ASHTORETH— FISH AS SIN-BEARERS 427 



The origin, the nature, and the worship of Dagon, the fish 

 god of the Philistines, whose temple stood at Ashdod.i are 

 discussed in Chapter xxxiii. 



The Scape-Goat is perhaps the best known of the IsraeUtish 

 offerings to the deity. The annual ceremony of " the driving 

 away" became a service of the highest pomp and solemnity. 

 For it two goats were necessary : the first to be drawn by lot 

 was killed as a Sin Offering unto Yahweh, the second, the 

 Scape-Goat, after being laden by the High Priest with all the 

 sins of the people for the past year, was sent away into the 

 wilderness, " to Azazel " (Levit. xvi. 8, 10, R.V.). 



This symboHc bearing away of the sins of the people is 

 somewhat analogous to that in Lev. xiv. 4 ff,, where for the 

 purification of the leper one bird is killed, and the other, charged 

 with the disease, let loose in the open field. In Zech. v. 5 ff., 

 Wickedness is carried away bodily into the land of Shinar. 



The resemblance of this periodic offering 2 and of many other 

 Jewish institutions to those of Babylon is striking. The 

 letting loose and driving away of the Mashhulduppu, or Scape- 

 Goat, was similarly the occasion of an annual ceremony of 

 imposing ritual. The first account of this appears in an 

 inscription of the Cassite period, which avows itself merely a 

 copy of an earlier record, the original of which may well have 

 existed in the time of Hammurabi. 



To fish figuring as symboHcal bearers away of sins we 

 have references, according to Pitra,^ in the Talmud, though not 



vol. II., p. 177, s.v. Atargatis, " If Atargatis be, as we suppose, originally 

 identical with Astarte, and if the latter be the representative of the generative 

 night-sky — in particular of the Moon — then the representation of the former 

 as a water and fish deity will be connected with the conception, so wide-spread 

 in antiquity, of the Moon being the principle of generative moisture." 



1 I Sam. V. 4. 



* Frazer, The Golden Bough, I. pp. 14 and 70, gives many instances similar 

 to the periodic offering by the Scape-Goat among the Chinese, Malayans, 

 and Esquimaux. 



' Pitra, op. cii., p. 515 (who refers to Buxtorf, Synag. Jud., chapter XXIV.), 

 is incorrect, according to the Jewish Ency. (New York, 1906, vol. XII. 66 f.), 

 which states the Tashlik — the propitiatory rite referred to — does not occur 

 in the Talmud or the geonic writers. Fish illustrate man's plight and arouse 

 him to repentance, " As the fishes that are taken in an evil net," Eccl. ix. 12 ; 

 and, as they have no eyebrows and their eyes are always open, they symbolise 

 the Guardian of Israel, who slumbereth not. See R. I. Harowitz, Shclah, 

 p. 214. 



2 F 



