Prichard's Mythology,
p. 213, and Prog. Relig. Ideas, vol. i. p. 59.
[42:3] Ibid. Ernest de Bunsen says: "The first traces of the doctrine of
Transmigration of souls is to be found among the Brahmins and
Buddhists." (The Angel Messiah, pp. 63, 64.)
[42:4] Prichard's Mythology, pp. 213, 214.
[43:1] Gross: The Heathen Religion. Also Chambers's Encyclo., art.
"Transmigration."
[43:2] Ibid. Mallet's Northern Antiquities, p. 13; and Myths of the
British Druids, p. 15.
[43:3] Chambers's Encyclo.
[43:4] Ibid.
[43:5] Ibid. See also Bunsen: The Angel-Messiah, pp. 63, 64. Dupuis, p.
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