Ala-Mahozim
Note D. Ala-Mahozim
The name "Ala-Mahozim" is never, as far as I know, found in any ancient uninspired author, and in the Scriptures itself it is found only in a prophecy.(see Daniel 11:38 But in their place he shall honor a god of fortresses;...") Considering that the design of prophecy is always to leave a certain obscurity before the event, though giving enough of light for the practical guidance of the upright, it is not to be wondered at that an unusual word should be employed to describe the divinity in question.
But, though this precise name be not found, we have a synonym that can be traced home to Nimrod. In SANCHUNIATHON, pp. 24, 25, "Astarte, travelling about the habitable world," is said to have found "a star falling through the air, which she took up and consecrated in the holy island Tyre." Now what is the story of the falling star but just another version of the fall of Mulciber from heaven, or of Nimrod from his high estate?
[+] "I felt his matchless might,
Hurled headlong downwards from the ethereal height;
Tossed all the day in rapid circles round,
Nor, till the sun descended, touched the ground.
The Sinthians raised me on the Lemnian coast."
-Pope's Homer, Iliad, Book i. II. 750-765, vol. i. p. 39.
The lines, in which Milton refers to this same downfall, though he gives it another application, still more beautifully describe the greatness of the overthrow:-
"In Ausonian land
Men called him Mulciber; and how he fell
From heaven, they fabled. Thrown by angry Jove
Sheer o'er the crystal battlements; from morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
A summer's day; and, with the setting sun,
Dropped from the zenith, like a falling star,
On Lemnos, the AEgean isle."
-Milton's Paradise Lost, lib. i. II. 738-745.
These words very strikingly show the tremendous fall of Molkgheber, or Nimrod, "the Mighty King," when "suddenly he was cast down from the height of his power, and was deprived at once of his kingdom and his life."
Now, to this overthrow there is very manifest allusion in the prophetic apostrophe of Isaiah to the king of Babylon, exulting over his approaching downfall: "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!"(Isaiah 14:12) The Babylonian king pretended to be a representative of Nimrod or Phaethon; and the prophet, in these words, informs him, that, as certainly as the god in whom he gloried had been cast down from his high estate, so certainly should he. In the classic story, Phaethon is said to have been consumed with lightning(and, as we shall see by-and-by, AEsculapius also died the same death); but the lightning is a mere metaphor for the wrath of God, under which his life and his kingdom had come to an end. When the history is examined, and the figure stripped off, it turns out, as we have already seen, that he was judicially slain with the sword(See **note#1** at bottom). Such is the language of the prophecy, and so exactly does it correspond with the character, deeds, and fate of the ancient type. [+]
for as we have already seen, Macrobius shows(Saturn., lib. i. cap. 21, p. 70) that the story of Adonis-the lamented one-so favourite a theme in Phenicia, originally came from Assyria. The name of the great god in the holy island of Tyre, as is well known, was Melkart(Kitto's Illus. Comment., vol. ii. p. 300), but this name, as brought from Tyre to Carthage, and from thence to Malta(which was colonized from Carthage), where it is found on a monument at this day, casts no little light on the subject. The name Melkart is thought by some to have been derived from Melek-eretz, or "king of the earth"(WILKINSON, vol. v. p. 18); but the way in which it is sculptured in Malta shows that it was really Melek-kart, "king of the walled city."-(see WILKINSON's Errata prefixed to vol. v.). Kir, the same as the Welsh Caer, found in Caer-narvon, &c., signifies "an encompassing wall" or a "city completely walled round;" and Kart was the feminine form of the same word, as may be seen in the different forms of the name of Carthage, which is sometimes Car-chedon or Cart-hago. In the Book of Proverbs we find a slight variety of the feminine form of Kart, which seems evidently used in the sense of a bulwark or a fortification. Thus, we read Proverbs 10:15 "A rich man's wealth is his strong city" (Karit), that is, his strong bulwark or defense. Melk-kart, then, "king of the walled city," conveys the very same idea as Ala-Mahozim. In Gruter's Inscriptions, as quoted by Bryant(Bryant's Mythology vol. ii. p. 454), we find a title also given to Mars, the Roman war-god, exactly coincident in meaning with that of Melkart. We have elsewhere seen abundant reason to conclude that the original of Mars was Nimrod(see **note#2** at bottom). The title to which I refer confirms this conclusion, and is contained in the following Roman inscription on an ancient temple in Spain:-
"Malacae Hispaniae
Marti Ciradino
Templum communi voto
Erectum."
This title shows that the temple was dedicated to "Mars Kir-aden," the lord of "The Kir," or "walled city." The Roman C, as is well known, is hard, like K; and Adon, "lord," is also Aden. Now, with this clue to guide us, we can unravel at once what has hitherto greatly puzzled mythologists in regard to the name of Mars Quirinus as distinguished from Mars Gradivius. The K in Kir is what in Hebrew or Chaldee is called "Koph", a different letter from "Kape," and is frequently pronounced as Q. Quir-inus, therefore, signifies "belonging to the walled city," and refers to the security which was given to cities by encompassing walls. Gradivius, on the other hand, comes from "Grah" ("conflict"), and "divus" ("god")-a different form of Deus, which has been already shown to be a Chaldee term; and therefore signifies "God of battle." Both these titles exactly answer to the two characters of Nimrod as the great city builder and the great warrior, and that both these distinctive characters were set forth by the two names referred to, we have distinct evidence in Fuss's Antiquities, chapt. iv. p. 348. "The Romans, says he, "worshipped two idols of the kind[that is, gods under the name of Mars], the one called Quirinus, the guardian of the city and its peace; the other called Gradivius, greedy of war and slaughter, whose temple stood beyond the city's boundaries."
**note#1**:
Though Orpheus was commonly represented as having been torn in pieces[as was Osirus], he too was fabled to have been killed by lightning.-(Pausanias, Boeotica, cap. xxx. p. 768.) When Zoroaster died, he also is said in the myth to have perished by lightning(Suidas, vol. i. pp. 1133, 1134); and therefore, in accordance with that myth, he is represented as charging his countrymen to preserve not his body, but his "ashes." The death by lightning, however, it evidently a mere figure.
**note#2**:
"Nimrod"; from Nimr, a "leopard," and rada or rad "to subdue." According to invariable custom in Hebrew, when two consonants come together as the two rs in Nimr-rod, one of them is sunk(i.e. dropped). Thus Nin-neveh, "the habitation of Ninus," becomes Nineveh. The name Nimrod is commonly derived from Mered, "to rebel;" but a difficulty has always been found in regard to this derivation, as that would make the name Nimrod properly passive not "the rebel," but "he who was rebelled against." There is no doubt that Nimrod was a rebel, and that his rebellion was celebrated in ancient myths; but his name in that character was not Nimrod, but Merodach, or as among the Romans, Mars, "the rebel," or among the Oscans of Italy, Mamers(Smith's Classical Dictionary, sub voce), "The causer of rebellion." That the Roman Mars was really , in his original, the Babylonian god, is evident from the name given to the goddess, who was recognized sometimes as his "sister," and sometimes as his "wife" -i.e., Bellona(see Ibid., sub voce), which, in Chaldee, signifies, "The Lamenter of Bel"(from Bel and onah, to lament). The Egyptian Isis, the sister and wife of Osirus, is in like manner represented, as we have seen, as "lamenting her brother Osirus." -Bunsen's Egypt, vol. i. p. 419, Note.
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