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But Sumerian influence and memories were too strong to allow of any transformation either in the name or in the attributes of the goddess. She remained Istar, without any feminine suffix, and it was never forgotten that she was the evening-star. It was otherwise in the West. There Istar became Ashtoreth with the feminine termination, and passed eventually into a Moon-goddess "with crescent horns."
The existence of an independent goddess, unmarried and possessing all the attributes of the god, was contrary to the fundamental conceptions of the Semitic mind. Nevertheless we find in Canaan an Ashtoreth, whom the Greeks called Astarte, as well as a Baal. The cuneiform inscriptions have given us an explanation of the fact. Ashtoreth came from Babylonia.
The bailiff was pointed out to Gabriel, who, checking the palpitation within his breast at discovering that this Ashtoreth of strange report was only a modification of Venus the well-known and admired, retired with him to talk over the necessary preliminaries of hiring. The fire before them wasted away. "Men," said Bathsheba, "you shall take a little refreshment after this extra work.
Apuleius describes her as having a lunar character, like Ashtoreth, and calls her "the parent of all things, the mistress of the elements, the initial offspring of the ages, the highest of the deities, the queen of the Manes, the first of the celestials, the single representative of all the gods and goddesses, the one divinity whom all the world worships in many shapes, with varied rites, and under a multitude of names."
Now, if Joel had been a heathen, worshipping the false gods of the Canaanites, he would have spoken very differently; he would have said, perhaps Baal, the true God, is angry with you, and he has sent the drought. Or, Ashtoreth, the Queen of Heaven, by whose power all seeds grow and all creatures breed, is angry with you, and she has destroyed the seeds, and sent the locusts.
For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. 6. And Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and went not fully after the Lord, as did David his father. 7. Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon. 8.
The victim was offered as a burnt sacrifice, which in Hebrew idiom was euphemistically described as passing through the fire. Side by side with these human sacrifices were the abominations which were performed in the temples in honour of Ashtoreth. Women acted as prostitutes, and men who called themselves "dogs" foreswore their manhood.
It became a squalid grove of Ashtoreth; but now, in the autumn evening, all the petty obscenities of white and black sloughed away amid the religious implications of the dark-green aisles. The sight of a white boy sitting on an outcrop of limestone with a strap of school-books dropped at his feet rather surprised Peter.
The figure has been viewed as a representation of the goddess Astarte or Ashtoreth; but the identification can scarcely be regarded as more than a reasonable conjecture. The general defects of Phoenician statuary, besides want of finish and flatness, are a stiff and conventional treatment, recalling the art of Egypt and Assyria, a want of variety, and a want of life.
Three such invasions took place: those of the Phenicians, of the Philistines, and of the Hebrews the first and third being Semitic peoples, and perhaps the second also. The Philistines, settling on the south-eastern corner of the Mediterranean, had a Semitic religion, of which the fish-god Dagon, the Fly-Baal of Ekron, and the Ashtoreth, probably of Ascalon, are known figures.
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