Woman with Golden Cup

Note A. Woman with Golden Cup

In Pausanias we find an account of a goddess represented in the very attitude of the Apocalyptic "Woman." "But of this stone [Parian marble] Phidias," says he, "made a statue of Nemesis; and on the head of the goddess there is a crown adorned with stags, and images of victory of no great magnitude. In her left hand, too, she holds a branch of an ash tree, and in her right a cup, in which AEthiopians(Latin-Ethiopians) are carved."-(Pausanias, lib. i., Attica, cap. 33, p.81) Pausanias declares himself unable to assign any reason why "the AEthiopians" and the stags were carved on the cup; but the meaning of the AEthiopians and the stags too will be made apparent on pp. 48, 49 and 50 of "The Two Babylons" by the Late Rev. Alexander Hislop:

We have evidence that this god, whose emblem was the Nebros, was known as having the very lineage of Nimrod. From Anacreon, we find that a title of Bacchus was Aithiopais(Anacreon, p.269)- i.e., "the son of AEthiops." But who was Aethiops? As the AEthiopians were Cushites, so AEthiops was Cush. "Chus,"[pronounced "Khoos"] says Eusebius , "was he from whom came the AEthiopians.(Eusebius, Chronicon, vol. i. p. 109) The testimony of Josephus is to the same effect. As the father of the AEthiopians, Cush was AEthiops, by way of eminence. Therefore Epiphanius, referring to the extraction of Nimrod, thus speaks: "Nimrod, the son of Cush, the AEthiop." (Epiphanius, lib. i. vol. i. p. 7). Now as Bacchus was the son of AEthiops, or Cush, so to the eye he was represented in that character. As Nin "the son," he was portrayed as a youth or child; and that youth or child was generaly depicted with a cup in his hand. That cup, to the multitude, exhibited him as the god of drunken revelry; and of such revelry in his orgies, no doubt there was abundance; but yet, afterall, the cup was mainly a hieroglyphic, and that of the name of the god. The name of a cup, in sacred language, was "Khus," and thus the cup in the hand of the youthful Bacchus, the son of AEthiops, showed that he was the young "Chus," or the "son of Chus." In the accompanying woodcut (Fig. 22 Smith's Classical Dictionary, p. 206), the cup in the right hand of Bacchus is held up in so significant a way, as naturally to suggest that it must be a symbol; and as to the branch in the other hand, we have express testimony that it is a symbol. But it is worthy of notice that the branch has no leaves to determine what precise kind of a branch it is. It must, therefore, be a generic emblem for a branch, or a symbol of a branch in general; and, consequently, it needs the cup as its complement, to determine specifically what sort of a branch that it is. The two symbols, then must be read together; and read thus, they are equivalent to-the "Branch of Chus"-i.e., "the scion or son of Chus."
(Everyone knows that Homer's "odzos areos" or "Branch of Mars," is the same as a "Son of Mars." The Hieroglyphic previously mentioned was evidently formed on the same principle. That the cup alone in the hand of the youthful Bacchus was intended to designate him "as the young Chus," or "the boy Chus," we may fairly conclude from a statement of Pausanias, in which he represents "the boy Kuathos" as acting the part of a cup-bearer, and presenting a cup to Hercules. -Pausanias, lib. ii.; Corinthiaca, cap. 13, p.142. "Kuathos" is the Greek for a "cup," and is evidently derived from the Hebrew Khus, "a cup," which, in one of its Chaldee forms, becomes "Khuth" or "Khuath." Now it is well known that the name of Cush is often found in the form of "Cuth, and that name, in certain dialects, would be Cuath. The "boy Kuathos," then, is just the Greek form of the "boy Cush," or "the young Cush.").
There is another hieroglyphic connected with Bacchus that goes not a little to confirm this-that is, the Ivy Branch. No emblem was more distinctive of the worship of Bacchus than this. Wherever the rites of Bacchus were performed, wherever his orgies were celebrated, the Ivy Branch was sure to appear. Ivy, in in some form or other, was essential to these celebrations. The votaries carried it in their hands(Smith's Classical Dictionary, "Dionysus," p. 227), bound it around their heads(Euripid., in Strabo, lib. x. p. 452), or had the Ivy leaf even indelibly stamped upon their upon their persons(Kitto's Illust. Com., vol. iv. p. 144. - Potter, vol. i. p. 75 Edin. 1808). What could be the use, what could be the meaning of this? A few words will suffice to show it. In the first place, then, we have evidence that "Kissos," the Greek name for "Ivy," was one of the names of Bacchus(Pausanias, Attica, cap. 31, p. 78); and further, that though the name of Cush, in its proper form, was known to the priests in the Mysteries, yet that the established way in which the name of his descendants, the Cushites, was ordinarily pronounced in Greece, was not after the Oriental fashion, but as "Kissaioi," or "Kissioi." Thus, Strabo, speaking of the inhabitants of Susa, who were the people of Chusistan, or the ancient land of Cush, says: "The Susians are called Kissioi,"(Strabo, lib. xv. p. 691. In Hesychius p. 531, the name is Kissaioi. The epithet applied to the land of Cush in AEshchylus is Kissinos-AEschyl., Pers. v. 16.. This accounts for one of the unexplained titles of Apollo. "Kisseus Apollon" is plainly "The Cushite Apollo.") -that is beyond all question, Cushites. Now if Kissioi be Cushites, then Kissos is Cush. Then, further, the branch of Ivy that occupied so conspicuous a place in all Bacchanalian celebrations was an express symbol of Bacchus himself; for Hesychius assures us that Bacchus, as represented by his priest, was known in the Mysteries as "The Branch"(Hesychius, p. 179). From this, then, it appears how "Kissos," the Greek name for Ivy, became the name of Bacchus. As the son of Cush, and as identified with him, he was sometimes called by his father's name-"Kissos. His actual relation, however, to his father was specifically brought out by the Ivy branch, for "the branch of Kissos," which to the profane vulgar was only "the branch of Ivy," was to the initiate "The branch of Cush."(The chaplet or head-band of Ivy, had evidently a similar hieroglyphical meaning to the above, for the Greek "Zeira Kissou" is either a "band or circlet of Ivy," or "The seed of Cush." The formation of the Greek "Zeira," a zone or enclosing band, from the Chaldee "Zer," to encompass, shows that Zero "the seed," which was also pronounced "Zeraa," would, in like manner, in some Greek dialects, become Zeira. Kissos, "Ivy," in Greek, retains the radical idea of the Chaldee Khesha or Khesa, "to cover or hide," from which there is reason to believe the name of Cush is derived, for Ivy is Characteristically "the coverer or hider." In connection with this, it may be stated that the second person of the Phenician trinity was Chusorus(Wilkinson, vol. iv. p. 191), which evidently is Chus-zoro, "the seed of Cush."

We find, however, from statements made in the same chapter of p. 48-50 of "The Two Babylons," that though Nemesis is commonly represented as the goddess of revenge, she must have been also known in quite a different character. Thus Pausanias proceeds, commenting on the statue: "But neither has this statue of the goddess wings. Among the Smyrneans, however, who possess the most holy images of Nemesis, I percieved afterwards that these statues had wings. For, as this goddess principally pertains to lovers, on this account they may be supposed to have given wings to Nemesis, as well as to love," i.e., Cupid. -(Pausanias, lib. i., Attica, cap. 33, p.81) The giving of wings to Nemesis, the goddess who "pricipally pertained to lovers," because Cupid, the god of love, bore them, implies that, in the opinion of Pausanias, she was the counterpart of Cupid, or the goddess of love-that is, Venus. While this is the inference naturally to be deduced from the words of Pausanias, we find it confirmed by an express statement of Photius, speaking of the statue of Rhamnusian Nemesis: "She was at first erected in the form of Venus, and therefore bore also the branch of an apple tree."-(Photii, Lexicon, pars. ii. p.482). Though a goddess of love and a goddess of revenge might seem very remote in their characteristics from one another, yet it is not difficult to see how this must have come about. The goddess who was revealed to the initiated in the Mysteries, in the most alluring manner, was also known to be most unmerciful and unrelenting in taking vengeance upon those who revealed these Mysteries; for every such one who was discovered was unsparingly put to death.-(Potter's Antiquities, vol. i., "Eleusinia," p. 354.) Thus, then, the cup-bearing goddess was at once Venus, the goddess of licentiousness, and Nemesis, the stern and unmerciful one to all who rebelled against her authority. How remarkable a type of the woman, whom John saw, described in one aspect as the "Mother of harlots," and in another as "Drunken with the blood of the saints"!

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