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The Greeks regarded her as equivalent to their Artemis; the Romans made her Diana, or Juno, or Venus. Practically she must at Carthage have taken the place of Ashtoreth.
"But what can come of it?" I said. "Why, marriage, I hope." "But Marion would as soon think of falling down and worshipping Baal and Ashtoreth as of forsaking her grandchildren." "Doubtless. But there would be no occasion for that. Where two things are both of God, it is not likely they will be found mutually obstructive."
It was only the unmarried goddess, Ashêrah as she was called by the Canaanites, who had a personality of her own. And since Ashêrah came in time to be superseded by Ashtoreth, who was herself of Babylonian origin, it is probable that the idea of separate individuality connected with Ashêrah. was due to the influence of Babylonian culture.
As Baal was the embodiment of the generative principle in nature, so was Ashtoreth of the receptive and productive principle. She was the great nature-goddess, the Magna Mater, regent of the stars, queen of heaven, giver of life, and source of woman's fecundity. Just as Baal had a solar, so she had a lunar aspect, being pictured with horns upon her head representative of the lunar crescent.
Ashtoreth-Karnaim, "Ashtoreth with the two horns," was already in existence in the age of Abraham. In Babylonia the Moon-god of ancient Sumerian belief had never been dethroned; but there was no Moon-god in Canaan, and accordingly the transformation of the Babylonian goddess into "the queen of the night" was a matter of little difficulty.
We have also to note the equally significant facts that the recognised symbol of the Phoenician Goddess of Love Astarte, Ashtoreth, or Ishtar, the Bride of the Sun-God was a cross; that a cross was also associated with the Phoenician Baal or Sun-God; and that the circle and cross, now the symbol of the planet held sacred to the Goddess of Love, frequently occurs upon the ancient coins of Western Asia and was not improbably more or less akin in signification to the crux ansata of Egypt.
A canal connected the two ports, so that vessels could pass from the one to the other. The most remarkable of the Tyrian buildings were the royal palace, which abutted on the southern wall of the town, and the temples dedicated to Baal, Melkarth, Agenor, and Astarte or Ashtoreth. The probable character of the architecture of these buildings will be hereafter considered.
Oh! my son, I beseech you, turn from this woman while there yet is time, lest to you her lips should be a cup of woe and your soul shall pay the price of them, sharing the hell of the worshippers of Ashtoreth." "It may be so," said Aziel; "but, Issachar, what said the voice? That this, the woman of your dream and I were one from the beginning?
The worshippers were in the Prophet's thought as dumb and dead as the idols. They who 'worship vanity' inevitably 'become vain. A Venus or a Jupiter, a Baal or an Ashtoreth, sets the tone of morals. This truth is abundantly enforced by observation of the characters of the men amongst us who are practical idolaters. They are narrowed and lowered to correspond with their gods.
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