Psychology of the Unconscious A Study of the...

The peculiar feature, however, is that Chidher is not only a saint, but in Sufic circles[367] rises even to divine significance. In view of the severe monotheism of Islam, one is inclined to think of Chidher as a pre-Islamitic Arabian divinity who would hardly be officially recognized by the new religion, but might have been tolerated on political grounds. But there is nothing to prove that. The first traces of Chidher are found in the commentaries of the Koran, Buchâri and Tabare and in a commentary to a noteworthy passage of the eighteenth sura of the Koran. The eighteenth sura is entitled “the cave,” that is, after the cave of the seven sleepers, who, according to the legend, slept there for 309 years, and thus escaped persecution, and awoke in a new era. Their legend is recounted in the eighteenth sura, and divers reflections were associated with it. The wish-fulfilment idea of the legend is very clear. The mystic material for it is the immutable model of the Sun’s course. The Sun sets periodically, but does not die. It hides in the womb of the sea or in a subterranean cave,[368] and in the morning is “born again,” complete. The language in which this astronomic occurrence is clothed is one of clear symbolism; the Sun returns into the mother’s womb, and after some time is again born. Of course, this event is properly an incestuous act, of which, in mythology, clear traces are still retained, not the least of which is the circumstance that the dying and resurrected gods are the lovers of their own mothers or have generated themselves through their own mothers.

Christ as the “God becoming flesh” has generated himself through Mary; Mithra has done the same. These Gods are unmistakable Sun-gods, for the Sun also does this, in order to again renew himself. Naturally, it is not to be assumed that astronomy came first and these conceptions of gods afterwards; the process was, as always, inverted, and it is even true that primitive magic charms of rebirth, baptism, superstitious usages of all sorts, concerning the cure of the sick, etc., were projected into the heavens. These youths were born from the cave (the womb of mother earth), like the Sun-gods, in a new era, and this was the way they vanquished death. In this far they were immortal. It is now interesting to see how the Koran comes, after long ethical contemplations in the course of the same sura, to the following passage, which is of especial significance for the origin of the Chidher myth. For this reason I quote the Koran literally:

If now we wish to know who is the unknown servant of God, we are told in this passage he is Dhulqarnein, Alexander, the Sun; he goes to the place of setting and he goes to the place of rising. The passage about the unknown servant of God is explained by the commentaries in a well-defined legend. The servant is Chidher, “the verdant one,” the never-tiring wanderer, who roams for hundreds and thousands of years over lands and seas, the teacher and counsellor of pious men; the one wise in divine knowledge—the immortal.[371] The authority of the Tabari associates Chidher with Dhulqarnein; Chidher is said to have reached the “stream of life” as a follower of Alexander, and both unwittingly had drunk of it, so that they became immortal. Moreover, Chidher is identified by the old commentators with Elias, who also did not die, but who was taken to Heaven in a fiery chariot. Elias is Helios.[372] It is to be observed that Ahasver also owes his existence to an obscure place in the holy Christian scriptures. This place is to be found in Matthew xvi:28. First comes the scene where Christ appoints Peter as the rock of his church, and nominates him the governor of his power.[373] After that follows the prophecy of his death, and then comes the passage:

From these passages it appears that Christ stands on the same plane as Elias, without being identified with him,[375] although the people consider him as Elias. The ascension places Christ as identical with Elias. The prophecy of Christ shows that there exist aside from himself one or more immortals who shall not die until Parousai. According to John xxi: 22nd verse, the boy John was considered as one of these immortals, and in the legend he is, in fact, not dead but merely sleeping in the ground until Parousai, and breathes so that the dust swirls round his grave.[376] As is evident, there are passable bridges from Christ by way of Elias to Chidher and Ahasuerus. It is said in an account of this legend[377] that Dhulqarnein led his friend Chidher to the “source of life” in order to have him drink of immortality.[378] Alexander also bathed in the stream of life and performed the ritual ablutions. As I previously mentioned in a footnote, according to Matthew xvii: 12th verse, John the Baptist is Elias, therefore primarily identical with Chidher. Now, however, it is to be noted that in the Arabian legend Chidher appears rather as a companion or accompanied (Chidher with Dhulqarnein or with Elias, “like unto them”; or identified with them[379]). There are therefore, two similar figures who resemble each other, but who, nevertheless, are distinct. The analogous situation in the Christian legend is found in the scene by the Jordan where John leads Christ to the “source of life.”

Christ is there, the subordinate, John the superior, similar to Dhulqarnein and Chidher, or Chidher and Moses, also Elias. The latter relation especially is such that Vollers compares Chidher and Elias, on the one side, with Gilgamesh and his mortal brother Eabani; on the other side, with the Dioscuri, one of whom is immortal, the other mortal. This relation is also found in Christ and John the Baptist,[380] on the one hand, and Christ and Peter, on the other. The last-named parallel only finds its explanation through comparison with the Mithraic mysteries, where the esoteric contents are revealed to us through monuments. Upon the Mithraic marble relief of Klagenfurt[381] it is represented how with a halo Mithra crowns Helios, who either kneels before him or else floats up to him from below. Mithra is represented on a Mithraic monument of Osterburken as holding in his right hand the shoulder of the mystic ox above Helios, who stands bowed down before him, the left hand resting on a sword hilt. A crown lies between them on the ground. Cumont observes about this scene that it probably represents the divine prototype of the ceremony of the initiation into the degree of Miles, in which a sword and a crown were conferred upon the mystic. Helios is, therefore, appointed the Miles of Mithra. In a general way, Mithra seems to occupy the rôle of patron to Helios, which reminds us of the boldness of Hercules towards Helios. Upon his journey towards Geryon, Helios burns too hotly; Hercules, full of anger, threatens him with his never-failing arrows.

Therefore, Helios is compelled to yield, and lends to the hero his Sun ship, with which he was accustomed to journey across the sea. Thus Hercules returns to Erythia, to the cattle herds of Geryon.[382] On the monument at Klagenfurt, Mithra is furthermore represented pressing Helios’s hand, either in farewell or as a ratification. In a further scene Mithra mounts the Chariot of Helios, either for the ascension or the “Sea Journey.”[383] Cumont is of the opinion that Mithra gives to Helios a sort of ceremonious investiture and consecrates him with his divine power by crowning him with his own hands. This relation corresponds to that of Christ to Peter. Peter, through his symbol, the cock, has the character of a sun-god. After the ascension (or sea journey) of Christ, he is the visible pontiff of the divinity; he suffers, therefore, the same death (crucifixion) as Christ, and becomes the great Roman deity (Sol invictus), the conquering, triumphant Church itself, embodied in the Pope. In the scene of Malchus he is always shown as the miles of Christ, to whom the sword is granted, and as the rock upon which the Church is founded. The crown[384] is also given to him who possesses the power to bind and to set free. Thus, Christ, like the Sun, is the visible God, whereas the Pope, like the heir of the Roman Cæsars, is solis invicti comes. The setting sun appoints a successor whom he invests with the power of the sun.[385] Dhulqarnein gives Chidher eternal life.

Chidher communicates his wisdom to Moses.[386] There even exists a report according to which the forgetful servant of Joshua drinks from the well of life, whereupon he becomes immortal, and is placed in a ship by Chidher and Moses, as a punishment, and is cast out to sea, once more a fragment of a sun myth, the motive of the “sea journey.”[387]

The primitive symbol, which designates that portion of the Zodiac in which the Sun, with the Winter Solstice, again enters upon the yearly course, is the goat, fish sign, the αἰγωκέρως. The Sun mounts like a goat to the highest mountain, and later goes into the water as a fish. The fish is the symbol of the child,[388] for the child before his birth lives in the water like a fish, and the Sun, because it plunges into the sea, becomes equally child and fish. The fish, however, is also a phallic symbol,[389] also a symbol for the woman.[390] Briefly stated, the fish is a libido symbol, and, indeed, as it seems predominately for the renewal of the libido.

The journey of Moses with his servant is a life-journey (eighty years). They grow old and lose their life force (libido), that is, they lose the fish which “pursues its course in a marvellous manner to the sea,” which means the setting of the sun. When the two notice their loss, they discover at the place where the “source of life” is found (where the dead fish revived and sprang into the sea) Chidher wrapped in his mantle,[391] sitting on the ground. According to another version, he sat on an island in the sea, or “in the wettest place on earth,” that is, he was just born from the maternal depths. Where the fish vanished Chidher, “the verdant one,” was born as a “son of the deep waters,” his head veiled, a Cabir, a proclaimer of divine wisdom; the old Babylonian Oannes-Ea, who was represented in the form of a fish, and daily came from the sea as a fish to teach the people wisdom.[392] His name was brought into connection with John’s. With the rising of the renewed sun all that lived in darkness, as water-animal or fish, surrounded by all terrors of night and death,[393] became as the shining fiery firmament of the day. Thus the words of John the Baptist[394] gain especial meaning:

With Vollers we may also compare Chidher and Elias (Moses and his servant Joshua) with Gilgamesh and his brother Eabani. Gilgamesh wandered through the world, driven by anxiety and longing, to find immortality. His path led him across the seas to the wise Utnapishtim (Noah), who knew how to cross the waters of death. There Gilgamesh had to dive down to the bottom of the sea for the magical herb which was to lead him back to the land of men. When he had come again to his native land a serpent stole the magic plant from him (the fish again slid into the sea). But on the return from the land of the blessed an immortal mariner accompanied him, who, banished by a curse of Utnapishtim, was forbidden to return to the land of the blessed. Gilgamesh’s journey had lost its purpose on account of the loss of the magic herb; instead he is accompanied by an immortal, whose fate, indeed, we cannot learn from the fragments of the epic. This banished immortal is the model for Ahasver, as Jensen[395] aptly remarked.

The Sacrificium Mithriacum (the sacrifice of the bull) is in its religious representation very often flanked by the two Dadophores, Cautes and Cautopates, one with a raised and the other with a lowered torch. They represent brothers who reveal their character through the symbolic position of the torch. Cumont connects them, not without meaning, with the sepulchral “erotes” who as genii with the reversed torches have traditional meaning. The one is supposed to stand for death and the other for life. I cannot refrain from mentioning the similarity between the Sacrificium Mithriacum (where the sacrificed bull in the centre is flanked on both sides by Dadophores) to the Christian sacrifice of the lamb (ram). The Crucified is also traditionally flanked by the two thieves, one of whom ascends to Paradise, while the other descends to Hell.[396] The idea of the mortal and the immortal seems to have passed also into the Christian worship. Semitic gods are often represented as flanked by two Paredroi; for example, Baal of Edessa, accompanied by Aziz and Monimoz (Baal as the Sun, accompanied by Mars and Mercury, as expressed in astronomical teachings). According to the Chaldean view, the gods are grouped into triads. In this circle of ideas belongs also the Trinity, the idea of the triune God, in which Christ must be considered in his unity with the Father and the Holy Ghost. So, too, do the two thieves belong inwardly to Christ. The two Dadophores are, as Cumont points out, nothing but offshoots[397] from the chief figure of Mithra, to whom belongs a mysterious threefold character.

According to an account of Dionysus Areopagita, the magicians celebrated a festival, “τοῦ τριπλασίου Μίθρου.”[398][399] An observation likewise referring to the Trinity is made by Plutarch concerning Ormuzd: τρὶς ἑαυτὸν αὐξήσας ἀπέστησε τοῦ ἡλίου.[400] The Trinity, as three different states of the unity, is also a Christian thought. In the very first place this suggests a sun myth. An observation by Macrobius 1:18 seems to lend support to this idea:

“Hæ autem ætatum diversitates ad solem referuntur, ut parvulus videatur hiemali solstitio, qualem Aegyptii proferunt ex adyto die certa, ... æquinoctio vernali figura iuvenis ornatur. Postea statuitur ætas ejus plenissima effigie barbæ solstitio æstivo ... exunde per diminutiones veluti senescenti quarta forma deus figuratur.”[401][402]

As Cumont observes, Cautes and Cautapates occasionally carry in their hands the head of a bull, and a scorpion.[403] Taurus and Scorpio are equinoctial signs, which clearly indicate that the sacrificial scene refers primarily to the Sun cycle; the rising Sun, which sacrifices itself at the summer solstice, and the setting Sun. In the sacrificial scene the symbol of the rising and setting Sun was not easily represented; therefore, this idea was removed from the sacrificial image.

We have pointed out above that the Dioscuri represent a similar idea, although in a somewhat different form; the one sun is always mortal, the other immortal. As this entire sun mythology is merely a psychologic projection to the heavens, the fundamental thesis probably is as follows; just as man consists of a mortal and immortal part, so the sun is a pair of brothers,[404] one being mortal, the other immortal. This thought lies at the basis of all theology in general. Man is, indeed, mortal, but there are some who are immortal, or there is something in us which is immortal. Thus the gods, “a Chidher or a St. Germain,” are our immortal part, which, though incomprehensible, dwells among us somewhere.

Comparison with the sun teaches us over and over again that the gods are libido. It is that part of us which is immortal, since it represents that bond through which we feel that in the race we are never extinguished.[405] It is life from the life of mankind. Its springs, which well up from the depths of the unconscious, come, as does our life in general, from the root of the whole of humanity, since we are indeed only a twig broken off from the mother and transplanted.

Since the divine in us is the libido,[406] we must not wonder that we have taken along with us in our theology ancient representations from olden times, which give the triune figure to the God. We have taken this τριπλάσιον Θεόν[407] from the phallic symbolism, the originality of which may well be uncontested.[408] The male genitals are the basis for this Trinity. It is an anatomical fact that one testicle is generally placed somewhat higher than the other, and it is also a very old, but, nevertheless, still surviving, superstition that one testicle generates a boy and the other a girl.[409] A late Babylonian bas-relief from Lajard’s[410] collection seems to be in accordance with this view. In the middle of the image stands an androgynous god (masculine and feminine face[411]); upon the right, male side, is found a serpent, with a sun halo round its head; upon the left, female side, there is also a serpent, with the moon above its head. Above the head of the god there are three stars. This ensemble would seem to confirm the Trinity[412] of the representation. The Sun serpent at the right side is male; the serpent at the left side is female (signified by the moon). This image possesses a symbolic sexual suffix, which makes the sexual significance of the whole obtrusive. Upon the male side a rhomb is found—a favorite symbol of the female genitals; upon the female side there is a wheel or felly. A wheel always refers to the Sun, but the spokes are thickened and enlarged at the ends, which suggests phallic symbolism.

It seems to be a phallic wheel, which was not unknown in antiquity. There are obscene bas-reliefs where Cupid turns a wheel of nothing but phalli.[413] It is not only the serpent which suggests the phallic significance of the Sun; I quote one especially marked case, from an abundance of proof. In the antique collection at Verona I discovered a late Roman mystic inscription in which are the following representations: