QUEEN OF IlEAN'EN, a position allotted by the ancient Babylonians, the Phomiciaus, and the Italians, also by the present Buddhtsts anti others of China, and likewust by the mxtern Hindus, to a female divinity. The Babylonian que-en of heaven waa called Anatu, consort of Anu, lortt of the heavens. The Phoenician deity was named Astarte ; she was the Ishtar of Babylon. In Jeremiah xliv. 15-17 and 19 (see also Judges x. 6 ; 1 Samuel vit. 3, xii. 10), Astarte or Ash toreth or Baalith, the queen of heaven, was the great female divinity of the Phcenicians, the female power of Baal, whom the Gree,ks changed into Baaltis or Belthes. This goddess was wor shipped in the chief city of Sidon, but her worship was extended to the east of Jordan. Physically, she represented the rnoon, hence her name in Genesis xiv. 5, Deuteronoiny i. 4, Joshua xii. 4, Ashtaroth Karnaim, or the two horned, from the crescent moon (see 1 Kings xi. 5, 33 ; 2 Kings xxiii. 13). The queen of heaven mentioned in Jeremiah vii. 18, xliv. 15 19, was the goddess known to the Greeks and Romans as Astarte. This was the Phcenician Ashtaroth or Ashtoreth, a term which was used in combination with 1).m, and, according to Gese nius, appears to indicate the male and female powers. At Hieropolis in Syria, her emblem had a magnificent temple served by more than 300 priests. It was placed in the interior, and only the higher of tbe priesthood were permitted to approach it, and near it was the male emblem. Solomon (1 Kings xi. 4-8) built a temple for Ashtaroth on the Mount of Olives. The Romans and Greeks called her Astarte, and regarded her as the analogue sometimes of their Juno or Venus, or as the Cybele of the Phrygians, or the Ephesian Diana. Jeremiah tells us (4 18) that bread was one of the articles offered to Ashtaroth, and in his time, B.C. 688, the women of the Jews particularly seem to have been, almost all of them, devoted to the worship of this god dess. In chapter xliv. 17, 18, and 19, on the people refusing to listen to him, the women announced that they would burn incense unto the queen of heaven, would pour out drink-offerings unto her, as their fathers and princes in Judah and Jeru salem had done, for then they had plenty of victuals, were well, and saw no evil. But since
they had left off burning incense, they had wanted all things, and been consumed by the famine and the sword.
Astarte, one of the Syrian deities, corresponds with the Venus of the Greeks, the Isis of the Egyptians, and the Mithra of the Persians. She had a famous temple at Hieropolis in Syria.
Ishtar, daughter of Anu, king of heaven, was a_goddess of the Babylonians. She was queen of Emeh, and is sometimes represented as divine, sometimes as human. Her character resembles that of the Venus of the Greeks. .11er first hus band was Dimauzi, Tammuz, .or Adonis (Ezekiel viii. 14), whose death was celebrated\with great ceremony in the east, and women sat weeping for him.
Juno, the queen of heaven of the Greeks and Romans, was wife of Jupiter. She was a chaste goddess ; she protected cleanliness, presided over marriage and childbirth, particularly patronised the most faithful and virtuous of her sex, and severely punished incontinence and lewdness in matrons. At Rome, no women of debauched character was permitted to enter her temple or even to touch it.
Judges ii. 13, about B.C. 1401, says of the Israelites that they forsook the Lord and served Baal and Ashtaroth. 1 Samuel vii. 8 (s.c. 1056), Samuel urged the Israelites to put away the strange gods and Ashtaroth ; in xii. 10 he showed them how, on a former thne, the Lord had shielded them on their putting away Baalim and Asli taroth ; and in xxxi. 10, the Philistines, having routed the Israelites and slain Saul, they hung up his armour in the house of Ashtaroth ; 1 Kings xi. 33 (s.c. 984), Ahijah warned Jeroboam that only one tribe of the Israelites would be left as subjects to Solornon, because Solomon had for saken the Lord and vvorshipped Ashtaroth, the goddess of tbe Sidonians, Chemosh, the god of the Moabites, and Milcom, the god of the children of Ammon.