The Origin
Of
Our Belief In God
by Erik Langkjer
Part II: The Sun Hero
14. The Syrian cavalier god
On a stone slab from Hama the sun hero is seen riding towards a pillar with a snake coiling around it. Although he is shown galloping along with a cloak flying from his shoulders, he is followed by an obviously very speedy snake (Beirut Mus., Goodenough, Jewish Symbols, V, fig.162).
The symbolism is ecstatic: his travel towards the world pillar, the centre of the world, is a spiritual journey, a rising of kundalini-power. The other picture (Rostovtzeff, Dura Europos. VI, pl.XXX, 1) shows his arrival at an incense altar, also the symbol of the world pillar, and here he is greeted by the god who is the highgod, the personification of the world pillar, Saturn.
The incense altar is the end of his spiritual journey, and he is crowned with the Wreath of Victory by a bird (eagle?). A coin from Lydia from the period of the emperor Hadrian [1] shows the sun hero reaching the gate of paradise, here, like in Tyre, marked with the double pillar of fire-alter and holy vegetation: the cavalier god reaching the sun´s gate is also the motif in a picture of Heron [2]. It shows the god riding through a gate marked by the sun-bird hovering over his head, and behind him a snake is standing on its tail.
From Khirbet el-Hamman comes a stone relief with the cavalier god approaching the fire-altar (symbol of the pillar of fire, the world pillar) and greeted by a woman holding out the Wreath of Victory and a shallow bowl of libation, symbol of the water of life (Rostovtzeff, Dura VI,pl. XXX,3; see below). The second picture is a very worn down relief from Ferzol (Photo Beirut Mus., SYRIA 19,1938. Goodenough, V, fig.165 [3].) It shows the cavalier god marked out as the sun warrior by the mighty aura around his head. He has reached the palm tree, symbol of the tree of life, where the highgod carrying heavy clusters of dates is standing, naked (?).
A coin from Carthage shows only the horse of the sun reaching the holy date palm and being crowned with the Wreath of Victory. That it is the journey to the transcendent world is also seen from the caduceus, (Falbe-Lindberg-Müller, II, p.77, no.28). Other coins show the horse as a winged Pegasus (no.127) or with the sign of mystical light: double-snake around the disc of the sun (no.132,143,146), the disc of the sun in the crescent moon (183,154), or the mystical rosette (122). Once the horse is standing between the club of Heracles and the palm tree (19): the club shows that it belongs to Heracles-Melqart.
The sun hero is often called by the Latin name, Genius (Semitic: Genneas/Ginnaja/GNJ´), and is often shown with the incense altar and the wreath-carrying eagle. (The picture below is from Djoubb el djarrah, east of Homs, SYRIA 26, 1949, pl. XI) This eagle is well known from the iconography of Palmyra, where a (deceased?) priest is seen resting where the sun shines (eternally?) while this very same eagle is presenting him with the "Wreath of Victory". H.Seyrig[4] says that the eagle and the wreath may probably be seen as a symbol of "heavenly investiture". In Dura the eagle is seen flying toward Jarhibol-Malcha, on a graffiti called Nicator (Greek: "Victor"), while a Victoria is seen approaching from the other side to crown the god.
The second picture is a small stele bought at the flee-market in Constantinople in 1914 (Cook II,pl. 19). An Anatolian god (Theos Hypsistos or Zeus Sabazios) is seen on a horse with the forelegs in a position often characteristic of the horse of the cavalier god approaching the tree of life, with the snake coiling up its trunk, the eagle at the top, and at the foot the juice of life in a crater. It stands besides a fire-altar: the horse is approaching the gate of the sun consisting of the gateposts expressing the duality of fire and vegetation. C.Hopkins[5] has shown that the horse-man with the flying cloak on a horse with this specific position of the legs carrying a huge scabbard is either a god or a divine king. F.Cumont has suggested that the "Giant-columns" from Roman Gaul with a horse-man at the top fighting a man with snake feet is a motif with Syrian roots.[6] These columns were originally octogon with pictures of the 7 gods of the planets & Fortuna.
The horse-man is in my opinion the sun hero who, after travelling in the course of the sun, has ascended to heaven, above the fortune dictated by the planets and stars. The fight with the giant is the usual fight with the monster of primordial totality, Typhon.
Clermont-Ganneau[7] has published a picture of a relief from Soueida, now destroyed in the Druse uprising. It shows the sun hero on his horse, fighting the Typhon monster with his bow. A gem from Byblos (Dunand 68) shows the mystical kundalini-symbol as a winged snake with a double tail and a bird's head:
In Hellenistic Syria we come across a mounted god. He is riding along with his cloak blown out by the wind, and often with a great quiver hanging behind his right thigh. He is travelling in the course of the sun to paradise or apotheosis. His journey is the journey to heaven, therefore we find him galloping towards the world pillar symbolized by a pillar-like altar for burning incense, with the snake normally coiling around the world pillar, ascending to the top of the altar. The mystical meaning of the journey is underlined by the horseman as the union of sun and moon (the slab from Hama).
Coins from the Hellenistic period show Mithras as the mounted god reaching the double world pillar of fire and vegetation, the sacred gate to paradise (Cumont,MMM p.190,218.A.C.). Coins from the cent B.C. show Persian kings with a very special sign of royal dignity: a ring circling their necks, and leading the circle movement a snake's head or a winged horse (Jac. de Morgan, Numismatique de la Perse, pp.132 & 137, fig.18 & 20).
This interpretation makes it possible to understand the next scene: Mithras is galloping along with the snake and the lion hunting down two stags and two goats. A very important coin from Tyre shows Melqarts-Heracles hunting 4 stags. On his journey to the country of the sun, India, the apostle Thomas gets hold of 4 wild donkeys for pulling his car to the final point of destiny. On some pictures belonging to the Mithras cult we see Mithras running to catch up with the sun's quadriga. Hunting the divine stag with the mystical light between its horns is a symbol of seeking mystical experience = journey to paradise in the sun's course, or even in its quadriga. Hunting the 4 stags is taking control over the powers that can lead you to mystical vision/journey to paradise (Fresco, the Mithraeum in Dura).
[1] Cook, Zeus, II, 563.
[2] Lex.Icon. Heron 7.
[3] The motif is also treated in S.Ronzevalle, Jupiter Héliopolitain, 1937.
[4] SYRIA 26, 1949, p.234
[5] Berytos III, 1936, pp.20f.
[6] Journal of Roman Studies 28, 1938, pp.87f.
[7] Recueil d´archéologie orientale, I, pp.178f.
Disclaimer:
Some material presented will contain links, quotes, ideologies, etc., the contents of which should be understood to first, in their whole, reflect the views or opinions of their editors, and second, are used in my personal research as "fair use" sources only, and not espousement one way or the other. Researching for 'truth' leads one all over the place...a piece here, a piece there. As a researcher, I hunt, gather and disassemble resources, trying to put all the pieces into a coherent and logical whole. I encourage you to do the same. And please remember, these pages are only my effort to collect all the pieces I can find and see if they properly fit into the 'reality aggregate'.
Personal Position:
I've come to realize that 'truth' boils down to what we 'believe' the facts we've gathered point to. We only 'know' what we've 'experienced' firsthand. Everything else - what we read, what we watch, what we hear - is what someone else's gathered facts point to and 'they' 'believe' is 'truth', so that 'truth' seems to change in direct proportion to newly gathered facts divided by applied plausibility. Though I believe there is 'truth', until someone representing the celestial realm visibly appears and presents the heavenly records of Facts And Lies In The Order They Happened, I can't know for sure exactly what "the whole truth' on any given subject is, and what applies to me applies to everyone. Until then I'll continue to ask, "what does The Urantia Book say on the subject?"
~Gail Bird Allen
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Urantia Book, 44:0.11 - The Celestial Artisans
Never in your long ascendancy will you lose the power to recognize your associates of former existences. Always, as you ascend inward in the scale of life, will you retain the ability to recognize and fraternize with the fellow beings of your previous and lower levels of experience. Each new translation or resurrection will add one more group of spirit beings to your vision range without in the least depriving you of the ability to recognize your friends and fellows of former estates.
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Princess Bride 1987 Wallace Shawn (Vizzini) and Mandy Patinkin (Inigo Montoya)
Vizzini: HE DIDN'T FALL? INCONCEIVABLE.
Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. -
Urantia Book, 117:4.14 - The Finite God
And here is mystery: The more closely man approaches God through love, the greater the reality -- actuality -- of that man. The more man withdraws from God, the more nearly he approaches nonreality -- cessation of existence. When man consecrates his will to the doing of the Father's will, when man gives God all that he has, then does God make that man more than he is.
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Urantia Book, 167:7.4 - The Talk About Angels
"And do you not remember that I said to you once before that, if you had your spiritual eyes anointed, you would then see the heavens opened and behold the angels of God ascending and descending? It is by the ministry of the angels that one world may be kept in touch with other worlds, for have I not repeatedly told you that I have other sheep not of this fold?"
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Urantia Book, Foreword - 0:12.12 - The Trinities
But we know that there dwells within the human mind a fragment of God, and that there sojourns with the human soul the Spirit of Truth; and we further know that these spirit forces conspire to enable material man to grasp the reality of spiritual values and to comprehend the philosophy of universe meanings. But even more certainly we know that these spirits of the Divine Presence are able to assist man in the spiritual appropriation of all truth contributory to the enhancement of the ever-progressing reality of personal religious experience—God-consciousness.
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Urantia Book, 1:4.3 - The Mystery Of God
When you are through down here, when your course has been run in temporary form on earth, when your trial trip in the flesh is finished, when the dust that composes the mortal tabernacle "returns to the earth whence it came"; then, it is revealed, the indwelling "Spirit shall return to God who gave it." There sojourns within each moral being of this planet a fragment of God, a part and parcel of divinity. It is not yet yours by right of possession, but it is designedly intended to be one with you if you survive the mortal existence.
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Urantia Book, 1:4.1 - The Mystery Of God
And the greatest of all the unfathomable mysteries of God is the phenomenon of the divine indwelling of mortal minds. The manner in which the Universal Father sojourns with the creatures of time is the most profound of all universe mysteries; the divine presence in the mind of man is the mystery of mysteries.
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Urantia Book, 1:4.6 - The Mystery Of God
To every spirit being and to every mortal creature in every sphere and on every world of the universe of universes, the Universal Father reveals all of his gracious and divine self that can be discerned or comprehended by such spirit beings and by such mortal creatures. God is no respecter of persons, either spiritual or material. The divine presence which any child of the universe enjoys at any given moment is limited only by the capacity of such a creature to receive and to discern the spirit actualities of the supermaterial world.
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Urantia Book, 11:0.1 - The Eternal Isle Of Paradise
Paradise is the eternal center of the universe of universes and the abiding place of the Universal Father, the Eternal Son, the Infinite Spirit, and their divine co-ordinates and associates. This central Isle is the most gigantic organized body of cosmic reality in all the master universe. Paradise is a material sphere as well as a spiritual abode. All of the intelligent creation of the Universal Father is domiciled on material abodes; hence must the absolute controlling center also be material, literal. And again it should be reiterated that spirit things and spiritual beings are real.
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Urantia Book, 50:6.4 - Planetary Culture
Culture presupposes quality of mind; culture cannot be enhanced unless mind is elevated. Superior intellect will seek a noble culture and find some way to attain such a goal. Inferior minds will spurn the highest culture even when presented to them ready-made.
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Urantia Book, 54:1.6 - True And False Liberty
True liberty is the associate of genuine self-respect; false liberty is the consort of self-admiration. True liberty is the fruit of self-control; false liberty, the assumption of self-assertion. Self-control leads to altruistic service; self-admiration tends towards the exploitation of others for the selfish aggrandizement of such a mistaken individual as is willing to sacrifice righteous attainment for the sake of possessing unjust power over his fellow beings.
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Urantia Book, 54:1.9 - True And False Liberty
How dare the self-willed creature encroach upon the rights of his fellows in the name of personal liberty when the Supreme Rulers of the universe stand back in merciful respect for these prerogatives of will and potentials of personality! No being, in the exercise of his supposed personal liberty, has a right to deprive any other being of those privileges of existence conferred by the Creators and duly respected by all their loyal associates, subordinates, and subjects.
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Urantia Book, 54:1.8 - True And False Liberty
There is no error greater than that species of self-deception which leads intelligent beings to crave the exercise of power over other beings for the purpose of depriving these persons of their natural liberties. The golden rule of human fairness cries out against all such fraud, unfairness, selfishness, and unrighteousness.