THE HORNS OF GOD
“And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God.” [Revelation 9:13]
In the biblical book of Revelation an altar constructed with horns is revealed in heaven. This is the cosmic altar that is positioned in the stars and stands before the supreme deity.
According to Diodorus Siculus there was an ancient antecedent to the humanized figure of Dionysus. This second much earlier Dionysus was a fusion of bull and human and was characterized by bull horns. In sacrificial rituals the human nature of Dionysus was contained within the body of a bull. The bull could therefore be sacrificed as if it was the god himself.
“Some writers of myth, however, relate that there was a second Dionysus (Zagreus) who was much earlier in time than the one we have just mentioned. For according to them there was born of Zeus and Persephone a Dionysus who is called by some Sabazius and whose birth and sacrifices are celebrated at night and in secret, because of the disgraceful conduct which is a consequence of the gatherings. They state also that he excelled in sagacity and was the first to attempt the yoking of oxen and by their aid to effect the sowing of the seed, this being the reason why they also represent him as wearing a horn.” [Diodorus Siculus — Library of History 4.4.1]
This archaic Dionysus was associated with the agrarian revolution in which animals such as the bull and ox were bred to service human agricultural activities. Consequently the god was depicted with horns to represent the fusion of humans and animals that occurred with the taming of livestock. The horns of this Dionysus symbolized the yoking of bulls to plough the fields. They recognized the god’s primary role in heralding the agricultural revolution.
“He is represented by them as the first man to have yoked oxen to the plough, human beings before that time having prepared the ground by hand… And as a special symbol and token the painters and sculptors represented him with horns…” [Diodorus Siculus — Library of History 3.64]
Sabazius was conflated with Zagreus with both names invoking an archaic horned Dionysus. The infant Zagreus was targeted by the Titans who tore him apart. After the violent dismemberment the infant god was boiled or roasted and consumed by the Titans. In the rituals that celebrated the dismemberment of the god a live bull was torn to pieces by the bare teeth of the initiates.
“According to the myth, it was in the shape of a bull that he (Zagreus) was torn to pieces by the Titans; and the Cretans, when they acted the sufferings and death of Dionysus, tore a live bull to pieces with their teeth.” [James Frazer — The Golden Bough]
Zagreus was a deity associated with the Orphic Mysteries. The phallus of this deity was recovered by the Cabeiri and enshrined in a cave where it was worshipped. This sacred myth became a central inspiration of the Samothracian Mysteries.
“Those Corybantes also they call Cabiric; and the ceremony itself they announce as the Cabiric mystery. For those two identical fratricides, having abstracted the box in which the phallus of Bacchus (Dionysus) was deposited, took it to Etruria — dealers in honourable wares truly. They lived there as exiles, employing themselves in communicating to precious teaching of their superstition, and presenting phallic symbols and the box for the Tyrrhenians to worship.” [Clement of Alexandria — Exhortation to the Heathen 2]
The Hyades cluster of stars have a connection to the Dionysian myths. The cluster represents the Hyades sisters who nursed the infant Dionysus. They are positioned in the head of the bull and define the v-shaped horns that emerge from there.
“But Zeus eluded the wrath of Hera by turning Dionysus into a kid, and Hermes took him and brought him to the nymphs who dwelt at Nysa in Asia, whom Zeus afterwards changed into stars and named them the Hyades.” [Apollodorus — Library 3.4.3]
The Hyades bind Dionysus to the stellar bull and suggest that the Taurus Constellation may once have been seen as symbolizing Dionysus in his archaic form of a bull. Their name appears to be derived from ‘hyes’ meaning water.
This is the consistent with their rising heralding the oncoming rainy season in ancient Greece. Plutarch draws a correlation between this name and Osiris and the inundation of the Nile. Both Osiris and Dionysus share an association with the fertilization of the earth by rain.
“In fact, the Greeks call emission apousia and coition synousia, and the son (hyios) from water (hydor) and rain (hysai); Dionysus also they call Hyes since he is lord of the nature of moisture; and he is no other than Osiris.” [Plutarch — Isis and Osiris 34]
The sun transited through the Taurus constellation during the spring equinox in the Early Bronze Age, a period when many of the myths of the heavenly bull would have originated. Ancient Egyptians saw the strengthening solar light as covering the stellar bull, an obliteration that was equivalent to the slaughter and rebirth of the god.
The metaphorical slaughter of the bull by the power of the sun‘s light parallels the tearing apart of a bull during Dionysian rituals. Out of the sacrificial slaughter the god is then reborn. From the bloody slaughter comes regeneration that accompanies the sun’s increased virility after the spring equinox.
Some of these myths state that Zagreus was born in Crete thereby connecting his birth to the famed myths of the Minotaur. A bull-shaped version of Dionysus, whose birthplace is in Crete, is inevitably related to the Minotaur which was the ultimate fusion of human and bull in the myths of antiquity.
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“This god (Zagreus) was born in Crete, men say, of Zeus and Persephone, and Orpheus has handed down the tradition in the initiatory rites that he was torn in pieces by the Titans. And the fact is that there have been several who bore the name Dionysus.” [ Diodorus Siculus — Library of History 5.75.4]
The ‘Horns of Consecration’ were Minoan sculptural forms that appear to be based on the horns of bulls. They are related to the Cretan myths of the Minotaur and the labyrinth. Horns of Consecration were placed by the Minoans on high vantage points defining an area of the night sky from which the movement of the stars and and the moon could be tracked.
In 2500 BC the vernal equinox marked the position of the sun in the centre of the Golden Gate of the Ecliptic in the constellation of Taurus. Thus there was an interlinked association between the sacred bull and the spring equinox with the concepts of virility and fertility being identified with both. The bull and the strengthening sun represented renewed fertilization of the earth after winter receded. Human resurrection could also be implied from this vigorous process of renewal after a season of decay and death.
The close connection between the Minoan and Egyptian civilizations suggests that the Minotaur is associated with the Apis. Both cultures celebrated these deified bulls as among their most important gods. Both cultures are also associated with labyrinths famed in their time.
Plutarch directly links the Egyptian myths surrounding the Apis bull or calf with the phenomenon of eclipses. In his account there is a direct association in ancient myth between the sacred bull and the calculations applied to eclipses. This potentially relates to the observation of the path of the planets as they pass through the horns of what is now named the Taurus Constellation. The five known planets in antiquity follow this path because they all orbit the sun on the same ecliptic plane.
“There are some who would make the legend (of the Apis) an allegorical reference to matters touching eclipses; for the moon suffers eclipses only when she is full, with the sun directly opposite to her, and she falls into the shadow of the earth, as they say Osiris fell into his coffin. Then again, the moon herself obscures the sun and causes solar eclipses…” [Plutarch — Isis and Osiris 44]
The name attached to the Minotaur was ‘Asterios’ or ‘Asterion’ (‘aster’ being Greek for star) meaning that this was a bull formed of stars. Thus the myth of the Minotaur is clearly set in the cosmos and the sacred bull has an astronomical significance.
“And she (Pasiphae) gave birth to Asterios, who was called the Minotaur. He had the face of a bull, but the rest of him was human; and Minos, in compliance with certain oracles, shut him up and guarded him in the Labyrinth.” [Apollodorus — Library 3.1.4]
The two star clusters of the Pleiades and the Hyades mark the boundaries of what is now termed the Golden Gate of the Ecliptic. They are the gateposts to the heavenly portal. Through this space passed the known planets in antiquity, which as moving stars contrasted with the relatively static backdrop of the heavens.
Because of their proximity to the earth, planets such as Venus and Mercury can appear to pass just outside the space between the Pleiades and Hyades clusters. Even in this event they still proceed through the horns of the Taurus bull which encompass a wider region of the sky than the gap between the two clusters.
An ancient observer would therefore see that it was the horns of the stellar bull that define the heavenly gate that is now termed the Golden Gate of the Ecliptic. The Hyades cluster forms part of one of the horns of the Taurus bull with the Pleiades being adjacent to the other horn. Thus the ecliptic plane is positioned between the horns.
A phenomenon of the solar system is that the planets and the earth orbit the sun on the same essentially flat plane. By observing the transit of the planets through the horns of the stellar bull ancient priests were in effect observing the transit of the known planets in their orbit, on the same plane, around the sun.
The two solstices and two equinoxes mark the four pivotal elements in the sun’s cycle of increasing or diminishing virility. The elemental numeral ‘four’ symbolizes the sun in this context and defines the structure of an altar to the sun. Instructions in the Bible specify that such an altar should be constructed with horns, positioned at each corner.
“And thou shalt make an altar of shittim wood, five cubits long, and five cubits broad… And thou shalt make the horns of it upon the four corners thereof: his horns shall be of the same…” [Exodus 27:1–2]
Similar instructions are given for the supreme altar that is positioned before the curtain in the temple. Beyond the altar and behind the curtain was the ark of the testimony indicating the sacred status of the altar of horns.
“And thou shalt make an altar to burn incense upon: of shittim wood shalt thou make it… and two cubits shall be the height thereof: the horns thereof shall be of the same… And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold… And thou shalt put it before the vail that is by the ark of the testimony, before the mercy seat that is over the testimony, where I will meet with thee.” [Exodus 30:1–6]
The altar is placed before the sacred space in which the god himself has a presence. The horns are therefore suggestive of the appearance of the god and of the god’s essential nature.
Human fascination with the stellar horns can be traced back to the prehistoric era, millennia before the name of Taurus was applied to them. The Lascaux caves feature what is believed to be an aurochs bull with clusters of dots around the eye and above the horns. Their position matches that of the Hyades and Pleiades clusters in the Taurus Constellation.
Before the bull in the Lascaux caves is the famous image of the Birdman that is drawn next to the bull’s horns. The Birdman features the head of a bird grafted onto a stick-figure representation of a prone human figure that exhibits an obvious erect phallus.
This is the primordial image of the human phallus that is related to the aurochs bull and the horns formed of stars. Within this image can be discerned the origins of human religion.
