Dagon

Dagon - A fallen angel in Paradise Lost I, 457.  To the ancient Phoenicians, however, Dagon was a national god, represented with the face and hands of a man and the body of a fish.  (a)

Dagon was the princes' official baker.  Before taking up his culinary duties, he had been an important god to the Philistines - so important, in fact, that after they captured the Ark from the Israelites, they stashed it in Dagon's temple. (c)

Dagan (Hebrew Dagon) was a West Semitic corn god who came to be worshipped extensively throughout the Near East, including Mesopotamia.  The original meaning of the name is unknown, but dagan is a common word in Hebrew and Ugaritic for 'grain', and according to one tradition the god Dagan was the inventor of the plough.

Dagan's cult is known at Mari from about 2500 BC, at Ebla about 2300 BC and at Ugarit over a thousand years later.  Sargon of Agade and his grandson Narām-Suen attributed many of their conquests to the power of Dagan.  At some point Dagan became the principal god of the Philistines. 

At Ugarit, on the Mediterranean coast, Dagan was regarded as the father of the god Baal (Hadad) and second only in rank to the supreme god El.  However, he is not an important figure in Ugaritic myths.  His role as vegetation god seems to have been largely usurped by Baal by about 1500 BC.

At an early date Dagan was assimilated into the Sumerian pantheon, but only as a minor deity, attendant upon Enlil.  The goddess Šala became his spouse; in a different tradition, Dagan's wife was Išhara.  It was said to be by the might of "his creator' Dagan that Hammurabi of Babylon was able to conquer the city of Mari, while contemporary Assyrian king Šamšī-Adad I, 'worshipper of Dagan', built a temple to the god at Terqa, which he named E-kisiga, the 'House of Funerary Offerings'.  In an Assyrian poem, Dagan sites, along with Nergal and Mīšaru (see good and evil), as judge of the dead when they reached the underworld.  In Babylonian belief Dagan kept with him in the underworld, in everlasting bondage, the seven children of the god Enmešarra (see Seven (gods)).

A tradition dating back to at least the fourth century AD of Dagan as a fish deity is erroneous. (r)

Dagon

CHARLES L. SOUVAY
Transcribed by David M. Cheney

A Philistine deity. It is commonly admitted that the name Dagon is a diminutive form, hence a term of endearment, derived from the Semitic root dag, and means, accordingly, "little fish". The name, therefore, indicates a fish-shaped god. This the Bible also suggests when speaking of the Dagon worshipped in the temple of Azotus (I K., v, 1-7): he had face and hands and a portion of his body resembled that of a fish, in accordance with the most probable interpretation of "the stump of Dagon" (verse 5). From the received text of the Septuagint it would seem that he possessed even feet, although Swete's edition gives here a different reading; at any rate, this sentence, in the Greek translation, shows all the appearances of a gloss. With the description found in the Bible coincides that which may be seen on the coins of various Philistine or Phænician cities, on most of which Dagon is represented as a composite figure, human as to the upper part of the body, fish-like as to the lower. From this it may well be inferred that Dagon was a fish-god, a fact not in the least surprising, as he seems to have been the foremost deity of such maritime cities as Azotus, Gaza (the early sites of which are supposed to be buried under the sand-mounds that run along the sea-shore), Ascalon, and Arvad. In the monuments -- also most probably in the popular worship -- Dagon is sometimes associated with a female half-fish deity, Derceto or Atargatis, often identified with Astarte.

A few scholars, however, waving aside these evidences, consider Dagon as the god of agriculture. This opinion they rest on the following statement of Philo Byblius: "Dagon, that is, corn' [the Hebrew word for corn is dagan]. "Dagon, after he had discovered corn and the plough, was called Zeus of the plough" (ii, 16). The same writer tells us (in Eusebius, Præp. Evang., i, 6) that, according to an old Phænician legend, Dagon was one of the four sons born of the marriage of Anu, the lord of heaven, with his sister, the earth. Moreover, on a seal bearing certain symbolic signs, among which is an ear of corn, but not, however, the image of a fish, may be read the name of Baal-Dagon, written in Phænician characters. It is open to question whether these arguments outweigh those in favour of the other opinion; so much so that the etymology adopted by Philo Byblius might possibly be due to a misapprehension of the name. It should, perhaps, be admitted that, along the Mediterranean shore, a twofold conception and representation of Dagon were developed in the course of time as a result of the presumed twofold derivation of the name. At, any rate, all scholars agree that the name and worship of Dagon were imported from Babylonia.

The Tell-el-Amarna letters (about 1480-1450 B.C.), which have yielded the names of Yamir-Dagan and Dagan-takala, rulers of Ascalon, witness to the antiquity of the Dagon-worship among the inhabitants of Palestine. We learn from the Bible that the deity had temples at Gaza (Judges, xvi, 21, 23) and Azotus (I K., v, 1-7); we may presume that shrines existed likewise in other Philistine cities. The Dagon-worship seems even to have extended beyond the confines of their confederacy. The testimony of the monuments is positive for the Phænician city of Arvad; moreover, the Book of Josue mentions two towns called Bethdagon, one in the territory of Juda (Jos., xv, 41), and the other on the border of Aser (Jos., xix, 27); Josephus also speaks of a Dagon "beyond Jericho" (Antiq. Jud., XIII, viii, 1; De bell. Jud., I, ii, 3): all these names are earlier than the Israelite conquest, and, unless we derive them from dagan, witness to a wide dissemination of the worship of Dagon throughout Palestine. This worship was kept up, at least in certain Philistine cities, until the last centuries B.C. such was the case at Azotus; the temple of Dagon that stood there was burned by Jonathan Machabeus (l Mach., x, 84; xi, 4).

Unlike the Baals, who, among the Chanaanites, were essentially local deities, Dagon seems to have been considered by the Philistines as a national god (I Par., x, 10). To him they attributed their success in war; him they thanked by great sacrifices, before him they rejoiced over the capture of Samson (Judges, xvi, 23); into his temple they brought the trophies of their victories, the Ark (I K., v, 1, 2), the armour, and the head of Saul (I K., xxxi, 9, 10; I Par., x, 10). A bronze demi-rilievo of Assyro-Phænician workmanship would also suggest that Dagon played a prominent part in the doctrines concerning death and future life. As to the ritual of his worship, little can be gathered either from the documents or from Scripture. The elaborate arrangements for returning the Ark (I K., v, vi) may have been inspired more by the circumstances than by any ceremonies of the Dagon-worship. We only know from ancient writers that, for religious reasons, most of the Syrian peoples abstained from eating fish, a practice that one is naturally inclined to connect with the worship of a fish-god.   (v)
 

Dagon, "their grain" or "their sorrow" or, finally, "their fish," was an idol of the Philistines [Judges 16; Macc. 10 (Douay)]. (w)

Resource List - all entries are taken verbatim from the original source:

(a) "The Dictionary of Angels" by Gustav Davidson, © 1967

(c) "Fallen Angels...and Spirits of the Dark" by Robert Masello ©1994. 

(r) "Gods, Demons, and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia.  An Illustrated Dictionary."  Jeremy Black and Anthony Green.  University of Texas Press, Austin.  ©1992

(v)  http://www.newadvent.org/ The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume II.  Copyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton Company.  Online Edition Copyright © 2003 by Kevin Knight.  Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York

(w)  "Witches, Devils, and Doctors in the Renaissance.  Johann Weyer, De praestigiis daemonum" General Editor: George Mora, M.D.  Translated by:  John Shea.  Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies.  Binghamton, New York.  ©1991.  Original text written in 1583.