BOOK II. OF THE SUN. HEAD IV. OF ADAD AND ADARGATIS.

×It were premature, in treating of the deity whom Macrobius names Adad, to do more than set down what he reports, and to indicate the point at which his report passes from a datum to an addition; for the passage is the last of those in which the reduction of the gods to the sun is carried out by Praetextatus, and it is in some respects the most instructive, since the datum which it contains is of a kind that the reduction is least able to account for.¹ Having promised that his discourse shall not wander through the names of the several gods, the speaker introduces the Assyrians in these terms: "accipe, quid Assyrii de potentia solis opinentur" (that is, "hear what the Assyrians think of the power of the sun"); and proceeds to relate that "Deo enim, quem summum maximumque venerantur, Adad nomen dederunt. Eius nominis interpretatio significat unus unus" (that is, "To the god whom they revere as highest and greatest they have given the name Adad; the interpretation of that name signifies 'one, one'").² I enter the interpretation as his, having not the means of trying it; and the testimonies at present collected do not determine whether the name was the Assyrians' own word for the highest God, or a title taken from another; the question will be considered, so far as it admits of consideration, when the testimonies of the East shall have been brought together. NB-22-003

×That a highest God was acknowledged is, as I conceive, the datum, and that he is the sun the addition of Macrobius, who introduces the passage as an account of what the Assyrians think of the power of the sun, and who proceeds, as will be seen, to read the emblems of the image in the same sense; and it is to be observed that the two statements, the one of a god revered as highest and greatest, and the other of a god who is the sun, are not necessarily the same, and that the second has been added to the first by the writer, and is not related to it as a part of what the Assyrians report.³ Vossius, treating of the worship of the sun, says that the nations, neglecting God, fixed all the zeal of their religion upon the sun alone, as the shadow rather than the image of the true godhead: "ut, neglecto Deo, propria quadam mentis inductione uno in Sole, veri numinis non tam effigie, quam umbra duntaxat, omnia religionis suae studia figerent ac collocarent" (that is, "neglecting God, by a certain private impulse of the mind to fix all the zeal of their religion on the sun alone, as the shadow rather than the image of the true godhead").⁴ If this be so, the sun is the substitute, and the title of the highest was before it; and it is worthy of notice that a writer who has not undertaken to determine the order of the corruptions should have stated the relation in terms which presuppose it. NB-22-003

×The goddess whom Macrobius joins with Adad is named by him Adargatis, and the pair, which is here the sun and the earth, is described in these words: "sed subiungunt eidem deam nomine Adargatin, omnemque potestatem cunctarum rerum his duobus attribuunt solem terramque intellegentes" (that is, "but they join with him a goddess named Adargatis, and to these two they attribute all power over all things, understanding by them the sun and the earth").⁵ In the passage no man is named in either of the two. It is the habit of the moderns, who have followed Macrobius in referring the whole to the sun, to proceed as if the absence of the persons were a proof that no persons were meant; but the passage records an explanation, and an explanation which comes, by the participle that stands in it, from those who understand the one deity to be the sun and the other the earth, is the later of two things, the earlier being that which was thus explained.⁶ NB-24-005

×Mr. Faber has the first postdiluvians convert the remembrance of their ancestors into a blind superstition, and afterwards superadd the veneration of the Sun, the Moon and the Stars, as a fit residence for their deified progenitors: "The early postdiluvians, unawed by the recent judgment of God, soon converted the pious remembrance of their ancestors, into a blind superstition."⁷ I follow him as to the order, which is that which I take to be the true one, and differ as to the use. If the ancestors were first, the passage of Macrobius has the second thing only; the persons in whom the heavenly bodies were thought to dwell are not in it, and are to be sought where the relation stood before it was explained. His witness to the pair is not impaired; it is limited to the explanation. The view which I propose, as at present sketched, is therefore that the Adad and the Adargatis of the Assyrians are a highest God and a goddess who were known before the sun and the earth were given them for their signification; that the explanation is of the same mode as those which have been considered in the heads preceding; and that its lateness is to be inferred from the fact that it is delivered by a writer who knows the names and can say no more of them than that they signify the powers which he has himself enumerated. The proof of the order is deferred to its place, and the goddess herself is to be considered, in her proper character, under the head of the Waters which treats of Atargatis. NB-24-005 NB-22-003

×The objections which may be urged against this view I do not affect to underrate. It may be urged, in the first place, that the Assyrians themselves are said to have understood the pair as the sun and the earth, and that to set aside their understanding is to reject the only testimony; to which I answer that the testimony is delivered through Macrobius, who has introduced it as what the Assyrians think of the power of the sun, and that the interpretation is therefore to be taken as his, until it be shewn that it was theirs. It may be urged, in the second place, that the name Adad, which signifies "one, one," is the name of the sun, and that a god who is one is a god who is single and conspicuous; to which I answer that the signification is reported and not tried, and that a highest God is also single. It may be urged, in the last place, that the order which I have taken from Mr. Faber and from Vossius is one which these writers have not themselves applied to the passage; to which I answer that this is so, and that I do not charge them with having done what they have not undertaken. The remaining objections, which are of less force, will be considered under the head of Atargatis, where the goddess is examined in her own character.⁸ NB-22-003 NB-24-005