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Lang Andrew
Magic and Religion

IV. IS PURIM PRE-EXILIAN OR POST-EXILIAN?

In any case Purim has not been successfully connected with Zakmuk. Mr. Frazer, however, says that 'an examination of that' (the Jewish) 'tradition, and of the manner of celebrating the feast, renders it probable that Purim is nothing but a more or less disguised form of the Babylonian feast of the Sacæa or Zakmuk.'²⁵² We have seen that stern dates do not allow us to identify Sacæa with Zakmuk. The month Lous is firm as the Macedonian phalanx, and will not masquerade as March-April, when Zakmuk was held. Setting that aside, 'there are good grounds for believing that Purim was unknown to the Jews until after the exile,' and yet 'that they learned to observe it during their captivity in the Bast.'²⁵³ But their captivity in the East was the exile, so how did they know nothing of Purim at the very time when they also learned to celebrate that festival'? However, it is reckoned 'fairly probable' that the Jews borrowed Purim either 'directly from the Babylonians or indirectly through the Persian conquerors of Babylon;' the only question is from which?²⁵⁴

The Jews probably borrowed Purim in or after the exile. But they also kept Purim before the exile, at least Mr. Frazer thinks that 'the best solution.' It is Jensen's solution, stated, however, only 'in letters to correspondents.'²⁵⁵

It really seems hardly consistent that Mr. Frazer should both think Purim probably a feast borrowed in or after the exile, and also appear to approve a theory which regards the feast as familiar to the Jews before the exile. Yet that is what he has apparently succeeded in doing.

He prefers Jensen's solution, which is this: A fast was held before the feast of Purim.²⁵⁶ Why?

'The best solution appears to be that of Jensen, that the fasting and mourning were originally for the supposed annual death of a Semitic god or hero of the type of Tammuz or Adonis, whose resurrection on the following day occasioned that outburst of joy and gladness which is characteristic of Purim.'²⁵⁷ Yes; but the Jews had that institution before the exile. In the first days of his own captivity Ezekiel was carried, in the flesh, or out of the flesh, to the temple at Jerusalem. 'Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house which was towards the north, and, behold, there sat women wailing for Tammuz.'²⁵⁸

Now Jensen's solution is that the fast at Purim represents the wailing for Tammuz, or somebody of his type. But, if the Jews did that, as they did, before the exile, and if that was Purim, how did they also borrow Purim after the exile, especially as 'there are good grounds for believing that Purim was unknown to the Jews till after the exile'?[28] How can both views be correct? Or is this March feast of the Tammuz kind an addition to the old pre-exilian Jewish Tammuz feast?

Moreover, Purim is probably, according to Mr. Frazer, 'a mere disguised form of the Sacæa,' which, in his opinion, is the same as Zakmuk.²⁵⁹ But 'the central feature of the Sacæa appears to have been the saving of the king's life for another year by the vicarious sacrifice of a criminal.'²⁶⁰ Yet its central feature is also the sorrow for the death and glee for the resurrection 'of a Semitic god or hero of the type of Tammuz or Adonis,' following Jensen. How can the Sacæa have two central features? If it is only an affair of hanging a man to save the king's life, why should the Jews at Jerusalem fast before the vicarious sacrifice of a criminal for the Babylonian king? They did fast, we know. And why should the victim's resurrection (if any) on the following day 'occasion that outburst of joy and gladness which is characteristic of Purim'?²⁶¹ What had the Jews to make with the resurrection of a proxy of the king of Babylon?

Mr. Frazer has not, I think, suggested that the kings of Israel or Judah were once annually sacrificed. So why were the Jewish women wailing at the north gate of the Temple? For Tammuz, as we know from Ezekiel; but Tammuz was not a Jewish king, or, if he was, it should be stated. Also, if the Jewish ladies wailed and rejoiced for Tammuz at the Temple in Jerusalem before the exile, how can it be consistently maintained that they knew nothing of these rites till after the exile, and then borrowed them from Babylonians or Persians? If Purim is a Tammuz rite, the Jews had it before the exile, as Ezekiel proves. If it is not a Tammuz rite, why is Jensen's the best solution? for Jensen's solution is that 'the fasting and mourning were originally for the supposed annual death of a Semitic god or hero of the type of Tammuz or Adonis, whose resurrection on the following day occasioned that outburst of joy and gladness which is characteristic of Purim.'²⁶² Then, once more, that outburst of joy and gladness for the re-arisen Tammuz was²⁶³ probably in the month Tammuz, our June-July. But now²⁶⁴ it is at Purim – that is, in March.

How are Mr. Frazer's theories to be reconciled with each other and with the facts? Did the Jews wail for Tammuz, in spring, before the exile; and, after the exile, adapt their old rite of a Tammuz fast and feast to the vicarious sacrifice of a condemned criminal (whether in July or in April) in the interests of the king of Babylon? Had they been wont to hang a man, while they wailed for Tammuz, before the exile? If so, why did they hang him, and what did they borrow during the exile? Or was all that they borrowed just the habit of crowning, discrowning, whipping, and hanging a mock-king, as an addition to their pre-exilian Tammuz fast and feast? We have certainly no evidence that they did these cruel things before the exile. And there is no evidence, as we shall see, that they yearly committed the same atrocity after the exile.

V. THEORY OF A HUMAN VICTIM AT PURIM

As Mr. Frazer is to make our Lord one of the annual victims at Purim, he has to try to prove that the Jews did annually hang or crucify a mock-king supposed to be divine at Purim. To be sure neither prophet nor legislator, neither Ezekiel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, nor Zachariah, says one word about this heathen abomination borrowed by the Jews. Mr. Frazer therefore tries to prove that the man was hanged at Purim by the evidence of 'traces of human sacrifice lingering about the feast of Purim in one or other of those mitigated forms to which I have just referred,' such as the uncertain 'burning an effigy of a man at Tarsus.'²⁶⁵

Mr. Frazer is, I think, rather easily satisfied with this kind of testimony to human sacrifice. Every fifth of November a man, called Guy by the populace, is burned in effigy. But, as we know the historical facts, we do not, though science in the distant future may, regard this rite as a trace of Druidical human sacrifice, Guy being a god of the dying foliage of November, when St. Dasius was slain. Mr. Frazer explains the old custom of burning Judas on Easter Saturday as 'all for the purpose of protecting the fields from hail,' and as 'really of pagan origin.'²⁶⁶ It maybe so: the ashes are used in agricultural magic. But we know that Guy Fawkes is not a relic of human sacrifice. Moreover, it is natural to destroy a foe, like Haman, or John Knox, or Mr. Kruger, in effigy: the thing is often done. The Jews undeniably regarded Haman, on the authority of Esther, as an enemy of their race. So they destroyed him in effigy. In the fifth century of our era, when the hatred between Jews and Christians had become bitter, the Jews, 'in contempt of the Christian religion,' attached the effigy of Haman to a cross. This insult was forbidden by the Codex Theodosianus.²⁶⁷ Similar doings, without the cross, prevailed at Purim in the Middle Ages. But how does this prove the hanging of a real Haman victim before the rise of Christianity? It merely proves that, after the strife between Jews and Christians began, an effigy of Haman, the national enemy, was crucified 'in contemptu Christianæ fidei,' as the edict says – to annoy the Christians.

But Mr. Frazer has 'some positive grounds' for thinking that 'in former times the Jews, like the Babylonians from whom they appear to have derived their Purim, may at one time have burned, hanged, or crucified a real man in the character of Haman.' We have seen that²⁶⁸ Purim, if it is a Tammuz feast and fast, was kept by the Jews before they went to Babylon. But, passing that, what are the 'positive grounds'?

Merely that in 416 A.D. some Jews in Syria, being heated with wine after 'certain sports,' began to deride Christianity, and, for that purpose, bound a Christian child to the cross. At first 'they only laughed and jeered at him, but soon, their passions getting the better of them, they ill-treated the child so that he died under their hands.' Mr. Frazer 'can hardly doubt that' the 'sports' 'were Purim, and that the boy who died on the cross represented Haman.' Granting that the 'sports' were Purim, and that the Christian child did duty for Haman, the purpose was 'to deride Christians and even Christ himself.' These motives did not exist before Christianity, so how does the anecdote of brutal and cruel mockery, ending in murder, afford 'positive grounds' for the hypothesis that, ever since the exile, the Jews, in imitation of the Sacæan proceedings in July or September, yearly hanged a mock-king in March?²⁶⁹

VI. CONTRADICTORY CONJECTURE

Mr. Frazer is so far from holding by these arguments for the practice of hanging a yearly victim at Purim, as to suggest a conjecture that the victim was not killed at Purim at all, but a month later!²⁷⁰ If he thinks this possible, what becomes of his 'positive grounds' for holding that Purim was the date of the hanging? I have shown the value of the positive grounds for maintaining a theory that the Jews, before our era, annually hanged a mock-king as Haman at Purim. Mr. Frazer himself is so far from being convinced that the Jews hanged a man at Purim²⁷¹ as to suggest the supposition that they did not do so.²⁷² If they did not, it gets him out of the difficulty caused by the unlucky circumstance that our Lord was crucified, not at Purim, but a month after Purim, as we read in the Gospels. But, alas! if the Jews did not (on this theory) hang a Haman at Purim, what becomes of all Mr. Frazer's proofs that they did hang a Haman at Purim? In the total absence of all evidence to that effect, we may be sure that the Jews did not borrow (unrebuked by prophets and legislators) a heathen brutality in March from a heathen brutality occurring, if at all, in July or September. And if they did not, Christ was not the Haman of a year, which it is Mr. Frazer's contention that he may have been.

VII. A NEW THEORY OF THE VICTIM

We have seen that Purim is either an old Jewish Tammuz feast, existing before the exile, or a post-exilian adaptation of a Persian rite, in which a condemned criminal died to save the king's life; or both.²⁷³ The victim next 'personates not merely a king but a god, whether that god was the Elamite Humman, the Babylonian Marduk, or some other deity not yet identified.'²⁷⁴ But²⁷⁵ the victim represented the king: no other god was mentioned. Again Mr. Frazer says: 'At the Sacæan festival, if I am right, a man who personated a god or hero of the type of Tammuz or Adonis enjoyed the favours of a woman, probably a sacred harlot, who represented the great Semitic goddess Ishtar or Astarte…'²⁷⁶ But did the king also stand for I a god or hero of the type of Tammuz or Adonis'? Did he associate with sacred harlots? And did he, and the victim also 'personate a god, whether that god was the Elamite Humman, the Babylonian Marduk, or some other deity not yet identified'?²⁷⁷ Were the 'Elamite Humman and the Babylonian Marduk' (or Merodach) gods of vegetation? Marduk, or Merodach, to be sure, was the chief god of Babylon, a solar deity, says Dr. Jastrow. But as Mr. Frazer suggests that the supreme Aryan god, Zeus, may have derived his name, 'the Bright or Shining One,' from the oak tree (he being 'actually represented by an oak,' and oakwood producing bright sparks when used in fire-making),²⁷⁸ why then another supreme god, Marduk, may also be a god of vegetable life. But, like the horses of Virbius, the Sacæan victim has been plausibly identified with Tammuz or Adonis.²⁷⁹ 'It seems worth suggesting that the mock-king who was annually killed at the Babylonian festival of the Sacæa on the sixteenth day of the month Lous may have represented Tammuz himself.' He also takes that rôle, with his sacred harlot, in iii. 178. It is, therefore, a little bewildering to find him appearing as Humman or Marduk, or some other god unknown, in iii. 159, 160. How many single gods are rolled into one, scourged, and hanged in this most unhappy condemned criminal?

We have been told that Marduk presided over a council of the gods at the Zakmuk, which is the Sacæa.²⁸⁰ But the hanged man²⁸¹ very probably personates Marduk. Mr. Frazer may think that, when the supreme god is presiding over the Olympian assembly in his Temple, it is a natural and pious compliment to whip and hang him in the person of his human representative. This, at least, is the result of his theory in iii. 159, 160. I do not feel sure that the supreme god, whether Marduk or Humman, would have taken the same favourable view of the tactless rite.

VIII. NEW GERMAN THEORY OF PURIM

I have hitherto but incidentally mentioned Marduk and Humman as competitors with Tammuz and the king for the glory of receiving a vicarious whipping and hanging. They are brought into this honourable position by an entirely new Teutonic theory of Purim: not Mr. Frazer's. It was lately an old Jewish Tammuz rite, or quite a new adaptation of the Sacæa. But 'it is possible,' says Professor Nöldeke, 'that we have here' (in Purim) 'to do with a feast whereby the Babylonians commemorated a victory gained by their gods over the gods of their neighbours, the Elamites, against whom they had so often waged war. The Jewish feast of Purim is an annual merrymaking of a wholly secular kind, and it is known that there were similar feasts among the Babylonians.' From the Babylonians, then, the Jews borrowed Purim, a feast commemorative of a victory of the gods of Babylon over the Elamites. But, if that feast was religious, the Jews turned it into 'an annual merrymaking of a totally secular kind.'²⁸²

Mr. Frazer, if I do not misunderstand him, does not accept the hypothesis of Nöldeke. He says, however, 'We can hardly deny the plausibility of the theory that Haman and Vashti on the one side, and Mordecai and Esther on the other, represent the antagonism between the gods of Elam and the gods of Babylon, and the final victory of the Babylonian deities in the very capital of their rivals.' But plausibility, we shall see, is remote from proof. And how can Mr. Frazer think this theory plausible if the Sacæa really is a King-Tammuz feast?

But, if Purim is now to be a rejoicing over a victory of the Babylonian gods (naturally endeared as these gods were to the Jews), why was the fast held before Purim? It was held, according to 'Jensen's solution' (which is 'the best'), 'for the supposed annual death of a hero of the type of Tammuz or Adonis, whose resurrection on the following day occasioned that outburst of joy and gladness which is characteristic of Purim.'²⁸³ But, if 'the outburst of joy and gladness characteristic of Purim' is a jubilation over a victory of the Babylonian gods, on Nöldeke's theory, why is there a fast, 'the fast of Esther,' before Purim, which is a feast of the Tammuz type? To fast for the death of Tammuz is a comely thing, but why should Jews, of all people, fast before a feast commemorative of a victory of the Babylonian gods? And why should the Jews, of all people, scourge and hang, at the same time, the possible human representative of Marduk, the chief of the gods whose victory they for some reason are commemorating?²⁸⁴

IX. ANOTHER NEW THEORY. HUMMAN AND THE VICTIM

To be sure we are given our choice: the victim may represent Marduk, the chief of the victorious gods; but he may also represent Humman, one of the defeated gods. In that case the vanquished hostile god's human representative may well be whipped and hanged, in derision of the defeated deity, Humman. But I do not observe that Mr. Frazer offers this hypothesis, which seems relatively plausible.

Indeed, I am fairly certain that Mr. Frazer does not accept Nöldeke's theory that Purim is a form of a Babylonian rejoicing over a victory of their gods. It cannot be both that and also a Tammuz feast,²⁸⁵ or a festival for the saving of the king's life by the vicarious hanging of a criminal.²⁸⁶

We are next to see how Haman, Mordecai, Vashti, and Esther are mixed up with the Sacæa, Zakmuk, Purim, Marduk, and Humman.

VIII
MORDECAI, ESTHER, VASHTI, AND HAMAN

It may be asked, How did Humman or Marduk come to appear as the god connected with the Sacæa, whereas Tammuz had previously taken that part? The answer is that Humman and Marduk came in when we were tentatively regarding Purim, not (1) as a Semitic Tammuz feast, nor yet (2) as a Persian punishment of a condemned criminal acting asking's proxy, but (3) as a festival for 'the final victory of the Babylonian deities' (Marduk and the rest) 'in the very capital of their rivals' (Humman and his company).²⁸⁷ This was a theory suggested by Professor Nöldeke. It has etymological bases.

The name Mordecai resembles Marduk, Esther is like Ishtar, Haman is like Humman, the Elamite god, and there is a divine name in the inscriptions, read as resembling 'Vashti,' and probably the name of an Elamite goddess. Thus the human characters in Esther are in peril of merging in Babylonian and Elamite gods. But, lest that should occur, we ought also to remember that Mordecai was the real name of a real historical Jew of the Captivity, one of the companions of Nehemiah in the return from exile to Jerusalem.²⁸⁸ Again, Esther appears to me to be the crown-name of the Jewish wife of Xerxes, in the Book of Esther: 'Hadassah, that is Esther.'²⁸⁹ In the Biblical story she conceals her Jewish descent. Hadassah, says Nöldeke, 'is no mere invention of the writer of 'Esther.'²⁹⁰ Hadassah is said to mean 'myrtle bough,' and girls are still called Myrtle. Esther appears to have been an assumed name, after a royal mixed marriage.

Now if a real historical Jew might be named Mordecai, which we know to be the case, a Jewess, whether in fact, or in this Book of Esther, which, says Dr. Jastrow, 'has of course some historical basis,' might be styled Esther.²⁹¹ Dr. Jastrow supposes from the proper names 'that there is a connection between Purim' (the Jewish feast accounted for in 'Esther') and some Babylonian festival, 'not that of Zagmuku,' or Zakmuk. Nöldeke says that no Babylonian feast coinciding with Purim in date has been discovered.²⁹² Indeed this fact gives Mr. Frazer some reason for various conjectures, as the date of Purim is not that of Zakmuk. But, if Mordecai be, as it is, an historical name of a real Jew of the period, while Esther may be, and probably is, a name which a Jewess might bear, it is not ascertained that Vashti really is the name of an Elamite goddess. Yet Vashti is quite essential as a goddess to Mr. Frazer's argument. 'The derivation,' he says, 'of the names of Haman and Vashti is less certain, but some high authorities are disposed to accept the view of Jensen that Haman is identical with Humman or Homman, the national god of the Elamites, and that Vashti is in like manner an Elamite deity, probably a goddess whose name appears in inscriptions.'²⁹³ Now suppose that we adopt Mr. Frazer's method about that unruly month Lous. 'The identification of the months of the Syro-Macedonian Calendar is a matter of some uncertainty; as to the month Lous in particular the evidence of ancient writers appears to be conflicting, and until we have ascertained beyond the reach of doubt when Lous fell at Babylon in the time of Berosus, it would be premature to allow much weight to the seeming discrepancy in the dates of the two festivals.'

Following this method we might say 'the identification of Haman and Vashti with a probable Elamite god and goddess is a matter of some uncertainty; as to Vashti in particular the opinion of modern writers seems to be conflicting, and until we have ascertained beyond the reach of doubt that Vashti was an Elamite goddess, and a goddess of what sort, it would be premature to allow much weight to the conjecture' – and then we might go on to allow none at all. But this would be too hard a method of dealing with Mr. Frazer's hypothesis. We should merely be getting rid of his theory in the same way as his theory evades a definite historical obstacle.

It is clear, from the facts about the names Mordecai, Esther, Haman, and Vashti, that to explain these as necessarily connected with Purim, Zakmuk, and the Sacæa, as a feast of rejoicing for a Babylonian divine victory over Elamite gods, is a very perilous hypothesis, among many others as hazardous, or even more insecure. Mr. Frazer, however, is intent on connecting the characters of 'Esther' with Babylonian and Elamite gods. They are essential to his theory that, at the Sacæa and Purim, there were a pair of human representatives of gods: Haman, with a probable sacred harlot, Vashti, doing duty for the dying; Mordecai with Esther, doing duty for the re-arisen god of vegetation. To this point we return.

Now, as to this festival of a resurrection of such a god, we have seen that, in vol. ii. 122, 253, 254, it occurred in July, to Mr. Frazer's content. But, when it had to occur in March in vol. iii., we were met by the difficulty of two, or rather three, feasts of this kind in the year. Perhaps we get rid of this obstacle in iii. 177-179. The resurrection is here that not of Tammuz, but of a hero of the same type, is fixed by Jensen at Zakmuk, and therefore by Mr. Frazer, though not by Jensen, at the Sacæa in spring.

Jensen's theory is that the death and resurrection 'of a mythical being, who combined in himself the features of a solar god and an ancient king of Erech, were celebrated at the Babylonian Zakmuk or festival of the new year, and that the transference of the drama from Erech, its original seat, to Babylon, led naturally to the substitution of Marduk, the great god of Babylon, for Gilgamesh or Eabani in the part of the hero.' Jensen, fortunately for his peace of mind, 'apparently does not identify the Zakmuk with the Sacæa.' Jensen constructs his scheme thus.

Gilgamesh was a hero of Erech, who repelled the amorous advances of the goddess Ishtar. Gilgamesh became extremely unwell. His friend Eabani also aroused the fury of Ishtar, and died. Gilgamesh procured his return from the world of the dead to the upper world.²⁹⁴ The feast celebrating this resurrection was removed from Erech to Babylon. Instead of a mortal hero, Gilgamesh or Eabani, a being cold and chaste as Joseph Andrews, the Babylonians now cast Marduk, their supreme god, for the part. The feast was Zakmuk.²⁹⁵

Of course this is precisely as if we said that an old feast of Adonis was turned into a new feast of Zeus, whose coldness, as regards goddesses, was not proverbial, like the frigidity of Adonis, Gilgamesh, Eabani, Mr. Andrews, and other notable examples.

The theory seems to lack plausibility, but as Jensen 'apparently does not identify Zakmuk with the Sacæa' he escapes the curious theory of supposing that Marduk (late Gilgamesh, or Eabani) is whipped and hanged in the person of his human representative – an unheard-of way of honouring the personator of the supreme being. However, if we accept Jensen's theory, and also, like Mr. Frazer, identify Zakmuk with the Sacæa, then, remembering that Eabani rose from the dead (if he did), and that Marduk is now Eabani, and that the Sacæan victim is or may be Marduk, and is also the king, we get a reason for supposing that the victim, too, was feigned to rise from the dead – in the person of Mordecai (Marduk). But why was the representative of Marduk, who in Jensen's theory represented Eabani, whipped and hanged? The victim, on this theory, if we add it to Mr. Frazer's, seems to me to personate

1. The King of Babylon, 2. Marduk, 3. Eabani, 4. Or Gilgamesh, and thus to combine a god or hero of vegetation (which Eabani is bound to be) with a mortal king, and a supreme god – and, oh, why is he whipped and hanged? Taking the theory of iii. 177-179 it seems to run thus, in combination with all that has gone before: The king was burned alive annually. His royal substitute was next burned alive annually. His criminal substitute was burned alive annually, till this was commuted for whipping and hanging, with or without burning. The king (before the feast of Zakmuk was brought from Erech to Babylon) had incarnated some god or other (I presume of vegetation). After the Eabani feast at Erech became the Marduk feast at Babylon, the king, I think, but I may be wrong, represented Eabani plus Marduk. If he did, so, too, does the victim at the Sacæa. But Eabani, in a Babylonian poem, has a resurrection: though I cannot find it in Jastrow's account of the poem. The victim then, being a personation of Eabani, of Marduk, and of the king, has a resurrection – after he has been hanged under the name of Humman, a god of the Elamites. He owes that name, Mr. Frazer thinks, to a popular misconception, for he really is the king, plus Eabani, plus Marduk. Dying as king, and as Marduk, under the alias of Humman (Haman), he is feigned, according to the theory, to rise under the name of Marduk (Mordecai). The Mordecai of one year becomes the Haman of the next, is hanged, and so on.

This is an hypothesis of some complexity. An effort is needed to maintain the mental equilibrium as we contemplate this hypothesis. However, by thus amalgamating the ideas of Jensen and of Mr. Frazer, one gets in the mock royalty (from the king), the scourging and hanging (from the mitigation of burning alive), the divinity of vegetation (from Eabani, who lends that part of his attributes to Marduk), and the resurrection from Eabani, who, in the Babylonian poem, rose again: though I own that in Dr. Jastrow's account of the poem I am unable to discover this incident. The spirit of Eabani is conjured up, indeed, in the poem, but 'there is a tone of despair in the final speech of Eabani.'²⁹⁶ This is hardly a resurrection. However, I am but poorly seen in Babylon and its poetry, and no doubt Eabani had his resurrection. From that or a similar resurrection Mr. Frazer deduces the probability that the Sacæan victim in his resurrection was represented by Mordecai.²⁹⁷ He, like Haman, had a sacred bride, Esther. In the Book of Esther, to be sure, she is Mordecai's cousin and adopted daughter. Mr. Frazer knows better.