Dag-on or aun - The Hebrew word dag may be translated as "preserver of any kind from the dangers of the watersFrom "Asiastic Researches,," Vol. VI. p. 480: -
"The Buddhists say that it is Budd'ha Nar'ayana, or Budd'ha dwelling in the waters; but the Hindoos, who live in that country, call him Mach'odar Nath. or the sovereign prince in the belly of the fish. The title of Mach'odar Natha properly belongs to Noah, for by the belly of the fish they understand the cavity, or inside, of the Ark.
From Jonah ii.. I, we make this extract: "And Jehovah prepared a great dag to include Jonah; and Jonah was in the internal parts of the dag, and Jonah prayed from the internal parts of this dagah"; viz.: He dagah, where he emphatic and demonstrative, THIS dagah.
In David Levi's Lingua Sacra we find besides his definition of a dag, a fish the second, which says , a fishing smack."
Amos iv. 2 says, " and you posterity in fishing vessels." "Dr. Taylor, in his 'Concordance,' renders it navicula, small ship, dagah. Targ. Jona. makes it, 'and your daughters in the fisherman's ship.' The Talmudical Hebrew makes it, 'a cock boat, a skiff.' The Chaldea makes it, a small ship."
From the root, dg, dag, dig, dug, thus variously spelled, there are two senses, each of which signifies to preserve from water: 1st, a fish, because it preserved under water; 2nd, a ship, because it preserved on the water. Query, Could our words dig and dug be original words? Our first canoes were dug out of logs.
Of the figure of Dagon there is an ancient fable. The Oannes, who was half a man and half a fish, ca,e to Babylon and taught several arts, and afterwords returned to the sea.... "There were several of these Oannes: the name of one was Odacon, i.e., O'dagon [the Dagon]. Berosus said of him, 'he had the body and head of a fish, and above the head of the fish he had a human head, and below the tail of the fish he had human feet.' This id the true figure of Dagon. Etymologically, Dagon is composed of dag and aun. Ammon is also composed of ham and aun, which may refe to Noah, or Nau, and was originally ham-nau, - a transposition which is common in antiquity." Aun means the generative power of the Deity, Divine potency or energy, the original creative of the Almighty.
"If Ham-nau was in sense equivalent to Ham of Nau or Noah, Dag-nau might be equivalent to the Dag of Nau, or Noah, i.e., the fish, as the Hebrew word dag imports, of Nau."
If aun be taken as generative power, as it means thus in Hebrew, Gen. xlix.3; Deut. xxi.17, it will equally lead personally understood, to the great second progenitor of the human race, i.e., Noah. Masons may hence find a correct meaning of the "Substitute," if they will remove the initial of the last word to the end of the second with H', instead of H alone; it will then be "of the Father." The meaning then will be the same identically with the "TRUE."
Aun is translated Aven when applied to Bet-el, where one of the "calves" of Jeroboam was set up - "House of Idols or Vanity."
As Oannes came on shore, and after teaching returned to the sea at night, to what did he return but to some vessel out of which he came in the morning? Nerosus represents Oannes as coming out of the fish. As the word dag implies a preservation from water, so Oannes coming out and returning to something which swam upon the waters, symbolized by a fish, whose constant residence is in or upon the waters, and passes in safety and is secure amid storms and tempests, so the idea of a structure containing persons who were preserved from the boisterous and perilous waves became connected with the idea of a fish, which emblematically denoted safty from the waters.
"Properly to understand the import of the figure of Dag-aun, we must separate into two parts the ideas which compose it. 1st. We must consider the human part, aun or nau, as 'issuing out of,' and in itself entirely indepenent of, ad., his protection, means of preservation, dwelling, residence; that which had safely carried him through the waters; that from which he could 'come out,' and to which he could 'retire'; that which was symbolized by the form of a fish, an d was denoted by the word dag. For it follows evidently, that this dag was no part of the real person of 'Nau'; as a man's house, which he returns in the evening, is no part of that man's person.... Accept, therefore, the idea of 'the preserver of Nau,' as implied in the compound word Dag-aun, which word in Hebrew signifies a fish, say the etymologist, from its fertility; and corn, from its increase. Dagon may also allude to preservation, as a fish is preserved in the waters; to preservation, as corn is preserved in the earth; both in reference to newness of life; for indeed, Dagon is called Siton, the god of corn. By some Dagon was said to be Saturm; others say he was Jupiter. Represented as part woman ad part fish, Venus was indicated, whom the Egyptians worshiped under the form of a fish, because in the war of Typhon against the gods, Venus concealed herself under this shape. Ovid and Diod. Sic. say, that at Askelon the goddess Derketo, or Atergatis, was worshiped under the figure of a woman, with the lower parts of a fish; Lucian, de Dea. Syr., also thus describes her under this form."
The Scriptures show that the statue of Dagon was human in the upper part, as when that image fell down befoe the Ark of the Covenat, in I Sam. v. 4, 5. Sanchoniathon, apud Eusbius, says that Dagon means Siton, the god of wheat. Dagon in Hebrew also means wheat. Probably Ceres, the goddess of plenty, was meant. Elain says that among the name of Ceres, Sito was one. She is represented in some medals, as those of Syracuse, delineated with fish around her.
Ceres is sometimes described with attributes of Isis, who was the goddess of fertility among the Egyptians.
We can arrive at no other conclusion than this. Originally the Sun was the great central object of worship. He was considered the beneficent creator of all things earthly; because from his light and heat were produced all vegetables and animals. He arose from the SEA in the morning; continued, during the day, shing and warming all things, producing the beneficial results experienced by man, amd at night retiring again to sea.
Now the ideas of men, at the earliest dawn of civilization, were childlike. The theory of Cosmos was very simple. The earth itself was an extended plain, much longer east and west then north and south; it was surrounded by sea, so that the sun came from the sea in the morning and returned to it at night. In time the Dag-aun was the result, manifested in some form or other in all the Eastern lands.
History of Freemasonry
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From Jonah ii.. I, we make this extract: "And Jehovah prepared a great dag to include Jonah; and Jonah was in the internal parts of the dag, and Jonah prayed from the internal parts of this dagah"; viz.: He dagah, where he emphatic and demonstrative, THIS dagah.
In David Levi's Lingua Sacra we find besides his definition of a dag, a fish the second, which says , a fishing smack."
Amos iv. 2 says, " and you posterity in fishing vessels." "Dr. Taylor, in his 'Concordance,' renders it navicula, small ship, dagah. Targ. Jona. makes it, 'and your daughters in the fisherman's ship.' The Talmudical Hebrew makes it, 'a cock boat, a skiff.' The Chaldea makes it, a small ship."
From the root, dg, dag, dig, dug, thus variously spelled, there are two senses, each of which signifies to preserve from water: 1st, a fish, because it preserved under water; 2nd, a ship, because it preserved on the water. Query, Could our words dig and dug be original words? Our first canoes were dug out of logs.
Of the figure of Dagon there is an ancient fable. The Oannes, who was half a man and half a fish, ca,e to Babylon and taught several arts, and afterwords returned to the sea.... "There were several of these Oannes: the name of one was Odacon, i.e., O'dagon [the Dagon]. Berosus said of him, 'he had the body and head of a fish, and above the head of the fish he had a human head, and below the tail of the fish he had human feet.' This id the true figure of Dagon. Etymologically, Dagon is composed of dag and aun. Ammon is also composed of ham and aun, which may refe to Noah, or Nau, and was originally ham-nau, - a transposition which is common in antiquity." Aun means the generative power of the Deity, Divine potency or energy, the original creative of the Almighty.
"If Ham-nau was in sense equivalent to Ham of Nau or Noah, Dag-nau might be equivalent to the Dag of Nau, or Noah, i.e., the fish, as the Hebrew word dag imports, of Nau."
If aun be taken as generative power, as it means thus in Hebrew, Gen. xlix.3; Deut. xxi.17, it will equally lead personally understood, to the great second progenitor of the human race, i.e., Noah. Masons may hence find a correct meaning of the "Substitute," if they will remove the initial of the last word to the end of the second with H', instead of H alone; it will then be "of the Father." The meaning then will be the same identically with the "TRUE."
Aun is translated Aven when applied to Bet-el, where one of the "calves" of Jeroboam was set up - "House of Idols or Vanity."
As Oannes came on shore, and after teaching returned to the sea at night, to what did he return but to some vessel out of which he came in the morning? Nerosus represents Oannes as coming out of the fish. As the word dag implies a preservation from water, so Oannes coming out and returning to something which swam upon the waters, symbolized by a fish, whose constant residence is in or upon the waters, and passes in safety and is secure amid storms and tempests, so the idea of a structure containing persons who were preserved from the boisterous and perilous waves became connected with the idea of a fish, which emblematically denoted safty from the waters.
"Properly to understand the import of the figure of Dag-aun, we must separate into two parts the ideas which compose it. 1st. We must consider the human part, aun or nau, as 'issuing out of,' and in itself entirely indepenent of, ad., his protection, means of preservation, dwelling, residence; that which had safely carried him through the waters; that from which he could 'come out,' and to which he could 'retire'; that which was symbolized by the form of a fish, an d was denoted by the word dag. For it follows evidently, that this dag was no part of the real person of 'Nau'; as a man's house, which he returns in the evening, is no part of that man's person.... Accept, therefore, the idea of 'the preserver of Nau,' as implied in the compound word Dag-aun, which word in Hebrew signifies a fish, say the etymologist, from its fertility; and corn, from its increase. Dagon may also allude to preservation, as a fish is preserved in the waters; to preservation, as corn is preserved in the earth; both in reference to newness of life; for indeed, Dagon is called Siton, the god of corn. By some Dagon was said to be Saturm; others say he was Jupiter. Represented as part woman ad part fish, Venus was indicated, whom the Egyptians worshiped under the form of a fish, because in the war of Typhon against the gods, Venus concealed herself under this shape. Ovid and Diod. Sic. say, that at Askelon the goddess Derketo, or Atergatis, was worshiped under the figure of a woman, with the lower parts of a fish; Lucian, de Dea. Syr., also thus describes her under this form."
The Scriptures show that the statue of Dagon was human in the upper part, as when that image fell down befoe the Ark of the Covenat, in I Sam. v. 4, 5. Sanchoniathon, apud Eusbius, says that Dagon means Siton, the god of wheat. Dagon in Hebrew also means wheat. Probably Ceres, the goddess of plenty, was meant. Elain says that among the name of Ceres, Sito was one. She is represented in some medals, as those of Syracuse, delineated with fish around her.
Ceres is sometimes described with attributes of Isis, who was the goddess of fertility among the Egyptians.
We can arrive at no other conclusion than this. Originally the Sun was the great central object of worship. He was considered the beneficent creator of all things earthly; because from his light and heat were produced all vegetables and animals. He arose from the SEA in the morning; continued, during the day, shing and warming all things, producing the beneficial results experienced by man, amd at night retiring again to sea.
Now the ideas of men, at the earliest dawn of civilization, were childlike. The theory of Cosmos was very simple. The earth itself was an extended plain, much longer east and west then north and south; it was surrounded by sea, so that the sun came from the sea in the morning and returned to it at night. In time the Dag-aun was the result, manifested in some form or other in all the Eastern lands.
History of Freemasonry
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