Lux Nova
The Secret Vault: Lux Nova

Login

Please complete the highlighted fields

Register Password Reset


Romans Gods and Goddess: Venus

[ Home ] [ Books ] [ Biography ] [ Wars ] [ Myths ] [ Encyclopedia ] [ Quotes ] [ Authors ] [ References ]

Introduction

The present view of Venus, as a goddess of love, desire, lust, fertility, prosperity, even victory, is, while not totally wrong, it certainly is lacking and thus deceiving, the worship of Venus is very ancient indeed, there is a very sound reason for the words of the Old Testament,

“How you have fallen from heaven,
O morning star, son of dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth.”

While quite rightly Isaiah, is eluding to the antichrist, he is also talking about the fall of Venus, and even though you might say well she is female, not male this is not necessarily the case in ancient times, when certain religions had both male and female deities connected to Venus, let us consider a few.

The many names of Venus

In Canaanite mythology Shahar was the god of dawn, the morning star of Venus and Shalim his twin brother was the god of the Evening star; but they also had a god called Attar who appears to be the male personification of Athtart, who in short was goddess of the morning and evening star, who seems to be the Ashtaroth of the Chaldean priests and the Ashtoreths in 1 Samuel 7-4, and Judges 2-13, who the Greeks called Astarte. Before them the Sumerians had Inanna, and the Akkadians called her Ishtar, who under that was worshipped by the Babylonians and then the Assyrians. Indeed, Venus has many more names, but that will suffice at this point.

Why was Venus so highly regarded in ancient times?

One major point concerning Venus, holds a great clue, for we are informed that death could not hold her, and reason for this was that unlike all the other major gods, who spent half the year in sight, and half out, thus were deemed to have descended into underworld, hades or the likes, Venus was visible for three-quarters of the year, basically eight months, thus, only made temporary visits, this point was highly important to her elevation in ancient status. But not only that, she rose in house of Scorpio, which I will have more to say on shortly. Another major point is the Zodiac itself as we know it was not fully formed, or certainly not quite in the way we understand it, regarding this we must consider the following.

The importance of women

There was an incredible battle between the sexes, in ancient times, and it is one that continued for a long time, in various cultures, one might say it was a never-ending war, but why?

Well believe it or not, conception was not thought to be directly down the act of sexual intercourse, sexual intercourse caused a barren women, principally virgins to become fertile, but did not necessarily result in conception, even to this day, there is the ridiculous notion, that a girl or young woman cannot conceive the first time she has sex, anciently swallowing a fly was more likely to be the cause; mares (female horses) where thought to be impregnated by the wind, indeed there were many reasons, but none of them involved men.

It was thus believed that the bloodline was utterly dependent upon the woman, that is the reason Egyptian pharaohs married their mothers and their daughters, it was conceived to be the only way the bloodline could remain-pure.

Consider the humble honey bee, it was an ancient symbol of the goddess of creation, and was the symbol of the queen, or goddess of the heavens, only much later was the bee transferred to being a symbol of the kingship, so, how might we enlarge on these basic concepts, how did a woman, or women become more important than men?

Consequences

There was considerable consequences as a result of these beliefs, for men at least, not only did women have sway over many things, such as brewing, fishing, and more, the queen was all powerful, a king was merely a king of the year, who was to be sacrificed in order to re-fertilise the ground, he was not able to make decisions or change laws, if he did wish to say something, he had to dress as a woman to do it, and upon his sacrifice, another king took his place, but the same fate awaited him, many of the festivals, and even priesthoods were women only, and if a man did want to join such institutions he would have to castrate himself. But this did not rest well with men for long, especially those who faced being sacrificed; gradually kings found ways to avoid their fate. One way was for another man, usually the high Priest, to be ritually married to the queen, and spend one night as king, then he was sacrificed in substitution for the king the following day, but this did not go down well with the Priests, then young boys were chosen, to take their place, and later still Rams were substituted, not that that stopped the ritual sacrifices of people and children for other reasons.

How it came about

Initially, the first great love of any man is his mother, and the greatest mother was Mother Earth, and when ancient people sort out deep caves, to paint their pictures on, it was to tell, or pray to her in the only way they knew how, what they wanted or hopped for, that is why so many ancient representations of mother earth had great numbers of breasts, and those figurines which have a woman with a huge belly, are also mother earth, for the whole earth was her womb. Then came her sister and companion the moon, who first taught them how to count, with her obvious phases, and from there on mankind’s knowledge started to grow especially as mankind started to move away from his hunter gatherer lifestyle into a more settled agricultural existence. During these early stages woman became more and more important, in the Egyptian myth of creation, it all begins with Nun, the primal queen of the heavens, viewed as vast barren ocean, who is at length fertilized by the word and becomes nut; even the Greeks begin with Eurynome dancing on the sea of heaven, who is fertilised by a serpent, and lays the egg of creation, and when the serpent brags that it was down to him, she kicks his teeth out and throws him out of the heavens. And in the Old Testament it is Eve who enlightens Adam and gets them kicked out of paradise, by getting to eat from the tree of Knowledge. Now it is generally accepted amongst the authors that Eve, was a personification of the moon, but this may not be the case, for along with Mother Earth, and the Moon came Venus, who sometimes heralded the birth of dawn, and sometimes the coming of night and darkness, she like her sisters thus a goddess of,

Birth and Death,
light and darkness,
good and evil,

and while Venus rose in Scorpio, she was also personified as Virgo.

Astrological insight

Because Venus rose in Scorpio, as technically the Scorpion is descending, she is also connected to its rising, and the Scorpion rises immediately after Pisces disappears, and as Taurus begins its final descent, this is why the drawings of the Mithriac Bull cult we find the scorpion attacking the privates of the bull, in reality the Bull is conceived by its castration and death as fertilising the soil, so the newly sown seeds will grow. It also means that all bad things associated with Scorpio also rise there, so at that point it seems Venus’ good side, in bringing about the renewal of the growing season. On the cylinder seals of the Sumerians and Akkadians we often see Venus rising with part male figure below her with what might be an early sickle, or sacrificial knife, indeed we might decide it is both, symbolising the castration of the Bull and the later harvest, she often stands between Aquarius who was considered the Ruler of the ocean that the constellations floated in, and the waters of the earth, while a storm god stands between her and a lion, Leo. These gods were between them certainly the most powerful in the Sumerian, Akkadian zodiac. In other seals the moon goddess seems to lead another goddess towards Venus.

Symbols

The main symbol of Venus is an eight-pointed star, perhaps symbolizing the eight Lunar months she appears in the sky; also, a lion, dove, a caduceus, later a horse, a swan, sparrows, caduceus, myrtles, roses, but she was also depicted sometimes with male characteristics.

Associated with

Love, beauty, fertility, sexuality, desire, prostitution both male and female, combat, war, justice and even political power.

Conclusion

While many goddess became linked to the Moon, and Virgo, many of the traits originally identified with Venus, also were given to them, and Venus’ power was subdued, for in her time she was no doubt held in higher regard than even the sun god, thus, the Morning star that had set its sights to be the ruler of the heavens, was cast down, and her sisters the earth and moon submitted to the rule of the Sun King.

Last words

It seems according to Nostradamus that the worship of Venus will arise again before history ends, see under Secret Vaults Nostradamus book 74, on Venus, there are twelves verses and two Sixains that mention Venus.

[For the myths surrounding the various Venus’s see under those names.]