Hieros gamos

Hierogamie (Greek ἱερογαμία, hierogamía, the custom to hold sacred weddings ') or Hieros ( γάμος ἱερὸς Greek, hieros gamos, sacred marriage gamos ', also Theogamie ) is the marriage of two gods. Sometimes the term is also applied to the union between a god and a mortal.

Dissemination

The sacred marriage, especially between Zeus and Hera, played an important role in the cult of the Greeks. In the Mesopotamian cultures of Sumer, Assyria and Babylon Hierogamie played the most significant role in the cult.

Greece

Once a year, Hera ( Vitex agnus - castus L. ) Lygos united with her husband Zeus under a Chaste tree on Samos. A bath in Imbrasos renewed thereafter her virginity. Hera was also born under a Lygos. The celebrations of Tonaia, in which the cult statue was bound with chaste tree branches, recalled this event. This tree stood at the altar in Heraion and has been described among others by Pausanias. Other important gods marriages are between Hades and Persephone, Demeter Erinys and Poseidon, Demeter and Iasion.

The ritual union of the Athenian Basilinna with Dionysus is an example of the sacred marriage of a god and a mortal. Once a year, it was the oldest sanctuary of Dionysus in Athens, the " In the marshes " ( ἐν λίμναις ) was called, opened, then where was held this event.

Rome

The Metamorphoses of Apuleius describe the marriage of a believer in the form of the sun god with Isis: " Namely, in the very center of the temple I asked myself how to instructing me to a built in front of the image of the goddess wooden platform ... But held in the right hand I kindled a torch with flame, and get my head wrapped up a magnificent wreath of palm leaves shimmering, who presided radiate. So I was like the sun god decked ".

Celticum

As in other cultures of the Iron Age is said to have ( Old Irish Banais Rigi ) played an important role among the Celts the sacred marriage. An accession to power of a new king was only possible and valid if it previously united with the personalized symbol of the country. This is made of Ailill mac Máta with Medb, Conn. Cétchathach in the narrative Baile in Scáil ( "The vision of the ghost " ) and other medieval legends reported in which a only old and ugly, then young and beautiful woman as a " rule about Scotland and Ireland " ( flathius Alban is Erenn ) refers. The Cailleach Berri Berri or Senainne ( " The old woman of Beare " ) to have had a similar function. The transformation of the old to the young woman is a symbol of the rejuvenation of the country by the new, young king. After Miranda Green is to see a form of Hierogamie of the ruler with the state goddess in connection with the Celtic goddesses Roman gods. Examples are Apollo / Grannus and Sirona, Mars / Loucetius and Nemetona, Mars / Lenus and Ancamna, and some others.

Timor

The indigenous people of Timor lives with the idea of a sacred marriage between heaven and earth.

Mesopotamia

Kramer assumed that the ritual of the sacred marriage of the city princes with the goddess Inanna middle of the third millennium Uruk was, " increasing Sumerian nationalism " in the context of, and that this custom then later on Inanna and Dumuzi, an early mythical king of the city was attributed After Kramer following literary texts are to be classified this ritual:

• Love poems in which Dumuzi to Inanna advertises
• Poems about the marriage ceremony, which emphasize its importance for the welfare of the king and of the land of Sumer and its population
• " rhapsodic " love poems of Inanna to Dumuzi.

The celebration of a hieros gamos in Sumer was reconstructed on the basis of such cuneiform texts. They do not describe the actual course, but rather texts belonging to the cycle to Dumuzi and Inanna and may be cited in such occasion.

The festival was probably part of the New Year. The city prince took a ritual union with the goddess Inanna in the main temple of the city. Who took the role of Inanna is unclear, usually it is assumed that it was a priestess. Kramer suspects a Hierodule. A sacred marriage with Inanna is detected according to Kramer for Šulgi of Ur and iddin - Dagan of Isin. The ritual was carried out on a bed with a special blanket and was adopted by a party with singing, dancing and music. The Marriage of Šulgi found in the Eanna place in Kullab of Uruk, which he reached by boat. The king is called a shepherd, he offereth Inanna cattle, sheep, Showing, spotted lambs and fawns and anoints her lap with milk and fat before he touched her sacred vulva. The best source for the ritual is " iddin - Dagan A" or song to the rite of the sacred marriage of the Goddess Inanna with King iddin - Dagan of Isin, obtained in 14 texts from Nippur, from the reign of iddin - Dagan. A text from the British Museum describes in Emesal dialect the union of Inanna and Dumuzi, perhaps served as a model for the sacred marriage. The goddess is in Eridu in the Eanna temple in a reed hut prepares a bed that is covered with lapis lazuli. The fire god Gibil cleans the room, it is night and the goddess longed for the bed. The goddess is implored to give the King " rod and staff ". Ninšibur led the king to the bed and asks Inanna, that the king should long enjoy their sacred womb, that he might have a good and glorious reign, that the throne of his kingdom should be firmly established. You should give him a scepter with which he can lead the people and the staff, and the crosier, a permanent crown, which raises the land from sunrise to sunset, from the Upper to the Lower Sea, from where the Halub Tree grows to the point where the cedar grows; over all of Sumer and Akkad, they should give him rod and your staff. He is said to be the shepherd of the black -headed people, wherever they live, he shall make the fields fertile as a farmer, sheep breed like a trusted shepherd. Under his rule, there should be plants and grain, there should be plenty, and in the marshes the fish and fowl chatter (?), The tube is to grow tall, in the steppe to the Mašgur trees grow tall in the forests should be multiply deer and wild goats, gardens to honey and wine produce, in the irrigation ditches lettuce and cress to thrive in the palace life shall last for long

Lenzen wants to recognize the space in the Isin - Larsa B12 temporal temple district of Ur the venue of the sacred marriage. He is 6 x 11m in size with a 3m wide platform on the narrow side.

The ritual of the New Year is also handed down from an Aramaic text from Syene. He tells of the cultic association of the king of ARAS ( ʿ RPGs ) with the goddess Nana.

Herodotus tells of a sacred marriage to the ziggurat of Babylon.

Judaism

In some Kabbalistic texts, is the adoption of a sacred marriage between God and the Šeḫinah.