Iakov Levi

    

 

 

The Chariot of the Sun and the Messiah            

 

 

August 17, 2005

 

    

The Metope of Selinunte                                    The Mosaic at Beith Alpha                                       

   (Sicily  6^th century B.C.)                                       (Israel 6^th century A.D.)                                           

 

 

1200 years separate between the two artistic representations of the chariot of the sun. The first is a relief on a Greek temple in Sicily, belonging to the archaic (Pre-Classic) period of Greek art. The second is a mosaic on a floor of a synagogue belonging to the period which yielded also the climax of Byzantine art: The church of Ayia Sophia in Byzantium and the mosaics in San Vitale in Ravenna.

 

The mosaic at Beith Alpha represents a provincial expression of art. It is quite naive and very far from the apex of artistic expressions achieved during this period in the capital of the empire, as well as in San Vitale in Ravenna.

What is odd and peculiar is that it does not belong to a pagan temple or to a church, but to a synagogue. The Jews were not supposed to decorate synagogues with symbols of a Sun- god.

 

It is not the only case in which synagogues were decorated with anthropomorphic representations. There are other cases in Galilee, as at Korazin, where image of Medusa's head was carved on an architrave (4th century A.D.), and at Doura Europos, where images of Patriarchs were frescoed on the walls (third century A.D.).

 

I shall focus on the mosaic at Beith Alpha because it represents the chariot of the sun, which is a central theme in western art, from archaic Greece to the Apollonian expressions of Hellenistic and Roman art, and up to the Baroque and Neo-Classic artistic representations. Four huge horses, belonging to a Greek chariot of the sun were pillaged in Byzantium by the Venetians in 1204, and now they fiercely stand on the balcony of the church of Saint Mark. Churches, palaces and villas were decorated with huge representations in frescoes and paintings of Apollo, the Sun-god, riding his chariot and its four horses through the sky. Like Apollo, also the Christ is often represented in the same apology of heavenly glory.

 

Who is the Sun, and what does it mean?

 

In astrology, the sun is usually represented as a lion. Karl Abraham, who analyzed the myth of Samson and his struggle with a lion, has drawn the conclusion that the psychoanalytic meaning of the story is that of a struggle between a hero (Samson) in the role of representative of the Sons, like all heroes in the mythology of the peoples, and the image of the Father (the lion). Abraham interpreted the long hair of Samson as a representation of the sun's ryes. Therefore, through his struggle with the Father (the lion), Samson, the Son-god, identifies with the Father and assumes his identity.

 

In Egypt, the worship of Amon-Ra, and of Aton, were basically the worship of a Father-imago. Abraham himself, analyzing the monotheistic cult of Aton, which was heightened to supremacy by Ekhnaton and his religious revolution, drew the conclusion that Ekhnaton was driven into this monotheistic Sun-religion by an unresolved paternal complex. The sun of Aton represented his own father[1]. The Bible abounds with verses where it becomes obvious that the Sun represents the Father. Joseph dreams of the sun, the moon and the stars bowing to him (Gen. 37:5-9), and Jacob himself interpreted the dream: "His father rebuked him, and said to him, "What is this dream that you have dreamed? Will I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves down to you to the earth? " (Gen. 37:10).

However, in psychoanalysis nothing is simple. The Egyptian sphinx is usually a head of a king wearing his headdress and the body of a lion. There are sphinxes with ram heads that are associated with the god Ammun. In this case, it is a paternal image. On the other hand, the Greek sphinx, that is an Egyptian derivation, had the body of a lion and the upper part of a woman. In this case, we can say that it is a condensation of paternal and maternal images. Hathor, the goddess of fertility and of love, had ears and horns of a cow (maternal image), and a sun disk between them.
There are languages in which the word 'sun' is feminine. In Arabic and in German the sun is feminine. In biblical Hebrew it is both masculine and feminine, and in the modern language it is usually used in its feminine version.
Freud, analyzing the Schreber Case, reports that in his paranoid hallucinations the patient insulted the sun calling it 'whore'. Henceforth, to him the sun represented a maternal symbol.

Therefore, it might be that the sun has not always been the symbol of the paternal imago. Freud himself has hinted that the first deity was a Mother - goddess, and only subsequently appeared Son and Father deities[2] .

Back to Egypt. We found there that the sun was not only associated with the two paternal images, Amon-Ra and Aton, but also with Horus, who was a Son-god image. Horus was associated with the sun god, Ra, and  Pharaohs were considered his human epiphany, and even took his name. He was the son of Isis and Osiris and avenged his father's murder by the god Seth. With the name of  Horus Behudety  he represented the midday sun. With the name of Ra-Harakhte (Horus of the two horizons)  was identified with Ra and the daily voyage of the sun from horizon to horizon. The two deities combined to become Ra-Harakhte, represented as a falcon or a falcon-headed man wearing the solar disk and double crown or the Ureus.

As was the case with Samson, who through his struggle with the lion - Father assumed the paternal identity of Sun - the Father - and became the Sun, which is a Son- god, so Horus, a Son -god, assumed the identity of Sun, the Father, and through the process of identification became one in the Father. The heroic deed - struggle with the Father was displaced into the struggle with Set, who is his father's murderer[3]. The Pharaoh was the representative of the brotherhood horde, vicar of the Sons, and underwent the process of identification and communion on their behalf.

As we have seen, the symbol of the sun at the beginning had been associated with a maternal imago, then with a paternal imago, and later, or in concomitance and in the same condensation, with the image of the Son.

The Egyptian model stimulated a similar process in Apollonian Greek culture. Horus, the Son-god became Apollo, the protector and initiation - god of lads. Apollo, like Horus, rode on his chariot in the daily voyage of the sun from horizon to horizon. With the implementation of Christianity, Apollo became the Christ, the same god who ascended to heaven in order to de-throne the Father, and in the same condensation to identify with him, and to become one in the Father.

Apollo, the Son - god, as the Christ, became synonymous of civilization. And it is very interesting, because we are used to perceive that Law, teaching and inhibition are more associated with the paternal imago. Theodor Reik, dealing with the puberty rites of savages, writes:: ""the myth of the suffering, death and resurrection of the Saviour, i.e the account of the Passion (Passio Domini), can be denoted as a complex of the puberty rites. A characteristic common to all Son - gods is worth notice. They are redeemers and bringer of culture"[4] .

Henceforth, it is the representative of the Sons, who becomes a teacher, instead of the paternal imago, which he came to substitute.

The Son, riding the Chariot of the Sun , inspires and symbolizes culture and order, to the point that he became also the symbol of western kings and kingdoms. Kings, who ultimately represent a paternal image, always unconsciously pretend to be the representatives of the sons of the brotherhood horde. The primal democracy of the liberated brotherhood, gradually evolved back into the previous tyrannical order. In Paris and in Berlin a Chariot of the Sun represents the authority of the State. The glory of the Son is the State, Law and Order. Napoleon - the brothers' leader par excellence - at the apex of his glory even kidnapped the German chariot, as a triumphant warrior pillages his vanquished enemy's phallic symbol.

Napoleon as Apollo

Now, to the synagogue at Beith Alpha and the same representation in the mosaic on the floor.

The Jews rejected the resolution, implemented by the Egyptians and by the western world, of a Son-god, who eventually condenses with the Father, and also dethrones him through the process of identification.  As we have seen analyzing the myth of Samson, the Hebrews too, in the beginning implemented a trial in the direction of the same resolution of the Oedipus' complex: a Son-god, who will mediate between them and the Father, becoming a vehicle for the collective identification and communion with him.

 

However, after the First Exile, this process was aborted. The Jews denied any divine filial instance, and retrenched into an absolute and intolerant Father-religion. Under the burden of an oppressive sense of guilt, the instinctual rebellion of Son against Father was denied and repressed.  

However, every repression contains also the mnemonic traces of the repressed instinct. The craving for the Messiah is the expression of the repressed need. The Messiah is the scion of David, who represents the repressed trace of a Son-god, who will come to deliver us from the burden of our tyrant Father. Like Samson, David too engaged in numerous battles with the Philistines, who were the super - enemies of Israel, and saved his people from their hands. The lion - Father of Samson emerges in the Father-image of Saul, the elder king, who is enraged by the young hero's success in battle as with women:

 

It happened as they came, when David returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet king Saul, with tambourines, with joy, and with instruments of music. The women sang one to another as they played, and said, Saul has slain his thousands, David his ten thousands. Saul was very angry, and this saying displeased him;...(I Samuel 18: 6-8)

 

David is a handsome young god, like Apollo who is the god of beauty. Like Apollo, David too holds in his hands the lyre, and he is a master in playing it. Horus, Apollo, David, the Christ, they are all Son-gods, delegates and representatives of the rebellious brotherhood horde. A sun riding the sky on his chariot, from horizon to horizon.
Now we can better understand what the mosaic representing the sun and his chariot is doing on the floor of a 6th century A.D. synagogue: it is the instinctual need, which found its way to emerge from the repression.

On the connection between the Messiah and the sun in Christianity, Cf. Pagan Sun Worship and Catholicism Celebrating The Birth of the Sun.

 

The Metopes of Selinunte and Their Meaning (http://www.centrocomp.it/castelvetrano/selinunte/tempioc.html)

 

So far we have discussed the left Metope of Temple C in Selinunte because of its relevance to the mosaic at Beith Alpha. However, there are three Metopes on the front of the temple. Like in dreams, artistic representations express themselves by repetitions.

Joseph dreams a dream: "Please hear this dream which I have dreamed:  for, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and also stood upright; and behold, your sheaves came around, and bowed down to my sheaf." (Gen. 37:6), and then he dreams another dream: "Behold, I have dreamed yet another dream: and behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars bowed down to me." (Gen. 37:9). The two dreams are a repetition of the same instinctual need. Two dreams are one, as the same concept repeats twice.

The same with Pharaoh's dreams, and Joseph correctly interpreted : "The dream of Pharaoh is one" (Gen. 41:25).

In the same way, the three different images on Selinunte's temple represent the same concept. It is the same instinctual need of struggle and victory of the Son, just like in Joseph's dreams.

The first Metope represents the Chariot of the Sun, which stands for Apollo, the Greek Sun - god and Son - god, who is the prototype of the Messiah.

The other two representations are a repetition of the same concept: a Son- god and his heroic deeds.

 

    

 

 The central Metope tells us the heroic deed of Perseus slaying the Medusa, and the right Metope tells us one of Heracles� heroic deeds: his successful struggle with the Cercopes. It is the same concept, repeated in another representation, and expressed through a different epiphany: it is the struggle of the hero, Son � god, and his final victory.

The images stare at us from the highs of the temple, with their archaic enigmatic smile. Through the art of an ancient and unknown artist, they are communicating, unconscious to unconscious, the indestructible human drive of the Son to struggle and to overcome the Father. The entire western civilization flourished under the sign of this drive: the young heroes, Apollo and the Messiah, representatives and delegates of all the Sons of the human race.