Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

Triptolemos

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1892, when lecturing at the College de France he treated it as such1.
Dr Ginsburg's rival attempt to read it as the name of Jehu, king of
Israel, makes shipwreck—as A. Neubauer was prompt to point out—
on the chronology, the coin being nearly five centuries later than
Jehu's reign2. There can, in fact, be little doubt that we have
here a gentile representation of the Hebrew Godhead.

Now a bearded god enthroned with an eagle on his hand is
a common art-type of Zeus. And it will be remembered that
in 168 B.C. Antiochus iv Epiphanes transformed the temple at
Jerusalem into a temple of Zeus Olympios and the temple on
Mount Gerizim into a temple of Zeus Xenlos3 or Hellenios^.
Further, the winged wheel is, as we have seen, solar in its origin.
It follows that the coin represents Jehovah under the guise of
a solar Zeus5.

This conclusion is confirmed by the fact that I do—the form
usually taken by Jehovah's name in magical texts of the Hellenistic
age6—was equated sometimes with Zeus, sometimes with Helios.
A papyrus at Berlin, acquired by Lepsius at Thebes in Egypt and
published by Parthey in 1866, records an incantation, which begins
by summoning Apollon in company with Paian to quit Parnassos
and Pytho, and then continues in a quasi-Semitic strain :

Come, foremost angel of great Zeus Ido,
And thou too, Michael, who holdest heaven,
And, Gabriel, thou the archangel, from Olympos7.

The Anastasy papyrus of the British Museum, published by Wessely
in 1888, includes among other magical formulae the following prose
invocation: ' I summon thee the ruler of the gods—Zeus, Zeus,

1 In the Judaeo-Aramaean papyri recently found at Elephantine {Assouan) the name
of Jehovah is similarly triliteral (A. H. Sayce and A. E. Cowley Aramaic Papyri discovered
at Assuan London 1906 p. 37 n. 011 pap. B, 4, E. Sachau Aramdische Papyrus und Ostraka
aus... Elephantine Leipzig 1911 p. 277 Index).

2 C. D. Ginsburg and A. Neubauer locc. citt.

3 2 Maccab. 6. if., Euseb. chron. arm. Abr. 1850 [v. I. 1848) ii. 126 f. Schoene.

4 Ioseph. ant. Iud. 12. 5. 5, Zonar. 4. 19 (i. 317 Dindorf). See Append. B Samaria.

5 Mrs H. Jenner Christian Symbolism London 1910 p. 67 states that in the convent
church of Kaisariani on Mt. Hymettos ' the winged fiery wheel is a throne for the Divine
feet of Almighty God.'

6 W. W. Baudissin Studien zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte Leipzig 1876 i. 179—
254, G. A. Deissmann Bibelstudien Marburg 1895 pp. 1—20, Gruppe Gr* Myth. Pel.
p. 1603 n. 3 ff. This is not, of course, necessarily inconsistent with the view that Iao is
the final form of the Babylonian god Ea (see C. F. Lehmann-Haupt in Roscher Lex.
Myth. iv. 358 ff., supra p. 188 n. 1).

7 G. Parthey Zwei griechische Zauberpapyri des Berliner Museums Berlin 1866 p. 128.
Pap. 1. 300 ayyeXe irpureijuv (so Kirchhoff for MS. irpwrevov sic) Tirjvos fieyaXoio 'law •
/c.r.X. Baudissin op. cit. i. 198 observes that ayyeXe here refers to Apollon, the theme of
the preceding lines. Zeus is identified with Jehovah, and Apollon his mouthpiece with
the angel of Jehovah.