ANACALYPSIS

 

Godfrey Higgins

 

1833

 

Volume I [867 pages]
Volume II
[525 pages]

 

VOLUME I - BOOK IX - CHAPTER I

SANSCRIT, ORIGIN OF—VAN KENEDY ON SANSCRIT—LANGUAGE CHANGEABLE—MAZORETIC HEBREW A NEW LANGUAGE—GRAMMATICAL CONSTRUCTION NO CRITERION—PHŒNICIAN, GREEK, AND COPTIC, THE SAME—YADAVAS FROM INDIA—ABYSSINIAN JEWS—ABRAHAM FROM INDIA—ARABIC AND ETHIOPIAN THE SAME—DR. MURRAY ON SANSCRIT—PROFESSOR DUNBAR, E.H. BARKER, Esq.—HERMAN, ANTHOM, HAUGHTON, WILSON, HAGAR—DR. PRITCHARD—HAGAR—DIRECTION OF WRITING—PRONUNCIATION OF LANGUAGES—PROFESSOR BOP—ADAM, MEANING OF THE WORD—GREEK AND LATIN—NO COLONY GOES OUT WITHOUT TAKING ALL ITS LETTERS—CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS

Page 448

Before I proceed, I think it necessary to examine the history of the celebrated written sacred language of the Brahmins of India, called the Sanscrit. It will not be denied that this is the most perfect and beautiful language which has ever been known. It is in my opinion certain that, in its present state, it is not like most, perhaps all, other languages, the child of accident or circumstance; but that, on the contrary, it is entirely the produce of very great and systematic labour of learned and highly-civilized men. I believe it is not at present, and that probably it has never been, the vernacular language of any nation, but has been confined to one, or at most two, elevated or learned classes of the Brahmins in India.

The origin of the sanscrit is unknown, but it is said to have been invented by the ancient Richees.* It is called Sanscort, or Sanskroutan; that is, clearly, the Sanctum Scriptum. A person called Anoubhout or Sarasvat, Goddess of speech, is said to have made the first grammar. This is evidently the nymph Anobret of Sanchoniathon and of Western Syria, or Sarah, the wife of Abraham or the Brahmin. … This seems to point to the Chaldeans,** from whose country Abraham came, as the inventors of it.

* i.e. Rasees, wise men. ** P. 91.

Page 449

Van Kenedy* gives a list of nine hundred Sanscrit words which are found in Greek, Latin, Persian, German, and English, and which are thus divided. There are 339 Sanscrit words in Greek, 319 in Latin, 363 in Persian, 163 in German, 251 in English, and 31 common to all of them. From this he infers, that they are all deduced from a common origin. But how came the German and English words here ? How but because German, i.e. Saxon, (from which old English is chiefly descended,) and English are both Hebrew ?—which Hebrew is Chaldean, and Arabic, and Syriac, and Pushto, the language of the Sacæ or Saxæ of North India, as I shall presently prove.

* Page 232.

… But it is not the universal sacred language of the Buddhists or Jains. From this circumstance, I think, an important consequence will follow. The Buddhist religion having been proved to have been universally disseminated, the ancient language on which the Sanscrit was founded, for there can be little doubt that it would in some degree be founded on the vernacular language of its builders, must have been in use by the Buddhists before the division of the religions. I need not point out to my reader that the number of years required to effect a complete change in any spoken language is often very small. … The Sanscrit, after being brought to perfection, has remained almost unchanged, because it was not a commonly-spoken language, and because it was tied down by strict and unvarying grammatical rules.

Page 450

Supposing the Sanscrit to have been brought to perfection, or completed to its present state by the Brahmins after their division from the Buddhists, (which if it had not, the Buddhists would have generally used it, but this they do not,) and to have been founded upon the language at the time of the division common to both, this would be a sufficient reason why numbers of the roots of Sanscrit words should be found in all the Western nations, where Buddhism has prevailed. The vernacular language of the Brahmins before the division would probably, if the new language were founded upon it, have been constantly improving, until it arrived at a very considerable degree of perfection—but yet not to such a high degree as would serve to render it almost a dead language, and entirely a dead language in a few years, as it actually became when it was improves into Sanscrit. The sacred and dead language of books in the temples which admitted no change, it being in this respect like the Hebrew of the Synagogue, would remain as it was, but the language of numerous countries into which the country of the Brahmins became divided, would be perpetually changing, until the parent language would be in them almost entirely lost, and numbers of new ones would be formed. But in all those new ones, some traces of the parent would remain, as we find them. Now, except the Sanscrit, we have only one known unspoken SACRED language in the world; and that is the Synagogue Hebrew. From the time of the Babylonish captivity there is no reason to believe, that the SYNAGOGUE Hebrew has, as a LANGUAGE, materially changed. I speak not of several wilful corruptions of the text by the Jews, which may be perceived in the Pentateuch; for, if they interpolated, they would imitate the old style as much as possible. Then, under these circumstances, the great age of the Hebrew Pentateuch, viz. since the time when Ezra changed its letters from the Samaritan to the Hebrew, or Chaldee; or, since it was, after being destroyed, remanufactured by Ezra (whom our priests disguise by the name Esdras,) being considered, we ought to find the Hebrew spoken language possessing many striking marks of similarity to the Sanscrit, if this theory be true; and, these we do find.

Page 451

The Mazoretic or pointed Hebrew is, in fact, a new language; and if, instead of forming letters by substituting points for the Chaldæan vowel letters, the Jews had adopted a new form of letter entirely, I believe it would have passed, like the Sanscrit, for a new language. …

The Synagogue Hebrew language has vowels like all other languages; but, like the Celtic dialects, it has many words written with very few vowels, and many without any. … If the Hebrew and Celtic languages be the oldest written languages of the world; if the theory which, in a future page, I shall explain, be well founded, they could in respect to the vowels be no other than as they are. I think, to go no farther, the fact that the names of the ancient sixteen letters of the Jews and Celts had originally meanings, and the same meanings, and that the names of the letters of no other language had meanings, is nearly sufficient to prove their priority to all others. … I think there can be no doubt that when the Brahmins made their fine Sanscrit, they generally retained the proper names, only writing them in Sanscrit letter. This accounts for many names being only part of them Sanscrit : for instance Maha-Barata; that is Maha !(!9" brata Great Creator : (!9" brat being the noun of the Hebrew verb !9" bra to create or form. Then the wars of the Mahabarat will be, the wars of the Creat Creator, or of God, or, as we should say, holy wars.

I will stop here to observe, that I believe the wars just now spoken of were the first great wars of the world; that in all former times, though there may have been disputes like those between the servants of Abraham and Lot, about their pastures or springs of water, yet there was nothing like general wars; that before this time all the world was governed by an order of priesthood, and was like the vast domain of China, in a comparative state of peace; and that gold was the common metal, the use of iron not being known; and that, for these two reasons, the time was called the golden age—the age of CRS. …

Page 453

… The fact that all the written languages had the same number of letters, sixteen,—and a certain number of similar words for similar ideas, a numeral meaning, and nearly the same numeral meaning attached to each letter, and, in all, the letters arranged in nearly the same order—proves that all the languages were the same, and that the division into Semitic and not Semitic is nonsense. … After the Hebrews became highly civilized in the schools of Alexandria, &c., they found it necessary to improve their language, and they adopted the points, added a dual, &c., &c., as other nations had done before; but fortunately the dogma preserved the old language and letter in the Synagogue untouched, which assists us greatly in our endeavours to discover the origin of languages.

To return to the identity of written language—what can prove identity ? Originally all written languages had the same number of letters. There is every reason to believe that they had originally the same vocal sounds attached to the same letters. They all had the same powers of notation. They were all arranged in the same order; and a careful consideration of Mr. Astle's table will shew, that at one time they all had the same forms. And there is reason to believe that, originally, they were written from the top to the bottom. If these facts do not prove identity, I know nothing that will do it.

Page 454

In order to form a judgment between the Hebrew and the Sanscrit, learned men must reduce the Hebrew and the Sanscrit to the sixteen Greek, or PELASGIC, or Cadmæan letters, as nearly as possible, and represent them in English by the similar letters, according to the power of notation … Having done this, they will be surprised at the number of Sanscrit proper names which are partly or entirely composed of Hebrew words.

The Hebrew and the Greek are admitted to be radically the same : then, if Col. Van Kennedy be right in asserting that there are upwards of three hundred Sanscrit words in the poems of Homer, I surely need go no further. If the Sanscrit be the same as the Greek, and the Greek be the same as the Hebrew, the Sanscrit must be the same as the Hebrew. For several reasons it seems to me perfectly clear that these Sanscrit words must have come to the West, if they really came from that language, before the Sanscrit was brought to its present perfection. If they had come with the Sanscrit after it was perfected, there can be no doubt that they would have been accompanied by its fifty letters, and probably its entire grammar. This consideration seems to confirm my whole system. …

Page 455

I think it expedient, in passing, to avow my firm persuasion, … , that the Greek system of letters or language was formed in great measure from the ancient Coptic, or from the parent of the Coptic. We must recollect that Cadmus brought the sixteen letters from Phœnicia to Greece; and the Greek authors, as I have formerly shewn, say their Gods had their names from Egypt, the Coptic land; and the Egyptians had theirs from Ethiopia. We shall also find that the Ethiopians had their language from Phœnicia, and it is natural to suppose that they had their Gods and their written language from the same country.

A learned writer in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia* says, "The Phœnicians, as is generally known, wrote from right to left, and the old Grecian characters inverted EXACTLY RESEMBLE THE OTHER." Astle's Table, No. I. p. 64, proves the truth of this observation, which being admitted, as it must be, we have the Phœnician, (which was the same with Hebrew and Samaritan,) Hebrew, Coptic, and Greek system of letters, all identical. …

* Art. Philology, Sect. 132.

Sir W. Drummond has shewn that the Coptic has a close affinity, and is radically allied, to the Hebrew, Chaldee, Arabic, and Ethiopic. He has found seventy examples of Ethiopic terms which have a strict affinity to the Hebrew, and which express articles of the first necessity in common life. He affirms also that the Egyptian deities can be better explained in Hebrew than by modern Coptic. He also says,* that most Coptic words, which are not Arabic or Greek, bear a strong affinity to the ancient Syriac, and the ancient Ethiopian language was very nearly Chaldaic. I am quite certain, from my own observation, that many Egyptian proper names are in reality Hebrew.

* See Drummond on Punic Inscription, p.45.

Page 456

There certainly appears to be something extraordinary in the well-known fact, that the African Ethiopians should have a style and manner of writing different from that of all other Eastern nations except the Indians—between whose language and theirs Sir William Jones has pointed out several very striking marks of similarity. They both write from the left hand to the right, in the manner of modern Europeans, instead of from right to left, the practice of the Phœnicians, Samaritans, Chaldeans, and other Asiatics. And they annex all the vowels to the consonants, forming a full syllabic system, like ours, but different from that of the nations named above.* These facts seem to shew that they have the same origin as the Indians; but yet their language is really Hebrew.

* Jones's 8th An. Disc. Asiat. Res.

Page 457

The surprising and close affinity between the Sanscrit, Greek, and Latin, cannot for a moment be doubted. Is it not, then, almost a necessary consequence, that the Greeks and Latins would have had the Sanscrit number of letters or some signs of them if the Sanscrit system had been perfected before the connexion between the two countries ceased ? The most striking mark of similarity between the two that I know of, and it is very striking and decisive, is that before noticed, as having been pointed out by Col. Wilford, that when the Sanscrit system of letters or alphabet is stripped of the double letters and those peculiar to that language, it is reducible to the sixteen letters of the Pelasgi or of Cadmus. …

… Thus, in fact, the ancient system of letters of India and Ethiopia may be considered the same, notwithstanding their great distance and the intervention of so many other nations lying between them.*

* Vide Maur. Ant. Ind. Vol. IV. pp. 414-417.

Bardisanes Syrus* gives this account of the Indians : "Among the Indians and Bactrians there are many thousand men called Brachmanes. These, as well from the tradition of their fathers as from laws, neither worship images nor eat what is animate : they never drink wine or beer : they are far from all malignity, attending wholly on God." Philostratus** says, "that in his time the chief of the Brahmins was called Iarch, and Jerom contra Jovin says, the head of the Gymnosophists was called Buddas.*** Mr. Bryant says, "Nilus the Egyptian tells Apollonius Tyannæus, that the Indi of all people in the world were the most knowing, and that the Ethiopians were a colony from them, and resembled them greatly. Philostratus says, the Indi are the WISEST of all mankind. The Ethiopians are a colony from them, and they inherit the wisdom of their forefathers."****

* In Euseb. Præpar. Evang. Lib. vi. Cap. viii. ** Lib. iii. in vita Apol. Tyan.

*** Gale, Court of Gent. Book II. p.74. **** Anal. Anc. Myth. Vol. III. p.219

Gale* observes, on the authority of Philostratus, in the life of Apollonius and of Jerom,** that the philosophers of Ethiopia were called Gymnosophists, and that they received their name and philosophy from India.

* Court. Of Gent. Vol. II. p.75. ** Lib. iv. in Ezech. Cap. xiii.

Arrian says,* the inhabitants upon the Indus are in their looks and appearance not unlike the Ethiopians. Those upon the southern coast resemble them the most; for they were very black; …

* Hist. Indica, p.320.

Page 458

The use of the tonsure, by both Indian Buddhists of Tibet, and African Ethiopians, is a striking circumstance; and the prohibition of it, by Moses, as one contrivance to separate his people from their neighbours or ancestors,—as it proves that they once had it, tends to prove the original identity of the three nations. …

"The most venerable emigrants from India were the Yadavas; they were the blameless and pious Ethiopians, whom Homer mentions and calls the remotest of mankind. Part of them, say the old Hindoo writers, remained in this country, and hence we read of two Ethiopian nations, the Western and the Oriental : some of them lived far to the East, and they are the Yadavas who stayed in India; while others resided far to the West, and they the sacred race who settled on the shores of the Atlantic.[?] We are positively assured by Herodotus, that the Oriental Ethiopians were Indians, and hence we may infer, that India was known to the Greeks, in the age of Homer, by the name of Eastern Ethiopia."* "About this time," says Eusebius,** "some Ethiopians taking leave of their country upon the river Indus, came and settled in Egypt. Hence it is that Bacchus*** has been represented as the son of the river Indus. Hence arose also the notion that the Indian Dionusos was the most ancient : …" Plutarch**** tells us, that Phylarchus said, that Bacchus first brought the worship of the two Boves called Apis and Osiris, from India into Egypt. … I entertain a strong suspicion that these Boves were the horned male and female Osiris and Isis, for Apis was nothing but another name for Osiris.

* Maur. Hist. Hind. II. p.262. ** Chron. p.26

*** Philostrat. Vita Apollonii, lib. i. p.64 **** Isis et Osiris, Vol. II. p.362

Page 459

The ancients constantly called the country above the Egyptian cataracts India, and its inhabitants Indians. This is strikingly confirmatory of my hypothesis, that they came from India.* No one can suppose the Greek authors, from whom we have this account, to have made a mistake, and to have believed the country South of Thebes, was the country East of the Euphrates. It therefore follows that they must have been called Indians because they were known or believed to have come from India. …

* Univers. Hist. Vol. XVIII. p.252.

ETHIOPIC LETTERS

It is impossible to read the names of the Ethiopic letters in Astle* as they stand in order, and not see that though varied in shape they are really Hebrew. They have nearly the same names and stand in the same order. …

* Origin and Progress of Writing, Ch. V. p.90.

Page 460

Ludofus spent sixty years in the study of the Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, and African Ethiopic languages; and he declares that their affinity is so close, that whoever understands one may, without difficulty, make himself master of the other; but, that the African Ethiopic is the nearest, as we might reasonably expect, to the Arabic.*

* Univers. Hist. Vol. XVIII. p.286.

Page 461

"We have seen a manuscript in the hands of a private person, where the first twelve verses of the Iliad are carefully traced back to a Hebrew, Phenician, Chaldean, or Egyptian original; and we are convinced the same process will hold good in the like manner in verses taken from any of the most celebrated poets of Greece."* This goes to prove all the languages the same. There was one original, from which they all diverged like the spokes of a wheel. The farther you go back from the circle, the nearer they come together. The following judicious observation is made by the same author : "Abraham, the Hebrew, travelled among the Chaldeans, the Canaanites, the Philistines, and the Egyptians, and seemed to converse with them all with ease."

* Encyclopædia Britannica, Philology, Sect. VII. p.547.

But the Arabians might readily be a tribe from the nation of that name which are found to have been seated in India on the coast between the river Indus and the river Arabus.* This easily accounts for their places and rivers having the same names as the sacred rivers and places in India : for example, Suraseni or Saracens; and the existence of an Indian Arabia in this particular latitude and longitude is a most important fact, on which I shall have much to say hereafter.** Their first home was the Indus, and I think they had their names given them by the natives of Oude or Youdia, or by the Eastern Jews, to whom in their native country they were Westerns; and when both tribes emigrated, they kept their names. Our Jews were one tribe, the Arabians were another, of the same nation. … The Egyptians were nothing but the peninsular Arabians. They were originally the same, and had the same language.

* Arrian, Hist. Hind. Cap. xxi.; Nimrod, Vol. I. p.116.

** They are supposed by Nimrod to have been Omerites, that is, followers of the sacred Om.

Page 462

… Oude is spelt Ajewdheya by Galdwin in the Ayeen Akberry,* and in the Mahabarat it is called Adjudea;** that is, Holy Judea.

* Vol. III. p.255. ** Hodges' Travels in India, p.105.

Page 466

… If the Samaritan or Hebrew were the system of writing used by the tribe of Ioudi or emigrants from Oude, its having become a sacred language, secured in the adytum of the temple, will account for its remaining similar to the old Sanscrit, as described above, and for its having undergone little or no change.

After much reflection and examination of the scattered circumstances of antiquity, I think there is reason to believe, that the art of writing was at first kept as a secret, or Masonic mystery, by the priests for many generations, and that after it once became known, various contrivances were adopted to restore its character of secrecy. Hieroglyphics are one of them : a second, probably, was the artificial Sanscrit—which was, in great part, founded on the Hebrew, or was its son or brother; (vide CELTIC DRUIDS, Chap. II. Sect. XXVI.;) and being intended for the priests for their own caste alone, they made its common words deviate as much as possible from the original, if they do so deviate, so that the Hebrew can now only be discovered in the names of places, and rivers, and Gods : but there it is very perceptible. …

Page 472

The following observation, respecting the nature of the Sanscrit language, by Wilson, in the preface to his Sanscrit dictionary, I think confirms, in a very remarkable manner, my opinion that the Sanscrit was an artificial language, formed by the priests; and, if so formed, it would scarcely be so formed for any purpose but that of secrecy, and must have been confined to their own caste; as indeed it is, as far as it is in their power, at this day. I believe concealment was their object, as was the formation of Hieroglyphics in Egypt. "The Sanscrit root or Dha’tu, appears to differ from the primitives of other languages in its fulfilling no other office, and being incapable of entering into any form of speech : to fit it for this purpose, it must undergo many preparatory modifications, and it is then evolved, with the aid of additional particles, into a noun or verb at pleasure."* The Synagogue or Pentateuch Hebrew language was latterly confined to one little temple of one little country; the Sanscrit was dispersed and spoken among Brahmins scattered over countries more extensive than Europe, and widely divided : this is enough to account for the variation which exists between the first Veda and modern books. It grew into a spoken language among a very numerous class, and this caused it, like all other languages, to change; and, being the language of a learned society, the member of which were connected by colleges corresponding with each other, its change was for the better, till it arrived at perfection.

* Pref. p.xliv.

Page 473

Dr. Prichard adds,* "The affinity between the Greek language and the old Pali and Sanscrit is certain and essential. The use of cognate idioms proves the nations who used them to have descended from one stock."—"That the religion of Greece emanated from an Eastern source, no one will deny. Nor will the superstition from Egypt account for the fact, since the nations of Asia Minor, as the Phrygians and Lydians who had no connexion, partook of the same rites and mythologies, and approached still more nearly to the Eastern character. And the Greek superstitions more closely resemble the Indian than the Egyptian fictions. We must, therefore, suppose the religion as well as the language, of Greece to have been derived, in great part, immediately from the East."** If my reader will consider the above attentively, he will see that, in fact, it admits all for which I contend. It directly connects the Chaldee to the Parsi, Pali, Sanscrit, and to the Greek, as the facts of the sixteen-letter system might give us reason to expect. The reader will not forget that the old Arabic is nearly the same with the old Hebrew, Samaritan, and Chaldee. …

* P. 522. ** Physical Hist. of Man, p.525.

Page 477

My opinion on the Sanscrit has lately received a remarkable support in the statement of the learned Mr. Bop, of Berlin, in a review of a work of Professor Rosen's, of the London University, has observed, that he believes that there was a time when the differences between the Sanscrit and the Semitic languages had not developed itself.* In this the consequence is evidently implied, that the Hebrew and its sister dialects had originally all been one with the old Sanscrit, or with the language on which the Sanscrit was founded.

* Vienna, Annals of Lit. Vol. XLII. P.242.

Page 478

I think from these circumstances we may almost venture to reason on the Ethiopian language as the root of the old Sanscrit, or as being the earliest or most ancient language of India.

In the Buddhist book of Genesis the first man, or the race of man, is called by the name .9! adm. It is used as applied to the race, both in the masculine and feminine genders. … In the Ethiopic or this old parent of the Sanscrit a more probable meaning may be found. In it, adamah means beautiful, elegant, pleasant—beauty resulting from order—the same meaning as the Kosmoj of the Greeks. Upon this supposition, Adam would receive his name, not from a certain fictitious redness, but from the beauty and perfection of his nature—being, as it were, from superiority of mind, the master-piece of the creation. … I think their signification of beauty was derived from the supposed beautiful and orderly cyclical motions of the planets. In the Sanscrit books the two first persons are called Adin and Iva. "Stephanus pefi on Polewn, tells us, that Kfonoj or Saturn was called Adanoj : and that this Adanus was the son of heaven and earth, Eji de Ð Adanoj : which is a perfect description of Adam's production by God out of our earth. … And, indeed, the very name Adanoj seems to be the very same with .9! adm Adam. … For the Greeks having no words terminating in M, for Adam they pronounced Adan.Adana, an ancient city of Cilicia, built by Syrians, was called in memory of the first man Adam."* Here we have Adam in Greece by the same name as the Adam in India. …

* Gale, Court Gent. B. ii. Ch. i.

Page 481

I think I may safely lay it down as an indisputable principle, that if a colony or number of emigrants come from one country to another and bring a written language, they will bring the whole number of letters they used in their old country, and that, with perhaps some trifling exception, not fewer will ever be used. From this it follows, that the Sanscrit words and forms of construction, which are both in the Greek and Latin, must have come to the West before the Sanscrit was perfected to fifty letters. This consideration renders it highly probable that Col. Wilford's assertion, that the Sanscrit alphabet originally consisted of the Pelasgic or Cadmæan letters is correct. It is a most important observation, and of itself almost proves the truth of my theory, of the universal dissemination of the Cadmæan system. …

 

VOLUME I - BOOK IX - CHAPTER II

MARQUIS SPINETO—HIEROGLYPHICS NOT ANCIENT—EDINBURGH REVIEW ON CHANGE OF LANGUAGE—KNOWLEDGE OF HIEROGLYPHICS SUPPOSED LOST BY GREEK AUTHORS—NAMES OF THE PTOLEMIES AND ROMAN EMPERORS ON MOMUMENTS—TRANSLATION FROM CLEMENS AND THE ROSETTA STONE—JEWISH EXOD PROVED—AN OBSERVATION OF MR. SALT's—SIR W. DRUMMOND ON HIEROGLYPHICS—ROSETTA STONE A FORGERY—REWARD OFFERED BY AN EMPEROR FOR THE DISCOVERY OF THEIR MEANING—VARIOUS PARTICULARS RESPECTING THE NATURE OF THE SUPPOSED LANGUAGE—MARQUIS SPINETO NOT A SCEPTIC. &c.—BENTLEY. ZODIACS. ESNE. DENDRA

Page 482

Some time ago a learned foreigner, the Marquis Spineto, gave a course of lectures at Cambridge, on the discoveries of Messrs. Young and Champollion, which he has since published, and in which he has explained them at great length. To these lectures, as the most authentic account or summary of those discoveries with which I am acquainted, I shall very often apply in the course of this chapter.

Among the Western nations, in general, Egypt had the credit of being the parent of letters. This idea probably arose from the circumstance, that they were used in Egypt a considerable time before they arrived in Europe. Mon. Champollion thinks he has reduced the number of the Hieroglyphical letters, in one system, to seventeen, and the Marquis Spineto, in his lectures,* says he thinks the Egyptian alphabet in the time of the Pharaohs consisted of this number of letters. These circumstances powerfully support the system of the sixteen letters advocated in the Celtic Druids, and in the Preliminary Observations to this work.

* Page 95.

Page 483

… I still continue convinced that the knowledge of letters preceded the invention of hieroglyphics. … I am equally convinced that the discoveries of Messrs. Young and Champollion are mere chimeras; that either they are deceivers, or that they have been deceived. … Plato, Cicero, Pliny, Diodorus, and others, have been quoted to prove that the Egyptians were the inventors of letters; but all they say, when their whole text and context are considered, is, that letters came from Egypt to the West, or that a certain Thoth, whom I have clearly proved to have been the Buddha of India, invented them. The very circumstance of Thoth or Buddha having invented them, proves them not of Egyptian original. … In addition to the above, many rolls of Papyri, covered with letters, have been found inclosed in mummies, of which the cases are covered with hieroglyphics.

Page 484

I think it has been satisfactorily proved, that Egypt was not the original birth-place of letters, that is, of science or learning; but that it came to her, as well as Greece, from the East, and that, as it could not well come any other way, it probably came by way of Babylon. Then, if she were not the inventress of letters, how else are we to account for the hieroglyphics, except that they were a secret system ? The system of secrecy was in perfect keeping with the general practice of priests and philosophers all over the world at that time. All ancient authors agree in telling us, that their secrets were concealed under the garb of hieroglyphics.

Strabo* expressly says, that the Egyptians were mere sacrificers, without any knowledge of their ancient philosophy and religion. … Mr Knight observes, "in Egypt, probably AS IN OTHER COUNTRIES, zeal and knowledge subsisted in inverse proportions to one another." The observation is very severe, but alas ! too true. I believe that Diodorus Siculus may be ranked with Strabo.

* Lib. xvii.

Page 486

I believe the Hieroglyphics were never intended to be read, except by those who received, by tradition, the explanation of the different symbols or figures. The priests having been murdered by Cambyses, the secret was lost. (It was not the same with the Mexican Hieroglyphics. There was this important difference, that their traditionary meaning was not lost; for the Spaniards obtained it and preserved it, in Latin or Spanish, although they murdered the priests.) No doubt this traditionary knowledge of the Egyptians would constitute a great part of the learning of that day.

Page 487

When the Egyptians made the inscription in Greek and Coptic [Rosetta Stone], what could be the object of using the secret letter ? Was it to inform the priests ignorant of Coptic or Greek; or, was it for fear these languages should be lost, and therefore they used the sacred character, that the valuable information should be preserved in it, when the others were gone ? I may be said, that though it seems foolish enough to use three languages, yet this kind of folly is very common. I grant that the argument seems good, for we can scarcely ever give man credit for too much folly, or too little wisdom.

I pretend not to fix the year of the Jewish Exod; but I believe in that Exod, and that Hieroglyphics were invented after it. The conquests of Joshua, I contend, are DECISIVELY PROVED by a species of evidence which no philosopher can deny, in the sixth chapter and thirtieth section, and the note upon it, in the last page of the Appendix to my CELTIC DRUIDS; not by the evidence of lying priests, but by circumstance and the evidence of an unwilling witness; and this pretty well carries with it proof of the Exod of Moses. …

Page 488

Mr. Salt has observed,* that there is not the trace (In Hieroglyphics I suppose he means) of any monument remaining throughout Egypt or Nubia, of earlier than Rameses Thothmosis, who, he says, the best chronologists agree was nearly contemporary with Moses. If Mr. Salt be right in this, I need not point out how much it ends to confirm my hypothesis. …

* Essay, p.54.

Mr. Salt, in p. 31 of his Essay,* has given an account of an old name which, in his opinion, has been erased and a modern Ptolemy inserted in its place, but, from bad workmanship, in one instance discoverable. If a modern fraud have been executed, this must have been a part of it, and was evidently necessary.** …

* Vide Spineto, p.366.

** From Mr. Salt's Essay (p. 25), it appears that the name of the king who erected the obelisk now standing at Matarea was Misarte. Pliny says, Mestres and Kircher, from a Vatican MS., Mitres. This seems to connect it with the Persian Mithra, the name of the God taken by the person who erected it. The Indian and Egyptian practice of kings calling themselves by the names of the Gods seems to render all ancient history doubtful.

Page 489

Sir William Drummond has made the following ingenious observations on this subject : "The Greeks were no doubt curious to know all the secrets of the hieroglyphics : and the priests of Egypt were not willing to acknowledge to their masters, that they had lost the key of those mysterious symbols. It is very possible that they may have been acquainted with the meaning of the kuriologic hieroglyphics, and may also have retained the knowledge of the epistolary characters : but of the tropical and egnimatical, and allegorical signs and symbols, I cannot easily believe that they knew the meaning, and it may be presumed that they often imposed on the easy credulity of the Greeks. They chose symbols to denote their new monarchs and their queens : they enclosed between lines, or placed in circular, quadrangular, or oval frames, the emblems of their new divinities : and Ptolemy and Berenice, admitted to the honours of the apotheosis, beheld their hieroglyphics placed by the side, and perhaps sometimes in the room of those of Osiris and Isis. Long and adulatory inscriptions recorded the titles and the virtues of the Ptolemies : and these Gods, as they are styled, promulgated their decrees not only in the Egyptian and Greek characters, but in hieroglyphics, symbolical and tropical. But it is difficult to acquit the Egyptians of fraud on these occasions : nor is it easy to avoid suspecting the Greeks of sometimes lending themselves to the impostures practised by their flatterers."*

* Drummond on Zod. p.23.

… and I must freely declare that I believe the triple inscriptions are ingenious forgeries; that the name of the king, ill executed, discovered on a monument by Mr. Salt, has been placed there for the purpose of being discovered, and that the deed described in the Edinburgh Review, has been forged, and the counterpart placed purposely to be discovered—as antiques are placed every day in the ruins of Pompeii to be discovered by visitors; I suspect that they are all part of a great lie.

Page 490

It appears to me that the fact of the ignorance of the Greek authors is of itself a presumptive proof, that the trilinguar stones are modern fabrications. Their existence is totally incompatible with the admitted ignorance of Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and the inquisitive Clemens Alexandrinus the Egyptian.

A careful attention of the history of the world for the last eighteen hundred years has shewn me, that the priests of all religions have practised fraud to forward their objects; and that with a few exceptions in the first centuries of Christianity, when they avowed that it was meritorious to practise it, they have solemnly declared their innocence, while their guilt has been clear. …

Page 491

Whether the French sçavans were the inventors or the dupes of the fraudulent Rosetta stone I know not; but I can more readily believe that the priests have been at their old games, than that Diodorus, Strabo, and Clemens, and the Roman Emperors while offering rewards,* have been all ignorant of the state of the simple question, whether Hieroglyphics were in common use in their time or not.

* Spineto, p. 48.

… And as to the other stones, having on them inscriptions in the three kinds of characters, the same as those on the Rosetta stone, those who were capable of making one, were capable of making the others, and also of placing them where they, or, what would be still better, the English, would find them. … The very great ingenuity required to give these stones the appearance of antiquity, is to me no objection, when I consider the character of the French nation, and the perfection to which the art of similating the works of the ancient masters, in the arts of painting and sculpture, has been carried—and the manufacture of Etruscan vases, and the forgeries of the works of Berosus by Ennius, or the manuscripts of Shakspeare, by Ireland, and the various well-known forgeries of ancient inscriptions on stones, &c., &c., &c.

 

VOLUME I - BOOK IX - CHAPTER III

SEMIRAMIS THE SAME NAME AS HELEN—SEMIRAMIS WORSHIPED AS A DOVE—CAUSE OF QUARREL BETWEEN THE JEWS AND SAMARITANS—PHILO ON THIS SUBJECT—SEMIRAMIS CRUCIFIED—STAUROBATES. PHOINIX—ORION. PHOINIX CONTINUED—CECROPS. IXION. DIVINE LOVE CRUCIFIED

Page 496

I will now add a few more observations respecting the celebrated Semiranis, or the Indian Sami-Rama-Isi. Nimrod says, "The name of Semi-Ramis will occur to every reader; she was both a queen of unrivalled celebrity, and also a Goddess mother, worshiped under the form of the Dove that accompanied Noah in the Ark."

"He name signifies the supreme Dove, and is of precisely the same value as the Peleias or Pleias of the Greeks, and the Iona of the Syrians, Babylonish Chaldees, and Culdees or HEBRIDEAN* Chaldees. The learned Lycophron calls Helen a dove by two names of that bird, Peleias (which has been explained) and Oinas or the Bacchic dove. Helen** was born out of a waterfowl's egg, and that Hyginus relates evinces fully that she was the Babylonian Venus and the Dea Syria."*** …

* Here are the Culdees of the Hebrides, of whom I have treated at large in my Celtic Druids, with their saint Iona or saint and bishop Columba.

** Myrrha Mæris. *** Nimrod, Vol. II. p.249.

Page 497

… The Holy Ghost was generally female.

In the Syrian temple of Hierapolis, where between the statues of Jupiter and Juno stood the statue of Semiramis with the dove on her head, it was the custom of the priests to emasculate themselves, and to wear the dress of women. The same practice prevailed in the temple of Cybele in Phrygia. Mr. Knight knows not how to account for this. I believe it was done in honour of the female principle, the Ionism, which prevailed in these places in a peculiar manner. … From this we see that the pillar saints were not peculiar to Christianity, and that they preceded it many generations. Lucian also says, the temple at Hierapolis, or the sacred city, resembles the temples of Ionia.

At Hierapolis the female statue with the dove upon its head was called Sema.* This was the Semi-ramis of the Assyrians converted into a Dove, and the Rama-Sema or Sema-Rama of India.** …

* Faber, origin. Pag. Idol. Vol. III. pp. 33, 34. ** See Asiat. Res. Vol. IV. p.369.

The Goddess of Dodona had a dove on her head, and was called Dione.* This Dione was evidently Di-ioni or Di-iune, that is, the holy Iune—diva Iune. Noah, or Nh, or MNH, or Menu, or Mind, sent out a raven—the emblem of darkness—which made no return, produced nothing; he then sent out the dove, the emblem of Love, which brought back the olive, the emblem of wisdom, of Minerva. Efwj, Divine Love, was the Protogonos, the same as wisdom.

* Herodot. Lib. ii. 54, &c., apud Payne Knight on Symb. S. 73.

The above observations are strikingly supported by the following passages of the Jewish writings [Vulgate]: Jeremiah xxv. 38, …, xlvi. 16, …, l. 16, …

Page 498

The crime of the Samaritans was a return to the adoration of Taurus and the double principle, evidenced by setting up of the calves, doubtless both male and female, at Dan, and Bethel, and by the dove found in their temples, as reported by Rabbi Meir.

In the time of Rabbi Meir, as I have already stated, the image of a dove was found in the temple of Mount Gerizim.* This serves to shew, that one reason of the schism between the Jews and Samaritans was the return of the latter to the adoration of the Queen of Heaven. The Macaifaj `EllhnicÁj, the Hellenic Sword, clearly proves the truth of what I have before said, that Helen and Ione had the same meaning—that of the female generative power. The Septuagint often serves as a most useful gloss.

* See Bochart, Vol. III. Chap. I. p.6.

Philo Judæus says, that Moses learnt the rest of the sciences of the Hellenes* … And Clemens Alexandrinus says, that the Hellenes educated him in Egypt as a princely child, and instructed him in the whole circle of the sciences.** … Mr. Bryant says, "From what has been said, it appears plainly, that the Hellenes and Iones were the same people under different appellations. They were the descendants of Hellen and Ion, two names of the same personage; among whose sons idolatry first began in the region of Babylonia. He was styled Iön, Iönian, Ionichus, and was supposed to be the author of Magic. From him the Babylonians and the name Iönim, as well as of Hellenes; for these terms were used as in some degree synonymous." … This confirms my idea that the Babylonians were followers of the Yoni, and were emigrants from India. …

* In Vita Mosis, Vol. II. p.84. ** Strom. Lib. i. p.413.

Page 499

Thus Semiramis, or Semi-rama-isi, was the same as Helen, or, in short, Venus, or Divine Love. Her visible form was that of a Dove, as well as that of the woman, who was the Io of the Ionites, or Ionians of Syria, who was carried on the back of the TAURI-form Jove to Europe, where her followers were known by the name of Ionian Pelasgi, or Ionian sailors. …

… Again Nimrod says,* "The wheel upon which criminals were extended was a cross, of which two spokes confined the arms and two the legs. The dove of Venus (born on the banks of the Euphrates) was a mænad of fanatic bird, crucified on a wheel with four spokes, … "

* P. 306.

Page 502

From the Sibylline oracles I learn that the dove sent out by Noah was black. The mysticism of this black dove is pretty clear. I have seen very dark-coloured but never a raven-black dove. The dove was the only bird offered in sacrifices by the Jews.

 

VOLUME I - BOOK IX - CHAPTER IV

AMAZONS. GENESIS—AMAZONS, MEANING AND HISTORY OF—INVASION OF ATHENS BY THEM—AMAZONS IN THE TIME OF ALEXANDER, AND NOW IN INDIA—OBSERVATIONS ON THE RAM AND THE BULL—RELIGIOUS WARS AND SUCCEEDING PEACE—LETTERS KEPT SECRET—CHRONOLOGY

Page 505

… Among the ancients, many persons thought that the book of Genesis meant to describe the man and woman as at first created, to have been one and an androgynous being. It is there said that God created man in his own image, and, PRIOR TO THE CREATION OF WOMAN, created he him, male and female created he them. Many persons formerly believed that this first man and woman were united in one body.

Mr. Faber observes that this construction put upon the passage "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he HIM, male and female created he THEM," was adopted by some of the most learned Rabbis, whose names he gives at full length, who maintained that the word rib means side.* This we shall find has an evident tendency to prove that the mythos (as Dr. Geddes calls it) of Moses, is in reality the same as the mythos of the Hindoos.

* Pagan Idol. Vol. III. p.71.

The text says man was formed after the image of God; but God himself was believed to be androgynous. The text of Genesis (ii. 21) is 0*(3-7. ((! which means either, one from his sides or one from his ribs; but the latter is inconsistent with the context, which says in the 23rd verse, that the woman was made not only from the bones, but from the flesh of man. The double being, out of which it is said God formed the man and the woman, is nothing but the Amazon of the ancients; and the Amazon is nothing but a Venus Hermaphrodite—the same as that described in plate 31, figure 8, of the Supplement to Montfaucon's Antiquity Explained. They appear to be both the same in one respect, being both one half male, the other half female. The Isis sitting on the lotus, with the solar glory, is another example of this kind of double being, divided in various ways—sometimes crossways, and sometimes lengthways, as shewn in Montfaucon. Speaking of the worship of Artemis, by the Amazons, Creuzer says, On l'adorait dans le royaume de Pont, avec l'épithète significative de Priapina.

The word Amazon is composed of two very ancient words. The first is Ama or Ma, which, in old languages, means Mother. Its ubiquity proves its extreme antiquity. The second is an ancient name of the Sun, which was called Zon, Zan, Zaon, and Zoan. …

Page 506

… the following facts are extracted from a long passage of Mr. Bryant's Analysis.* The most considerable body that went under the name of Amazons, settled upon the Atlantic in Africa, at the extreme verge of that region. Of their exploits a long account is given in the history of Myrina.** She is supposed to have lived in the time of Orus, the son of Isis, and to have conquered Africa and the greater part of Asia : but was at last slain in Thrace. Amazons were also found in mount Caucasus, in Albania, and near the Palus Mæotis. Polyænus speaks of Amazons in India : and they are also mentioned by Nonnus. They likewise occur in Ethiopia. They at one time possessed all Ionia : and there were traditions of their being at Samos, and in Italy. … There was a town in Messapia, towards the lower part of Italy, named Amazonia.*** Even the Athenians and Bœotians were of the same family : hence it is said that Cadmus had an Amazonian wife, when he went to Thebes, and that her name was Sphinx : … **** He went first to Attica. The reader will not forget that the Sphinx was half Lion, (not Lioness,) and half woman. There were also Amazonian Colchians, who were noticed as being particularly black. The Iberians, the Cimmerians, the Mæotæ, the Atlantians of Mauritania, and all the Ionians, were Amazonians—and were called Azones, Amazones, and Alazones. They were also called Syri, Assyrii, Chaldæi, Mauri, Chalybes. They are said to have founded the cities of Ephesus, Smyrna, Cuma, Myrina Latoræ, Anæa, Eldæa, Myrlæa, Paphos, Cuna, besides many others. Lucian, in his dialogue between Vulcan and Jupiter, calls Minerva an Amazon.

* Vol. III. pp. 461, 462. ** Diod. Sic. Lib. iii. p.188, and p.185.

*** Steph. Bysant. **** Palæphatus, p.26.

I believe, with Mr. Faber,* that the statues of Amazons, said to have been worshipped at most of the places named above, were statues of the double God, or of the first man of Genesis, made after the image of God.

* Vol. III. p.80.

Page 507

The confusion of the history of the Amazons has hitherto set all theory at defiance. But I think a little consideration of what we said respecting the divisions and wars between the rival sects of the Brahme-Maia in conjunction, the Yoni alone, the Linga alone, and at last the reunion of the three, will enable us to account for it all. The wars of the Amazons were those between the followers of the male and the female principles, and their alternate successes. The truce with the Athenians, is a most important circumstance; for, after it is said to have taken place, they were heard of no more.* The reunion of the two sects took place at the time described in this truce : this is the figurative mode of describing the reunion of the religions.

* Lysias, Funeb. Orat., … , Bryant, Anal. Vol. III. pp. 478, 480.

Something similar to the story told of the race of the Amazons has been found in India, among the natives of Malabar, in a tribe called Nairs. A government actually exists there, in which the women, not the men, bear rule. … They seem to have been in existence in the time of Alexander the Great. The account of them may be seen in the fifth volume of the Asiatic Researches. Nimrod* has some curious observations respecting them.

* Volume II. p.328.

Page 508

When we come to the time of Alexander, we arrive at a period in which we may expect something like rational history. Bryant says,* "Some ages after, in the time of Alexander, an interview** is mentioned to have passed, wherein the Queen of the Amazons makes proposals to that monarch about sharing for a night or two his bed : and even in the time of Pompeius Magnus, during the Mithridatic war, they are supposed to exist; for, after a victory gained by that general, the Roman soldiers are said to have found many boots and buskins, which Dion Cassius (in bello Mithridatico) thinks were undoubtedly Amazonian." When I consider the unquestionable fact, that there is now a powerful and civilized tribe in India where the women are the governors and choose the men they like, and where the men are held in subjection, I cannot help thinking the story relating to Alexander probable. I suspect that they have had their origin from the extremes to which devotees have run in the times of the fierce contentions which arose between the followers of the male and female, the Linga and Ioni. …

* Anal. Vol. III. p.484.

** Cleitachus apud Strabonem, Lib. ii. p.771; Diod. Sic. Lib. xvii. p.549; Arrian, Lib. vii. p.292.

Homer states the Amazons to have come from India. There is an Amazon with only one breast in the cave of Elephanta, in India.* Mr. Faber says,** "The Amazon of the Elephanta pagoda, and of the wonder-loving Greek fabulists, is manifestly no other than the compound Hermaphroditic deity, who, by the Hindoos, is called Ardhanari, and who is formed by the lateral conjunction of Siva with Parvati. This monster, as delineated by the mythological painters of India, has, from the head to the feet, the right side of a man and the left side of a woman." "Near the statue in question reposes the mysterious Bull Nandi." On the Amazon of this cave, Col. Wilford*** says, the figure with one breast has been thought by most to represent an Amazon : it, however, appears to me a representation of the consort of Siva, exhibiting the active power of her Lord; not only as Bavani or courage, but as Isani, or the Goddess of Nature considered as male and female, and presiding over generation.**** …

* Maurice, Hind. Ant. Vol. II. p.152, ed. 8vo. 1800.

** Vol. III. pp. 63, 71, 82; Asiat, Res. Vol. IV. p.523

*** Asiat. Res. Vol. IV. p.414.

**** For the Amazon Ardhanari ishwar, see Bombay Transactions, Vol. I. p.220.

Page 509

The same doctrine as that of the Jews respecting the union of the male and female—of whom one with four hands, four legs, two faces, was formed—may be found in Plato, as detailed by Mr. Faber.*

* Orig. Pag. Idol. Vol. III. p.70.

This subject affords a direct proof that the true esoteric religions of Homer, the Hindoos, and the Jews, were all the same.

When I say that Moses substituted the Ram for the Bull, it does not necessarily follow that he designed to make the Ram an object of adoration or idolatry. To all idolatry he had an utter repugnance. But it seems certain, though I can perceive no reason for it, that wherever the worship of the Yoni prevailed, there was also idolatry. The prayers to the god Bull, which may be seen both in Faber and Bryant, are expressed as being offered to him merely as the emblem of a Superior Being. If Moses meant to keep his festivals in order, when the signs changed, he must of course provide against the change. The Ram never became an object of idolatry with any of the followers of Abraham, until the Yoni was again joined to the Linga. …

The view which I take of this subject is strikingly confirmed by the fact, that the Beeve or Urus was constantly of both sexes; but in no instance can the least appearance be discovered among the followers of the Sheep, except the male; for when the Sheep succeeded among the Assyrians to the Beeve, Astarte, &c., had the head of a ram, not an ewe. In the adoration of the Beeve, the Heifer or Cow is continually found; but in that of the Ram or Lamb of God, no instance of a female is, I believe, known. In the worship of Cristna, I also believe that no female will be found, except what existed in the previous system. …

Page 510

… the Jews were correctly followers of the God Iao alone. The Romish Christians have, along with the God Iao, adopted the Queen of Heaven, the Mother of God, the Regina Cœli, as they call her. They are followers of the double principle, and with it they adopt the adoration or use of images. These two have always gone together. The Protestants refusing the feminine principle, refuse also, as usual, the use of Images. Such is the fact. …

Page 511

Chronology. … A probable theory, perhaps, may be formed as to their succession, but there is no dating events to years until about the time of Cyrus, when the famous eclipse of Thales took place. M. Volney, in his researches into ancient history, has settled this question.

I apprehend the first race of people with whom we are acquainted, we know only from the Tauric worship, the Zodiacal division into 360 parts, and the book of the deluge, which fixes the year to 360 days. We have an obscure view of this doctrine existing almost every where over the globe. Its professors lived after the time that the sun entered the sign of the Bull at the Vernal Equinox, more than 4500 years before Christ. After these people came the Amazons and Cyclops, who invented arithmetic and perhaps letters, who worshiped upon the tops of mountains, in stone circles which they invented, and which they erected in accordance with the fine cycles with which those buildings clearly prove that their fabricators were acquainted. They were the race supposed by M. Baillie to have been highly civilized. These people may have flourished for a thousand or fifteen hundred years before the sun entered Aries. They were Negroes. They were Buddhists—by degrees adopting the Linga and Yoni as emblems, and the protecting Cobra. The first book of Genesis, the rasit or book of wisdom, is probably a work of these people. It contains enough to prove that its authors possessed great science, and a knowledge of the nature of the world, and of natural philosophy. …

Page 512

At the latter part of the time when the Cyclopes lived, arose the disputes about the two principles. For a time, the Amazonian doctrines, or the adoration of the female principle, seems to have prevailed among them. This elucidates the account that both they and the Amazons were builders of the Argos, Ephesus, and many other towns. This is supported by the Indian histories, from which we learnt that, about 3000 years before Christ, great and dreadful civil wars raged every where respecting religion, during which, as happened in the times of Christ, the world rapidly sunk into a state of ignorance, and the fine science of the makers of the Cycles was lost. This accounts for many hitherto unaccountable facts and traditions. …The histories state the wars to have been attended with alternate successes—sometimes one party prevailed, sometimes another. The wars about the male and female principles were accompanied by wars about the change from Taurus to Aries. Men seem to have been as absurd in ancient times, and to have destroyed each other and their fine works, for dogmas as trifling and childish as those contended by the Homoiusians and Homoousians, Papists, and Protestants, in modern times; proving as observed before, the truth of what Solomon said, that there was "nothing new under the sun." …

 

VOLUME I - BOOK IX - CHAPTER V

CYCLOPES—CYCLOPÆAN BUILDINGS—ALL ANCIENT HISTORY FABLE OR ÆNIGMA—MUNDORE, &c.—THE CYCLOPES IN MUNDORE—ABURY AND SERPENT WORSHIP—FREEMASONS IN MUNDORE. ALMUG—FOURMONT. THE TEMPLE OF ONGAR

Page 512

The explanation which I have given of the Argives, the Hellenes, the Ionians, and the Amazons, seems to me to be satisfactory, but I cannot say as much of the Cyclopes; … the consideration of the prodigious number of buildings attributed to them, seems to demand something more. The French Institute, in 1804, made out that there were 127 towns in Europe, which had anciently been, at least in part, built in the Cyclopæan style. The Cyclopes must have been as general as the Amazons.

Dr. Clarke supposes the Cyclopæan style to have been cradled in the caves of India. The Cyclopæan gallery at Tyrins is curious on account of the lancet arch, which is common in very old buildings, in India.

Page 513

In the works of the later Greeks, the Cyclops are represented with only one eye. … Winkleman, in his Monumenta Antiqua inedita, observes, that in the earliest periods the Cyclops were represented with two natural eyes, and a third in the middle of the forehead. This seems to connect them with Jupiter, who, before the Trojan war, was called Trioptolemos—Trilochan : and this again with the Hindoo Gods, some of whom are described in pictures in the cabinet of the Asiatic Society, with three eyes. Thus when we really get to the bottom of the Greek mythologies, we always find ourselves in India. …

The Cyclopæan buildings, including the Druidical circles of large stones and tumuli, were common in Greece : but the Greeks knew not by whom they were fabricated … . The ignorance of the Greeks I believe arose from the buildings having been constructed long previous to the knowledge of letters, unless the use of letters was kept a secret by a few individuals or an initiated class of society, which I think it was : and I think that initiated society were themselves the persons called Cyclopes. The buildings were executed under the direction of a great, powerful, and dominant priesthood. The remains of buildings which we call Cyclopæan, and with which I include those called Druidical, are of so peculiar a character, that they cannot be compared to no others in existence. … It is evident that they were in existence before the time of known history, and that their fabricators must have possessed considerable knowledge of astronomy and skill in the mechanical arts. … As the Buddhists are the oldest religionists with whom we are acquainted, we are naturally led to appropriate them to this sect, which many circumstances tend to confirm.

Page 515

… Respecting this city [Mundore], in the following passage of Col. Tod's beautiful book, we have what I think will lead us to the origin of the Cyclopes : "Whoever has seen Cortona Volterra, or other Tuscan cities, can form a correct idea of the walls of Mundore, which are precisely of the same ponderous character. It is singular that the ancient races of India, as well as Europe, (and whose name of Pali is the Synonym of Galati or Keltoi,) should, in equal ignorance of the mechanical arts, have piled up these stupendous monuments, which might induce their posterity to imagine, 'there were giants in those days.' This Western region, in which I include nearly all Rajapootana and Saurashtra, has been the peculiar abode of these 'pastor kings,' who have left their names, their monuments, their religion and sacred character, as the best records of their supremacy. The Raj-Pali, or Royal Pastors, are enumerated as one of the thirty-six royal races of ancient days : the city of Palithana 'the abode of the Pali,' in Saurashtra (built at the foot of mount SATRUNJA, sacred to Buddha) and Palli in Godwar, are at once evidences of their political consequence and the religion they brought with them, while the different nail-headed characters,* are claimed by their descendants, the sectarian Jains of the present day."**

* Nail-head, the characteristic of the Etruscan numerals. ** Tod's Hist. Raj. p.726.

Page 516

… In the first place, if the Palli be Celts, this exactly accords with every thing which I have said, in my Celtic Druids, respecting the Celts' coming from North India, and building Stonehenge, Abury and Iona, &c.

In the next place, their religion and name of Jain or Janus, and their Nail-headed letters, connect them with the ancient Italians—Etruscans.

Colonel Tod very justly considers the Palli or Raj-pali, or the country of Pali-stan, to extend over all Rajapootana and Guzerat, or Syrastrene or Saurastra. But we have the Pali, or Pallestini, on the Hellespont; the pallestini, at the mouth of the Padus, of Italy; and mount Paltinus of Rome, and Palestræna, or the Sacrum Præneste, and the celebrated Pali-Raj or Royal Pastors of Egypt, the builders, probably, of the Pyramids. … This Raj is the Roi of Gaul. I think the word Raj is the same as ray, or radha, or radius, an emanation from the Sun, and probably the kings, monarchs,* affected to be emanations from the Supreme, or from the Sun, or, as they call themselves, sons of God.** The coincidence more important than all the others is, that we have here the Pallestini or Philistines of Western Syria—the capital of which was GAZA. In the country of the Palli, above described by Col. Tod, on the summit of a hill, close to an artificial lake, in about lat. 26, 20, long. 40, (notived before,) is the very ancient city called Ajmere or Ajimere or Ajemere. This was existing in the time of Ptolemy, and was called by him Gaza-mera.*** Here is Gaza on the border of a mere or piece of water, an artificial sea, in India, and Gaza on the sea-shore, in the Western Syria. There was a Gaza also in Egypt; and when Memphis was near the sea, before the emergence of the Delta, Gaza was its port.

* Monarch Mn—Arch.

** At the side of a mountain scooped out of the solid rock, Col. Tod says, p. 726, "is a noble Bowli or reservoir." What will the enemies of mixed etymology say to this ? Will they be so obstinate as not to see the English Bowl in the Indian Bowli ? Most likely this was a Piscina.

*** Tod, Hist. p.772.

Page 517

In the word Mundore, I think we may find the origin of the Cyclops the fabricators of these buildings. The words Munda and iLi8@H, circulus are synonymes—iLi8@H is a mere translation of Munda, and they mean cycle. The Greeks, through profound ignorance, from iLi8@H made cyclops, or round or one eye.

It is probable that the Cyclops were named in allusion to iLi8@H a cycle, and @N4H or the Hebrew "&! aub a serpent, the circular serpent, or the serpentine circle. There cannot be devised a more proper emblem of an eternally-renovating cycle, than the Cobra serpent, with its tail in its mouth, periodically renewing itself by casting its skin. The deadly poison of the Cobra is an emblem of the destroying power; and the Hood which, in thousands of instances, we see him extending, sometimes over the sleeping Kanyia, and sometimes over the conjoined Yoni and Linga, and sometimes over the figure of Buddha, is, under this peculiar circumstance, a beautiful emblem of the preserving power. Then might not the people of Mudore be Ophites—followers or inventors of the serpentine cycle ?* The word Cyclopes, then, will mean the founders of cycles. Munda correctly means cycle, as well as circle and the mundane revolution. Col. Tod has observed that the Palli and Keltoi are synonymous. I need not remind my reader of the very extraordinary manner in which the ancient Druidical or Celtic monuments are constructed in reference to the different ancient cycles, of the oriental nations—the 3, the 7, the 12, the 19, the 30, the 60, the 144, the 188, the 600, the 608, the 650,—all in serpentine the temple at Abury; and, I have no doubt, the famous Carnac, for the age of the world. We must recollect, that Mundus means i@`:@H, which means beauty arising from the orderly disposition of the heavenly bodies, moving in their cyclic revolutions.

* ?B4H divine vengeance; ?Q a voice; N"L to bring to light; ?M4H a snake.

Page 518

Thus the Royal Shepherds were the founders of the system of cycles, perhaps expelled from India; afterward certainly expelled from Egypt. In the Saturn-ja, sacred to Buddha, and the Saturnia Urbs of Virgil, that ancient city on which Rome was built, may be found the father of Jove, Buddha,—also the Bal or Pal, or Palli in Godwar, the fathers of the Heri-culas or Hericlo-es, (found on the coast of Malabar,) and the Agni-culas or Agni-clo-es, a race who might first adopt the adoration of the Ram, or unite it with that of the Zur-aster, or the fire of solar orb. The Heri-culas and Agni-culas* are very like the Jani-cula of Rome, and from the Palli might come the Mons Palatinus.

* Yaj-niculas ?

The mixture of the Naga or Serpent worship, with the traditions relating to Mundore and the Pali and Ioudi, often noticed by Col. Tod, is very striking; and, notwithstanding the brevity of the records of Western Syria and Judæa, the Nehusthan of Moses shews it was as really common to the religion in the Western as in the Eastern Syria. And the Serpent temple at Abury, with its Hakpen or Nag-pen, shews the union of the two in Britain.

The head of the Serpent Temple at Abury is called Hackpen. This is evidently the Pen head, the Hag, the old English word for Serpent. In Hebrew 1( hg means a circle or circular motion. Job, xxii. 14, says, .*/:-1&( hug samin, the circle of the planets, or heavens; and in Syriac ;&-1( hglut means a circuit. Now, I think the :(, nhs or serpent was called Hag from its circular, and, of all the beasts, solely circular, form, from its likeness to eternity … joined to its eternally renewing itself by casting its old skin or residence when decayed, and putting on a new one—added to its most deadly power as destroyer—thus uniting it, in every thing, with the Logos, the wisdom, the self-existent, the cycle, the creator, preserver, and destroyer. The serpent laid eggs, which, like those the offspring of the selected human female, were impregnated with the solar ray. … As the emblem of the nursing mother of all, the earth, when its young are alarmed, they flee, or were believed to flee, for refuge, into the bosom of their parent. I am not surprised that the most refined of philosophers should have invented so beautiful an allegory.

Page 519

On the ruins of Mundore may be seen various mystic emblems, as the quatre-feuille, the cross, the mystic triangle, the triangle within a triangle, &c. … So, my good friend, Col. Tod, you are surprised that there should be masonic emblems upon the ruins of Mundore, the capital of the Ioudi, or Juds or Yuda, in the country of the Palli, or Philistines of Gaza-mera, where Jessulmer was, and unquestionably the earliest of the Mounts of Solyma—of Bit-Solumi or temples of Solomon. But though this may surprise you, it will not surprise his Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex, or any Mason of high degree. But the author is himself a Mason, and that of high degree; HE MAY SAY NO MORE. Yet he will venture to add, that though much of the learning of that ancient order remains, much is lost, and much may yet be recovered. But it is not every apprentice or fellow-craft who knows all the secrets of the Order.

The infamous Fourmont who destroyed the inscriptions on the marbles in the Morea, discovered the temple of a God or Goddess called Ongar, i.e. Minerva. The shrine of this deity is one of the twelve most sacred places in India. It is the sacred island of Mudana or Mundatta, (i.e. Munda-datta,) peculiarly sacred to the God OM or M, i.e. 600,* on the Nerbudda in Lat. 22, 16—Long. 76, 20—called by Sir John Malcom Ongkar. It is not far from Burg-oonda and Maundoo, and not very far from the great Mundore, which was once thirty-seven miles in circumference, whose ruins bespeak a most magnificent city in very ancient times.** Munda-datta means correctly the cycle or circle of Buddha, Datta being one of his names—Book V. Chapter I. The ruins of the ancient cities of the Buddhists, in this country, shew them to have been a race of people of prodigious power and magnificence. The Mundas are all Buddhist and I doubt not Cyclopæan. If the Buddhist Cyclops of the West, were anything like what the ruins of their cities in the East shew them to have been, we need not be surprised at the vastness or grandeur of their temples and buildings which remain to us. …

* Malcom's Cent. Ind. Vol. II. p. 505. ** Ibid. p.13.

Page 520

… that a state of society of a very superior kind existed long previous to any Grecian historians or traditions, I think no one who meditates upon the remains of Druidical and Cyclopæan buildings can entertain any doubt. How is it possible to doubt that an uniform system must have prevailed, which gave rise to the same style of building, the same names of towns, rivers, and districts, in all quarters of the globe? The same superstition is apparent every where, and it is very clear, that the superstitions of the ancients with which we are acquainted, are only the remains or corruptions of a previous and universal system of which we have no history, but part of which I am now rescuing from oblivion. I beg to remind my reader that originally in Rome, Greece, and Egypt, which conveys with it India, there was no idolatry, except it was simply the Linga, as the emblem of the creative power. This was the religion of Budddha, the ;*:!9 rasit of Moses, the religion of Melchizedek, which, in the second preface to my Celtic Druids, I said I should unveil.

 

VOLUME I - BOOK IX - CHAPTER VI

SERPENT OF GENESIS—OPHITES—SERPENT OF GENESIS THE LOGOS—DIFFERENT ÆRAS OF BUDDHISM—DUPUIS

Page 521

The reason why the serpent became the emblem of the destroying power, in Genesis, has never been satisfactory or clear to me. It is said that, according to that mythos, he is made, by the Ophites, the emblem of the Creator, because, by persuading Eve to eat the apple, he was the immediate cause of the propagation of the species—that without the opening of the eyes, by which expression is meant, in fact, the exciting of the desire of procreation, the race of man would not have been multiplied—and that, without its influence in making man in this respect wise, he would have for ever continued in a state of unprolific though innocent ignorance. According to the allegory in Genesis, little as it is understood, we may certainly conclude, that the serpent put in motion the human formative power, and was at the same time the cause of death, or at least apparent destruction, of man—of his decomposition or return to dust.* But I think the Cobra was emblematic of something more than the destroying power. Buddha was the protogonos or first-begotten, the first emanation of divine power, wisdom, by whom and for whom all things were created. But the creator of all things was also the destroyer; and the Naga being the emblem of the destroyer, and the destroyer being divine wisdom, it became also the emblem of divine wisdom; the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the creation. Gen. iii. 1.

* I think if I can shew that the literal meaning of Genesis contains an absolute impossibility in itself, we must, for the reason alone, have recourse to an allegorical meaning, after the example of all the ancient Jews and Christian fathers. Adam and Eve are ordered to increase and multiply; and had not the serpent brought death into the world, before the end of the first four thousand years the number of persons on the earth would have been so great, that they must have devoured every animal, and have been obliged to feed on one another. Long before the expiration of this period of time, the surface of the earth would have been so covered with people, that they could not have stood for want of space to stand on.

… But from the refined deductions above, it [the serpent] might have become the emblem of wisdom. It might be the emblem of eternity for another reason—for the same reason which made the Phoinix or Palm-tree the emblem of eternal life. It possessed the faculty of renewing itself without the process of generation or fructification, as to outward appearance, by annually casting its skin. This annual renewal made it emblematical of the sun or the year. Thus we see how all these refined allegories rise out of one another, almost without end; generally to outward appearance absurd, but, when understood, often beautiful. I think that no unprejudiced person reading Genesis would ever suspect that the serpent there named was the evil principle or the Devil. The literal meaning both of the text and context in fact falsifies any such idea : and yet almost all Christians priests (choosing to have recourse to allegory to serve their own purpose,* though they never cease abusing those who teach that the book is an allegory) maintain, that a real devil or evil principle is meant; and that by the text merely a common serpent is not literally to be understood. The fact is, they have among them the tradition of its true oriental meaning, but how to explain it they know not. …

* The Devil is the grand ally of priests. In these days certainly, no Devil no Priests.

Page 522

It is very certain that, in ancient times, the serpent was an object of adoration in almost all nations. The Indians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans, kept serpents in their temples alive; and treated them with the highest respect. From this superstition, I do not doubt that the Ophites, of whom we know very little, took their rise. … I can pay very little attention to the accounts of the Ophites retailed from Origen, by Matter. I can only received a few insulated facts, which are confirmed by other evidence. They seemed to have placed at the head, or nearly at the head, of all things, and most intimately connected with the serpent, a certain Sophia. This is clearly a translation of the word Buddha into Greek, and strongly reminds me that the old Buddhas are always under the care of the Cobra Capella. I think we may conclude from this, that they honoured the Serpent as the emblem of the God of wisdom. Their enemies tell us, that they professed to derive their veneration from the serpent from Genesis.

As I have just now stated, I do not doubt that the sect of the Ophites had its origin from the consideration, that the destroyer was the creator, that destruction was regeneration : and the Cobra, as being the most deadly of the serpent tribe, which annually renewed itself, with its tail in its mouth, was considered the most appropriate emblem of the destroyer and regenerator, in fact, of the saviour. Thus we see Buddha, the creating power, constantly protected by the destroying power. The Cobra, the Ioni, and Linga, seem to be the only emblems admitted in the early Buddhist monuments, while I have no doubt that the earliest had no emblem. The God was represented seated, naked, contemplative, and unornamented. By degrees emblems increase in long periods of time. … They go on slowly at first : at length the minds of men becoming accustomed to innovations they proceed in geometrical progression. Thus, figments of nonsense go on increasing, till some intrepid fanatic takes offence at them, and preaches against them—a bloody civil war then arises about nothing, and the emblems and the beautiful temples which contain them are destroyed.

Page 523

This is the history in India, in Egypt, and in ancient and modern Europe. A high state of civilization, and skill in the fine arts and sciences, do not prevent, but seem rather to encourage, the increase of this foolery. Let us look at Rome and Greece. …

The Ophites are said to have maintained, that the serpent of Genesis was the Aogoj and Jesus Christ. This confirms what I have said above. The Logos was divine wisdom, and was the Buddha of India. The Brazen Serpent was called Aogoj or the WORD by the Chaldee Paraphrast,* and for this word they use the Chaldee !9// mmra.** Thus the Cross, or Linga, or Phallus, with the serpent upon it, was called by the letters which conveyed the idea of word, or voice, or lingua, or language. The serpent was the emblem of the evil principle or destroyer, but, as before stated, the destroyer was the creator, hence he had the name of OFIS; (in Hebrew "&! aub;) and he was the Logos or Linga, he was also ?Q a voice, and in Hebrew !9// mmra. …

* Basnage, Liv. iv. Ch. xxv. ** Ib. xxiv.

In Exod. iii. 14, God is called %*%! aeir. This word is formed from the root %*% eie or %&% eue, which signifies to live, exist, or be.* But %&% eue or !&*( hiua, or, as we miscal it, Hevah, but correctly Hiva, was the name of Eve and of a serpent. … It was, says Mr. Bryant, an emblem of DIVINE WISDOM and of the creative energy by which all things were formed : Divine Wisdom, that is, Buddha. Maximus Tyrius states, that when Alexander entered India, he found a prince who kept an enormous snake as the image of Bacchus.** … In a future page we shall find that several illustrious females were believed to have been selected and impregnated by the Holy Ghost. In these cases, a serpent was always supposed to be the form which it assumed. This was the incarnation of the Logos; this was what I alluded to when I spoke of a selected female, in Chap V. Sect. 6, of this book.

* Bryant, on Plag. of Egypt, p.203. ** Class. Journ. Vol. XXIII. p.14.

Page 524

In almost all the emblematical groups of the Indians, we meet with the serpent in one shape or other. When it has its tail in its mouth, no doubt it is the emblem of eternity. But though it is admirable for this purpose, that is but a small part of its meaning. It is worthy of observation that it is found on very nearly the oldest of the Buddhist monuments. And the serpent most particularly chosen in India, and often found in Egypt, where it is not a native, is the Cobra or Naga, or hooded snake. This Buddhist foreigner, in Egypt, sufficiently shews that the Buddhist worship came to Egypt before the invention of Hieroglyphics. … The Cobra, with its tail in its mouth, would denote eternal formation and destruction, the eternal renewal of worlds. …

I think the different æras of Buddhism may be observed in its monuments. Its first æra is shewn, by Buddha, as a Negro, seated cross-legged, perfectly naked, without any ornaments whatever. This is the first stage of idolatry, unless it were proceeded by the stone pillar anointed with oil. In the next, he is slightly clothed, and accompanied with the Naga or Cobra Capella. In the next, he is accompanied with vast numbers of figures, of men, women, children, and animals : but he is never himself a monster, with several heads or hands, nor are his attendants monsters. In the net stage, he is accompanied with the Cobra with many heads—but with no other monster. After this comes Cristna with every absurdity that can be conceived. …

"As far as these Egyptian remains lead us into unknown ages, the symbols they contain appear not to have been invented in that country, but to have been copied from those of some other people still anterior, who dwelt on the other side of the Erythræan ocean. One of the most obvious of them is the hooded snake, which is a reptile peculiar to the South-eastern parts of ASIA, but which I found represented, with great accuracy, upon the obelisk of Rameses, and have observed also frequently on the Isiac table."* …

* Payne Knight, Wors. Pr. p.90.

Page 525

The three most celebrated emblems carried in the Greek mysteries, were the Phallus, the Egg, and the Serpent; or, otherwise, the Phallus, the Ioni or Umbilicus, and the Serpent. The first in each case was the emblem of the Sun, of fire, as the male or active generative power; the second, of the passive, and the third of the destroyer, the re-former, and thus the preserver;—the preserver eternally renewing itself. The universality of the Serpentine worship or adoration no one can deny. It is not only found every where, but it every where occupies an important station; and the farther back we go, the more universally it is found, and the more important it appears to have been considered.

About thirty years ago, a very learned Frenchman of the name of Dupuis, published a work* called the History of all Religions, in which he undertook to shew, that the labours of Hercules, and almost all ancient mythology, were astronomical allegories, applicable to a state of the sphere corrected or thrown back to a very period. His success, as to many parts, cannot for a moment be doubted, and particularly as to the labours of Hercules. That those labours which we read in Diodorus Siculus and other authors, are all depicted in the heavens cannot be denied. Those labours are so closely connected with the signs and divisions of the Zodiac, as not to be separable from them. They must, I think, be contemporaneous or nearly so. Now, when my reader considers what has been said respecting the Indian origin of the Ionians, the Argives, the Hellenes, and the Amazons,—that, in fact, they were sectaries driven out from upper India, is it not possible that these labours had their origin in the wars which then took place, all over the world, between different sects; and, consequently, that it was about that time that the sphere was invented by Chiron the Centaur ? … The battles of Hercules and the Titans, &c., &c., are only the European counterpart of the Indian battles of Cristna described in the Mahabarat; they are the same thing painted according to the peculiar taste of the two nations.

* This book, I am told, is now becoming extremely scarce, the devotees every where having made desperate war upon it, particularly the Jesuits of France. The globes which were made on purpose for it I have never been able to obtain either in Paris or elsewhere. Persons who have not perused this work, have no right to give an opinion on the subject of ancient mythology.

VOLUME I - BOOK IX - CHAPTER VII

MOON RESUMED. WATER. ISIS—PRITCHARD ON THE MOON—PLUTARCH ON THE MOON AND ISIS—ISIS UNKNOWN TO GREEKS AND ROMANS—CRESCENT. ORIGIN AND ADORATION OF IT—BAPTISMS—ICE. PAYNE KNIGHT'S EXPLANATION OF ITS NAME—INFLUENCE OF THE MOON

Page 526

Among the attempted explanations of the immense mass of confusion which the ancient mythologies exhibit, there is nothing much less satisfactory to the rank and character which they ascribe to the moon. … She is represented as Isis, the wife of Osiris, that is, the sun. … But the moon was masculine as well as feminine. This raises the awkward obstacle of his being the wife of Osiris. And yet Osiris is said to enter into the moon and impregnate her. On the 17th of the month Athyr, Osiris entered into the moon. On this day Noah entered into the ark. This alone, if every thing else were wanting, would be sufficient to prove the identity of the two mythoses.

Dr. Pritchard observes of the moon, "The name Isis seems only to have been applied to the moon, in the same manner in which Virgil gives the appellation of Ceres to that celestial body. The general acceptation of both these names is much more extensive."* "Plutarch generalises all the attributes or character of Isis, and considers her as representing the female qualities or powers of nature, which are the passive principles of generation in all productions; whence (he says) she is called, by nature, the nurse and the all-receiving, and is commonly termed Myrionymus or possessing ten thousand names.**…."

* Pritchard, Egyp. Myth. p.132. ** Plut. De Iside, Cap. liii.

Page 527

After this, in p. 145, Dr. Pritchard observes that, according to Apuleius, Isis was called in Egypt triformis or the triform Goddess, and was worshiped both as a malignant and benignant Deity. Here we have most distinctly the Indian Trinity, the creator, or preserver, and the destroyer. …

… When we read of the moon as the wife of the sun, and of the sun entering into the moon and impregnating her, their conjunction, at the beginning of each new cycle, was probably alluded to. The produce of their conjunction was the new cycle—the renovation of nature.

Plutarch says, the moon was called Mhthr Selhnh tq cosmq. But Selene was the same as Cybele, Da-Mater—in fact, the Great Mother.* Cybele was called the Idean Mother, or Mother Ida. This is the title of the mother of Meru, called Ida-vratta, or the circle of Ida. On the highest part of Ida was a Gargazus or stone circle, called, from the Sanscrit, Cor-Ghari.**

* Bryant, Anal. Vol. II. p.442. ** Faber, Anal. Vol. III. pp. 31, 229.

The sun was the emblem of the male, the moon of the female, generative power. They appear to be, as they are called, the two greater lights, and from this the moon came to be perpetually confounded, as an object of adoration, with the female generative power, and her crescent with the Omphalos, the Argha, or the Ioni. Her crescent, from its shape, in a very peculiar manner favours the mistake—for we never see the half moon or a full moon. The emblem became the object of adoration; the object of the emblem was often forgotten. Nothing of this kind could so easily happen to the sun.

Page 528

Plutarch, as stated above, says, that the Egyptians called the moon the mother of the world. Sir William Drummond, after shewing that the Greeks and Romans did not understand the Egyptian mythology, says of Plutarch, "This author would have adhered more exactly to the Egyptian mythology, if he had written Minerva or Neitha, instead of the Moon, and Pthah or Vulcan instead of the Sun."* Proclus makes Neitha say, The Fruit which I have brought forth is the sun :** then how can she be the moon? Neitha was also divine wisdom.

* Class. Journ. No. XLI. ** Ibid.

But as I have said before, the Greeks and Romans knew as little of the real oriental doctrines, indeed, I may say less, than we do at this day, therefore it is not surprising to find them making mistakes. From these and other expressions of the same kind, I conclude with Sir William Drummond, that Plutarch had no idea of the real sublime nature of the oriental and original Trinity, or if he knew it, he did not choose to disclose it.

The famous inscription on the Temple of Isis, quoted at length in Book VI. Chapter II. Sect. 8, proves that Isis was not the moon, and that, in fact, the moon was only a planet dedicated to the Goddess. … I should think this at once proves that Isis cannot be the Earth or the Moon. How can any imagination invent a mythos, allegory, or history, which shall make the sun the produce of either of these bodies ?

Page 529

Among all nations, and from the very earliest period, water has been used as a species of religious sacrament. This, like most of the other rites of the ancients when examined to the bottom, turns out to be founded on very recondite and philosophical principles, equally common in all countries. We have seen that the sun, light, or fire, was the first preserver, at the same time that he was the creator and the destroyer. But though he was the preserver and the regenerator, it is evident that he alone, without an assistant element, could regenerate nothing, though that element itself was indebted to him for its existence. That element was water. Water was the agent by means of which every thing was regenerated or born again. Water was in a peculiar manner the agent of the sun : without the Sun, either light, heat, or fire, water would be an adamantine mass. Without water, the power of the sun would produce no living existence, animal, or vegetable. Hence, in all nations, we find the Efwj, the Dove, or Divine Love, operating by means of its agent water, and all nations using the ceremony of plunging, or, as we call it, baptizing for the remission of sins, to introduce the hierophant to a regeneration, to a new birth unto righteousness. In like manner, in almost all nations we find sacred rivers. …

Fire and water are beautifully emblematical of the creating and destroying powers of nature. Water is the opponent and destroyer of its creator, fire. In turn fire evaporates and destroys water. Yet fire, as already intimated, is the former of water, from the icy adamantine block, its natural state. … Thus they are destroyers and creators in alternate succession. …

Page 530

The absolute necessity of the presence of water with the solar ray, to produce fructification, is obvious. The apparent effect of the moon in producing dew and water, and its connexion with the tides, were probably one cause of its being feigned to be the spouse of the sun, and also its dedication to the female generative power, or Isis. As the second of the planets the moon was thus feigned to be the wife of the sun. Jointly they produce; without her, as water, the sun produced nothing.

Having seen the close connexion between the creating, the preserving, and the destroying powers, we shall not be surprised to find that the mystical baptism extended to them all. Thus there were baptisms by water, by fire, and by air. … We have before seen that air, the breath or spirit of God, the AIR IN MOTION, … or Holy Ghost, was emblematical of the regenerative power—the spirit of God brooding (as Bishop Patrick says) on the face of the waters. All the three are found, both in the doctrines of the Gentiles,* and in the secret doctrines of the gospel of Jesus. … All this will be called mystical. Indeed, it will be truly so called. But it is an intelligible mysticism, easy to be understood by those who give their minds to it. It contains nothing above or beyond the grasp of the human understanding. It is founded upon principles of sound philosophy and truth. It is no small proof of the good sense and sound philosophy of the professors of the Buddhist religion, that when they come to the boundary line beyond which they cannot go, they stop and call it illusion. The very idea of illusion, thus used, is beautiful. And now we begin to have a distant yet obscure view of an universal system of philosophy and truth, connected, by this baptismal ceremony, with the religion of Jesus—a really universal system; and, perhaps, in the end, we may find, that the followers of the Pope have a better reason, if they chose to give it, for their assumption of the name Catholic, than the ridiculous one which they generally assign, viz. the universal dissemination of their church : an assumption, in the sense in which it is received by their followers, false and absurd.

* Nimrod, Vol. I. p.119.

… The reader has seen that I have derived the name of Isis from the Hebrew 3:* iso and the Greek zww to save; and I think this very probable : but Mr. Payne Knight, first premising that he thinks the Io of the Syrians to be the same as Isis, says, "Her name seems to have come from the north : there is no obvious etymology for it in the Greek tongue : but in the ancient Gothic and Scandinavian, Io and Gio signify the earth : as Isi and Isa signify ICE, or water in its primordial state : and both were equally titles of the Goddess that represented the productive and nutritive power of the earth : and, therefore, may afford a more profitable etymology for the name Isis, than any that has hitherto been given."* I give no opinion on Mr. Knight's theory; but before my reader decides against him, I beg him to recollect that water was considered as the emblem of the passive principle, in opposition to fire, the active principle; that water, in a purer state, is actually ice, the emblem of the passive principle : when compounded with fire, the active principle, it is the emblem of the two—the regenerator—the Linga and Ioni—the Isa and Isi, from 3:* iso to save; and, by the water of baptism, to be saved. …

* Payne Knight on Symb. Lang. of Anc. Myth. S. 54.

… In India Is-wara and Isa, or Brahma and Sara-iswati, in Egypt Osiris and Isis. Osi-ris was often written Isi-ris; and Plutarch says also, Usiris and Asiris.* This shews that the two words are only the same in the different genders. …

* Ed. Squire.

… As we have the origin of the word Ice in Isis, so, in similar manner, we have the origin of the name of water in the Is-wati or Is-wara, Ise-9!* iar to flow; 9-9!*-:* is-iar-di.

Page 532

I apprehend the word IS to be a word of the most ancient language : in English IS, in Hebrew :* is. It meant existens or perhaps hypostasis. As existens, it meant self-existent or the formative power; and as this power or creator was the preserver, the word 3:* iso the saviour, and Isis, came to be formed from it. …

 

VOLUME I - BOOK IX - CHAPTER VIII

RIVERS OF SAME NAME—JORDAN—VARIOUS RIVERS CALLED DON—DONCASTER, &c.—PHILISTINES OR PALLI

Page 533

Almost all great rivers have been called rivers of the sun. … The name of rivers, the Nile, for instance, is said to mean sun—not that it means the river of the sun, but the river sun. …

The first river I shall notice is the Jordan, called in Genesis xiii. 11, 099*% e-irdn, that is, as our translators say, the Jordan. The word 099*% e-irdn consists of, in fact, three words. … THE … RIVER (from to flow) … the vowel a being dropped, as is very common in the Hebrew language. Respecting the word 09 dn, Parkhurst gives as the meaning of it, to judge or rule; as a noun, with * i 0*9 din, a judge, and with a formative a 09! ADN, a ruler, director, Lord—spoken of God. "Hence the word ADONIS had his name," and the Welsh Adon a Lord. … Hence we have the meaning of this river—the river Adonis. I suppose I need not remind my reader, that Adonis was the sun;* therefore, the Jordan ought to be, or might be, translated the river of the sun. …

* Drummond, Œd. Jud. p.231.

Page 534

The word duna was the Median name of a river, and was carried to Europe by the tribes migrating from upper Asia. Thus it makes its appearance in the names Tanais, or Don, D'nieper, Rha-danus, Rho-danus, and Eri-danus.* In North India the Don is called Dena and Dond,** that is Don-di, or Dis, or Divus holy.

* Cab.. Enc. Vol. I. p.41. ** Rennell, mem. P.88.

The celebrated river called by the ancients Ister, is now called Danube. It was also called Don-eau, as appears from old local authorities. Dan-ube and Don-eau, both mean water of the Don. The Danube or Ister was known also by the name Danusius or Tanais : in which the Puranas coincide with Horus, Apollo, Eustathius, and Strabo.* Tanais is evidently a corruption of Dan-usius,—I-ster : I, the Celtic emphatic article; Ster, star, astrum, THE planet.

* Eustath. on Dionys. Perieg. V. 298; Wilford, Asiat. Res. Vol. III. p.453.

In Russia there is a river which flows into the Sea of Azof … now called Don but anciently Tanais; … Dr. Lempriere says, "Don is a corrupt appellation of the ancient Tanais. There is a city at its mouth now called Azof, but the Sclavonian traditions say it was anciently called Ass-grad or city of Aas." This shews the meaning Tan-ais, was Don-ais or Don-aas—and I think meant outlet of the Don : and aas-zof is aas-sophia, or eau-soF, Sea of Wisdom. …

Page 535

In the North of Scotland we have a river, which flows through the town of Aberdeen, called Don. This is the same as the river Don or Dn in Syria, and the town of Aber-deen is 9"3 obr the far or distant deen, whatever the word deen may mean : but probably the far don or dun. The river at Whitby in Yorkshire is called Dunum or Don.* In Yorkshire is another river called Don, on which the Romans had a station, or castrum, whence a beautiful town took the name of Don-caster. …

* Young's History.

In Lombardy, in Cisalpine Gaul, there is a celebrated river called Eridanus. This is evidently Eri-dan or E-ri-dan, with a latin termination us, which being left out we have % e THE 9* ir RIVER 0$ Du, DON or Adonis. … The country about the mouth of it was inhabited by the Om-bri, and there was a town at its mouth called Palestinos. The river is now called Padus or Po, which is one of the names of the Ganges and of Buddha. The country was also called Pagus Tro-ianus, and at the vertex of the Delta formed by the river, the city of Padua was built.

Page 536

Nimrod again says, "But the river Ganges bore the same name (being that of the God Buddha or Batta) as the Eridanus of Italy; …and as the Nile was fabled to be the Euphrates, renascent in Ethiopia, so again, it was pretended, that the Euphrates and Tigris did not really rise from their apparent source in Armenia, but after travelling one thousand miles from the East, …that, as Paradise was at the source of the Indian river, by fabulous tradition, and of the Euphrates by Scripture authority, the Euphrates must be the Ganges Eridanus prolonged."* A Coptic name of the Euphrates is eu water, and Ffh=608—River of the Sun as usual.

* Nimrod, Vol. I. p.56.

"Next to the emigration of the Yadavas the most celebrated was that of the Palis, or Pali-putras : many of those settlements were named Pálist’hán, which the Greeks changed into Palaistine. A country so called was on the banks of the Tigris, and another in Syria. The river Strymon had the epithet Palaistinos. In Italy we find the Palestini : and at the mouth of the Po, a town called Philistini : to which may be added the Philistinæ fossiones, and the Philistinæ arenæ in Epirus. As the Greeks wrote Palai or Pali, they rendered the word Paliputra, by Palaigonos, which also means the offspring of Pali : but they sometimes retained the Sanscrit word for son : and the town of Palaipatrai to this day called Paliputra by the natives, stood on the shore of the Hellespont."* Here the two Palibothras are sufficiently clear. And the Pallestini or Philistines, as we call them, in India, on the Tigris, in Syria, on the Hellespont, on the Strymon, and on the Po, are very striking. They are all derived from the Indian name Palli, and Stan, a stone or place.

* Asiat. Res. Vol. III. p.369.

Page 537

Mr. Bryant observes, "It is said, that the Eridanus was so called first by Pherecydes Syrus."* And Plutarch** says, that the Strymon is a river of Thrace, which runs by the city of Edonis … : it was of old called the river of the Palæstinus.*** The town he calls Edonis, is called also Eion. I have before observed, that I take this to be a corruption of Yoni or Ione; and this Edonis I suspect was Adonis, and in this, again, connects it with the Syrian Ionian superstition. The Strymon in the North of Greece was originally called Ioneus, as Conon (Narr. iv.) tells us.**** There was, according to Pausanias, also a river in Attica called Eridanos. …

* Eratosthenes, Catasterism, 37. ** De Fluminibus, Vol. II. p.1154.

*** Bryant, Anal. Vol I. p.377. **** Cumb. Orig. Gen. p.265.

Another river Don is found in the Rhodaun, now called the Vistula, falling into the Baltic near Dantzig. This was anciently a celebrated place for amber. To this river the Phœnicians and Carthaginians resorted for the purchase of amber, with which they supplied the Roman empire. It had the name of Eridanus, and by its name Rhodaun, it evidently connects the Rhone with all the Dons. The Rho-daun is the River-Daun. It is said Herodotus mistook a river for the Tanais which he called Rha, now the Wolga or Volga. …

 

VOLUME I - BOOK IX - CHAPTER IX

LORETTO—OBSERVATIONS ON HOMER, THE ILIAD, AND THE ÆNEID

Page 540

… In this part of the world [Mudore, India], there yet exists a sect of religionists called Nazoreans, or Nazoureans, or Mundaites, or Christians of St. John—a sect of which I shall treat by and by. …

The Casa Santa of Loretto, every one knows, according to the Romanists, is the real house in which the mother of Jesus Christ lived at Nazareth, or the city of the Natzir, or the hermit, or the flower, whence he was called a Nazarene and his followers Nazarenes. This house was removed by angels, from Syria, to its present situation. It was first conveyed to Dalmatia; but it having been discovered by the angels, that they had placed it among thieves, they took it up again and brought it to where it now stands, a place called Loretto, on the Italian shore of the Adriatic Sea. Here sits the mother of God, the Mama-deva, the Regina Cœli, with her infant in her arms, both as black as jet, loaded with diamonds, and every other kind of precious stone. Her humble cottage is covered with a casing of beautiful worked stone, to skreen both it and herself from impertinent curiosity, and over the door, to guard it or ornament it, stands the statue of the Erythræan Sibyl. In Syria, whence she came, there was a town, on the Orontes, called Larissa : this word, it is evident, has been softened down in the Italian fashion into Loretto. Thus she was brought from one Lar-issa to another. In Syria were Juda and Palestine. Italy, where she is now placed, is the country of Saturn-ja, where also is the Urbs Saturnia of Virgil. It is in the district of Palitana, the district of the Palli or Palestini, which has been before noticed, at the mouth of the river which has the same name as the great river of the country whence she came, Padus, or Buddha, or Po, or Fo. This country was also called Ombria or the country of OM.

When Jesus was on the cross, he ordered John to take charge of his mother, and he, from that time, took her to his own home. Was this the city of Munda where the Mundaites, or Nasourenas, or Nazarenes of St. John come from ?

I have little or no doubt that the fable of the Virgin's house was taken from the fable of Poona Gir. POONAH or PUNAH is the Mexican term for woman. It is, I strongly suspect, the Greek Gunh. Here we have in the hill of virtue the first idea of virtue, as applied to a chaste female. This will be better understood when I treat of Mexico.*

* David Malcom's Essay on Ant. Of Britain.

Page 541

Thus we have the ruins of the sacred, and most ancient, Cyclopæan city, called Mund-ore, in India, and Munda in Spain, and Mundus having the same mystical meaning as Kosmos. We have Virgil's city of Saturnia, and the Palli at the mouth of the Eridanus, or Padus, or Buddha, of Italy. In India we have the mount of Satrun-ja, in or near Pali-thana, the same as the Roman mount Palatine, at the mouth of the Ner, or river Buddha, the same as Padus in Sura or Syra-strene, whence the sacred temple was carried : which Syra-strene was also called by the ancients,* Larice, that is, Larissa, which I beg may not be forgotten, as I shall have to make an observation upon it and its meaning hereafter. Not far from the Satrun-ja Palithana is a place called by Ptolemy Byzantium. The old name of Constantinople was Byzantium, but this was changed by Constantine to Constantinople, and it is now called by the Turks Estambul, or Stambul, which has been thought a corruption of Constantinople; but this opinion Mr. Bryant has refuted. When I find several places in India called Stambul, I then come to the conclusion that Stambul has been the first name corrupted by the Greeks into Byzantium. Stambul in India is not far from the river Chumbul, called by D'Anville Sanbal, and I believe that the both had the same name. There was a second place called Stambul, close to the Balkan mountain, not far from Chumla, in Europe : was this also a corruption of Constantinople ? The city of Roma, is the city of Rama, equally found in India, Western Syria, Italy, and by its other synonym Valencia, in Spain and Ireland. Not far from Rome is the Indian town of Viturba,** now Viterbo. There is also Palæstrina, now Præneste Sacrum.

* D'Anville. ** Tod, p.216.

When a person reflects upon the histories of the Old and New Testaments, found in India and the ancient temples of Egypt; the adventures of Cristna in India, and of Joseph and his family in Nubia; he will not be surprised to find the legend of Loretto in Syrastrene, or Jodpoor, or Yuda-pore. However, surprised or not, here it is in high preservation, and it cannot be denied. …

Page 542

I consider the Æneid to be a sacred epic poem, and to contain a complete description of the ancient mysteries, as far they were known, but conveyed in a language which should only be understood by the initiated.* … Virgil declares that Rome was built on the ruins of two successive cities, which had both gone to destruction; one called Janiculum, the other Saturnia, i.e. Satrun-ja : … We all know that Rome was built on seven hills. Its mysterious character I have sufficiently proved. Constantinople, Nova Roma, we know had the same sacred peculiarity. Troy has been shewn by Nimrod to have been the same. Many authors have thought the Iliad to be copied from the Jewish books. Certain marks of identity may be discovered in them. In the Jewish and Gentile mythoses, we have Samson and Hercules, Jonas and Janus, Jephtha's gaughter and Iphigenia. We have an Ileyan or Illium at mount Meru, in India; Pergamos, the capital of Troy, is Perg-om or Berg-om, the mountain of Om, one of the names of Meru. We have a tribe of Hericulas, on the coast of Malabar. We have the names of Ulysses and Cæsar : and, in addition, Achilles and the Hero of the Mahabarat, of Valmic, are each invulnerable in every part but the heel, and by a wound in the heel of each hero he is killed—as Cristna was, or ought to have been, when bitten by the serpent—as the serpent bit the heel of the seed of the woman of Genesis.

* All our translations of Virgil's works, in consequence of the translator's not knowing or not attending to the mythos, are absolutely ridiculous.

The poems of Homer I consider to have been originally sacred Asiatic songs or poems, adopted by the Greeks, and that, for perhaps many generations, they were unwritten; and, as they related to the cyclic Mythos, they would, in the principal part, suit every cycle,—new Argonauts and new Troys. They were like the plays of Æschylus, each an epic, but all combining to form the history of the cycle, to those who were initiated, and they were the origin of the cyclic poems. … Had we the whole of the plays of Æschylus, as we have the crucifixion of Prometheus, uncorrupted by our modern emendators, I think it probable that, with our knowledge derived from India, we should find in them the development of the system. When the poems of Homer were composed, the art of writing, if known, was a magical and masonic secret. At that time the digamma or VAU was in use. This is the reason why we are without it. Poetry was never invented for its beauty, but for the purpose of aiding the memory; and it was applied to music for the same reason. A song in verse can scarcely be forgotten.

Page 543

… Homer, as remarked by Basnage, is said to have resided a long time in Samos. Not far from this island, on the continent, are the Mount of Solomon or of the Solumi, and the Holy Ladder, &c., described in the last book, chapter III. sect.7. Near this place are a river Indus, a mount of Carmel, and a town of Jasus, evidently Jesus, and near it also was Miletus, where there was a shrine of Apollo, celebrated for his prophecies; among which is the following, which may be added to those of Virgil, of Plato, of the Apollo of Delphi, of the Sibyls of Cuma and Erythræa, of the infant of the Virgo Paritura of Gaul, of the prophecy noticed by Tacitus, and that of Figulus, of Zeradust, and of the Druid of Bochara in Ireland. Lanctatius makes the Apollo of Miletus say, "He was a mortal according to the flesh; wise in miraculous works; but, being arrested by an armed force by command of the CHALDEAN judges, he suffered a death made bitter with nails and stakes."* In this, of course, devotees will see nothing but a Gentile prophecy of Christ. Perhaps they may be right. But at all events we have a crucified God in North India, in South India, at Miletus, and in Syria. In the above we have most clearly the mythos of the Indians and of the tribe of Juda united. The scene of it lies in Phrygia, where the city of Ilion in Troy was placed, whence the Romans got their Pessinuncian stone, and which the natives of India to this day call Roum, in which they include the whole peninsula of Asia Minor. The reference to the Chaldean judges shews, that this can have no reference to the crucified saviour or our Bible. Who this crucified person of Roum or Roma was, I shall shew in a future page.

 

VOLUME I - BOOK IX - CHAPTER X

ENOCH. LAURENCE—MOUNT MERU—THE DELUGE—CHANGE FROM TAURUS TO ARIES—PROPHECY OF A SAVIOUR—PROPHECY OF TEN CYCLES—THE ELECT ONE SLAIN—CHANGE IN EARTH'S AXIS—GENERAL OBSERVATIONS

Page 544

Mr. Bruce, on his return from Abyssinia, brought with him three manuscripts which purported to be exemplars of the Ethiopian version of the long-lost and much-desired book of Enoch. …

This celebrated and very interesting remnant of antiquity has been translated into English, by Bishop Laurence, a professor of Oxford, who maintains that he has succeeded in shewing, from internal evidence, that it was written after the Babylonian captivity, but before the reign of Herod. I am of opinion, if I understand the Bishop, that it contains internal evidence of a much earlier date. … I do not profess to be certain that I understand either the seventy-first chapter, or the Bishop's note upon it; but if I am right in my supposition that the writer makes the Equinox fall, in his time, at the beginning of Aries, then the date of the work must have been above 2400 years before Christ, at the latest. …

Page 545

The following are the passages which I contend are wilful mistranslations, pious frauds of the Bishop's : En taij ecclhsiaij ou panu Feretai æj QeiaThe church considers it not an inspired production.*

* Prel. Dis. p. xiv.

No doubt I shall be accused, as I have been before, of a rage against priests, and for illiberality in what I say against them in many passages of this work. How can I do otherwise than speak against an order, against whose frauds and usurpations on the rights of mankind this work is expressly levelled—this work whose leading object is to undeceive mankind, now the slaves of its arts ? I trust I am not insensible to the private virtues of great numbers of priests the dupes of their order—of their chiefs; but what am I to say or to think when I find a reverend doctor of Oxford, in the nineteenth century, guilty of such baseness, as that which I have exhibited above, and as a consequence, instead of being disgraced for such an act, made an archbishop ? Since his promotion he has, I am told, suppressed his translation. If the suppression of it be an act of remorse, let him say so. I hope it is so. But I believe it is suppressed for a very different reason.

Of course it is held by our priests, who have already more sacred books than they can manage, to be a forgery; but Bishop Laurence admits that it is noticed by Clemens Alexandrinus and Ireneus, and that neither of them alludes to its spurious character.* The truth is, that it is quoted by them precisely like any other canonical sacred scripture.

* Prel. Dis. p. xiv.

Faustus quoted the book of Enoch against Augustine,* who, instead of denying its genuineness, admits it, and I do not think it appears that this admission is granted by way of argumentum ad hominem. In short, I have no hesitation in saying that it is, in my opinion, to the full as well established as a work existing before the time of Christ, as Isaiah is; for Isaiah is not quoted by any author that I remember before the time of Christ. … Every argument which applies against Enoch as stated above, applies against Isaiah; and I am much mistaken if the argument does not go farther. The argument from fulfilled prophecy is as fair for one as for the other. …

* IX. 3.

Page 546

Bishop Laurence has astronomically proved the book of Enoch to have been composed between 45 and 50 degrees of north latitude. (This is not far from the north of India, central Asia, the kingdom of Ioudia, where I have shewn that the first great nation flourished, and where I have placed Shinar. …) He has shewn also, that its original language was the Hebrew, which was formerly proved by Scaliger, from the fragments preserved by Syncellus, which are found in the present book. Now I beg my reader to tell me, whether he would wish for a stronger circumstantial proof of what I have been saying of the Hebrews or foreigners being a race of emigrants from Upper India, bringing with them the Arabic and Hebrew languages to Ethiopia ? I think the evidence must be pretty strong to compel the Bishop to admit the TWO facts. Since he became a bishop, this learned Orientalist, perhaps, has discovered that it contained proofs of disagreeable circumstances, and these may have caused its suppression.

We have seen that in northern India we have the Jewish history of Solomon, David, &c., and that the Arabians had the same history. There is also in each of these countries the story of Saul; but it is very remarkable that, in both of them, he is called by a name unknown to the Western Jews, viz. Talut. Under all the circumstances I cannot conceive a stronger proof that the Arabians came from India, and not from the Mosaic Jews of Judæa.

The following passage of the book of Enoch, ch. xxiv., is so clearly descriptive of Mount Meru, that it cannot be mistaken, and proves the author to have been intimately acquainted with the Hindoo doctrines.

"1. I went thence to another place and saw a mountain of fire flashing both by day and night. I proceeded towards it : and perceived seven splendid mountains, which were all different from each other.

"2. Their stones were brilliant and beautiful; all were brilliant and splendid to behold : and beautiful was their surface. Three mountains were towards the East, and strengthened by being placed one upon the other; and three were towards the South, strengthened in a similar manner. There were likewise deep valleys, which did not approach each other. And the seventh mountain was in the midst of them. In length they all resembles the seat of a throne, and odoriferous trees surrounded them.

"3. And among these there was a tree of an unceasing smell : nor of those which were in Eden was there one of all the fragrant trees which smelt like this. Its leaf, its flower, and its bark, never withered, and its fruit was beautiful.

"4. Its fruit resembled the cluster of the palm. I exclaimed, Behold ! this tree is goodly in aspect, pleasing in its leaf, and the sight of its fruit is delightful to the eye. Then Michael, one of the holy and glorious angels who were with me, and one who presided over them answered,

"5. And said, Enoch, why dost thou inquire respecting the odour of this tree ?

"6. Why art thou inquisitive to know it ?

"7. Then I replied to him and said, Concerning every thing I am desirous of instruction, but particularly concerning this tree.

"8. He answered me saying, That mountain which thou beholdest, the extent of whose head resembles the seat of the Lord, will be the seat on which shall sit the holy and great Lord of glory, the everlasting King, when he shall come and descend to visit the earth with goodness.

"9. And that tree of an agreeable smell, not one of carnal odour, (of flesh,) there shall be no power to touch, until the period of the great judgment. When all shall be punished, and consumed for ever, this shall be bestowed on the righteous and humble. The fruit of this tree shall be given to the elect. For towards the North life shall be planted in the holy place, towards the habitation of the everlasting King.

"10. Then shall they greatly rejoice and exult in the holy one. The sweet odour shall enter into their bones : and they shall live as their forefathers have lived : and neither in their days shall sorrow, distress, trouble, and punishment, afflict them.

"11. And I blessed the Lord of glory, the everlasting King, because he had prepared this tree for the saints, formed it, and declared that he would give it to them."

I think the reader must see in verse 4, in the Palm the Phoinix tree of Meru; and in ver. 9, the mount of God in the sides of the North mentioned by Isaiah, ch. xiv. 13.

When I reflect upon this tree, I cannot help suspecting it is connected with the allegory of the trees of life and of knowledge in Eden, whose branches are words, whose leaves are letters, &c., &c.

In chap. xxxi. he again gives a description of seven mountains of the North with odoriferous trees.

In chapters lxxxvii. and lxxxviii. is a very clear allegorical description of the deluge : and a star is said to have fallen from heaven. … The change from the Bull Taurus to the Ram Aries, is so clear that it cannot be mistaken.

Page 548

… Let it not be forgotten that almost all the histories of Genesis have been long known to be in the Vedas; and when the places in India called after David and Solomon are considered, it will not be thought surprising, that their histories should be found there also.

… In short, when I couple the wild but still methodical mysticism of this book with what the reader has seen, I can feel no doubt but that it contains a concealed history of the change of the religion from Taurus to Aries. The house of the Lord, the bishop thinks, is the temple of Solomon. Of this there can be no doubt : but it may have been the temple in Cashmere; and, considering it proved that this work was written in the North of India, it is most probable that it was the temple of Solomon in Cashmere.

The Deluge of Noah and Noah himself are distinctly noticed by name; but I think in such a way as to shew that it cannot have been copied from the Jewish book. The Trinity is also most distinctly named, under the appellation, as Bishop Laurence translates it, of Lords—two of whom, together with the Lord of spirits, are said to have been engaged in the formation of the world. Here is again the Oriental doctrine. …

Page 549

The forty-eighth chapter contains the prophecy of some one to come, of a new incarnation, of a saviour, which cannot be disputed, in the following words :

"1. In that place I beheld a fountain of righteousness which never failed, encircled by many springs of WISDOM. Of these all the thirsty drank, and were filled with WISDOM, having their habitation with the righteous, the elect, and the holy.

"2. In that hour was this son of man invoked before (ad, apud) the Lord of spirits, and his name in the presence of the ancient of days.

"3. Before the sun and the signs* were created, before the stars of heaven were formed, his name was invoked in the presence of the Lord of spirits. A report shall be for the righteous and the holy to lean upon, without falling, and he shall be the light of nations.

"4. He shall be the hope of those whose hearts are troubled. All who dwell upon the earth shall fall down and worship before him : shall bless and glorify him, and sing praises to the name of the Lord of spirits.

"5. Therefore the elect and the concealed one existed in the presence before the world was created, and for ever.

"6. In his presence he existed, and has revealed to the saints and to the righteous the WISDOM of the Lord of spirits : for he has preserved the lot of the righteous, because they have hated and rejected the world of iniquity, and have detested all its works and ways, in the name of the Lord of spirits."

* Signs of the Zodiac.

In several other places this incarnation is named; he is said to be present with the ancient of days, whose head was like white wool. It is said that he shall raise up kings and hurl mighty ones from their thrones, because they will not praise him, or humble themselves before him. He is identified with the Lord of spirits. He is called WISDOM*—the ELECT, THE MESSIAH. It is said that he shall sit upon a throne of glory, and shall judge sinners.** And finally it is said, that the saints shall rejoice because the Lord of spirits has executed judgment, for the blood of the righteous WHICH HAS BEEN SHED; alluding to the blood of the elect one.

* Ch. xlii. ** Ch. xlv. Sect. vii.

How can this be accounted for ? Does the prophet not here allude to the crucified Buddha, Cristna, or Balajii ? Here we see long before the death of Christ, the righteous blood of the elect one had been shed. At all events, at the death of Christ the doctrine of the death of the elect one was not new.

But to me the most interesting of all the passages is one which clearly makes out the cycles which I have been contending for among the Jews. The book says,

"Chap. xcii. ver. 4, Enoch then began to speak from a book and said : I have been born the seventh in the first week, while judgment and righteousness wait with patience."

Here is evidently the first cycle ending with the translation of Enoch. See Book V. Chap. III. Sect. 2.

"5. But after me, in the second week, great wickedness shall arise, and fraud shall spring forth.

"6. In that week the end of the first shall take place, in which mankind shall be safe."

This is curiously contrived to describe the eight years of the Cycle of 608 running into the next or seventh century.

Page 550

"7. But when the first is completed, iniquity shall grow up : and he shall execute judgment upon sinners.

"8. Afterward, in the third week, during its completion, a man of the plant of righteous judgment shall be selected : and after him the plant of righteousness shall come for ever."

Here are the three cycles, ending with the birth of Noah the righteous.

"9. Subsequently, in the fourth week, during its completion, the visions of the holy and the righteous shall be seen, the order of generation after generation shall take place, and an habitation shall be made for them. Then, in the fifth week, during its completion, the house of glory and of dominion shall be erected for ever."

Here in the fourth, probably, is meant what answers to the ark coming to Gerizim or Shilo, as the Samaritans say, and in the fifth is the temple of Solomon.

"10. After that, in the sixth week, all those who are in it shall be darkened, the hearts of all of them be forgetful of wisdom, and in it shall a man ascend.

"11. During its completion also the house of dominion shall be burnt with fire, and all the race of the elect root be dispersed. (Babylonian Captivity.)

"12. Afterward, in the seventh week, a perverse generation shall arise : abundant shall be its deeds, and all its powers perverse. During its completion, the righteous, selected from the plant of everlasting righteousness, shall be rewarded : and to them shall be given seven-fold instruction, respecting every part of his creation."

Though the allusion, as explained by Bishop Laurence in the words in parentheses, are sufficiently clear, I think it is evidently not copied from the Jewish Bible as we have it.

"13. Afterward there shall be another week, the eighth of righteousness, to which shall be given a sword to execute judgment and justice upon all the oppressors.

"14. Sinners shall be delivered up into the hands of the righteous, who during its completion shall acquire habitations by their righteousness : and the house of the great king shall be built up for ever. After that, in the ninth week, shall the judgment of righteousness be revealed to the whole world.

"15. Every work of the ungodly shall disappear from the whole earth : the world shall be marked for destruction : and all men shall be on the lookout for the path of integrity.

"16. And after this, on the seventh day of the tenth week, there shall be an everlasting judgment, which shall be executed upon the watchers : and a spacious, eternal heaven shall spring forth in the midst of the angels.

"17. The former heaven shall depart and pass away : a new heaven shall appear : and all the celestial powers shine with seven-fold splendour for ever."

Thus ends the numbering of weeks; and I think the reader must confess, that I could scarcely have wished for a confirmation of my theory of the ten cycles more decisive. …

I cannot well conceive any thing more corroborative of my theory than that this curious work should be written in the Hebrew language, be located in the mountains of Afghanistan, and be found in the country of the African Ethiopians. That all these facts should be made out for me by the learned Bishop, for very learned he most unquestionably is, without having the least suspicion of the nature of my theory, which, if he had had, he would have been most violently opposed to it, and without having any theory of his own—what can be more striking than that it should so clearly describe my ten cycles !—what more curious than its prophecy of the Saviour!

Page 551

In this book we find a clear description of a future Messiah or incarnate Saviour. It is also foretold that he is to be put to death. Most of the Jewish history, as well as the Pentateuchian history, is found here, as are also some of the most striking of the doctrines of the Hindoos—particularly their mount Meru and their Trinity—so that the close connexion between India and its author, cannot be disputed. The Christian professor of Oxford maintains that it is not genuine; but he proves that it was written before Christ. Then how is the prophecy to be explained,—the fulfilled prophecy ? …

I suppose at this day no one will be weak enough to maintain that this book of Enoch is divinely inspired, as it is rejected by our conscience-keepers the bishops. Then what are we to make of it ? Here are all the leading doctrines which I have been contending for clearly maintained. … When all things are considered, it surely affords very extraordinary evidence. I have shewn that the history of Genesis is, in all its leading particulars, to be found in the East; and, in several of the most important points, that it is a copy from the oriental one, if either be a copy. … Then do we at last come to this, that the whole is a mythos concealed under an apparent history; or, is it blended with true history in order the better to conceal it ?—like the poem of Homer, a true basis and an allegorical or fabulous superstructure. But we must not forget that the history of Solomon, his temple, &c., may all refer to the Eastern as easily, and indeed much more easily, as to the Western Syria. I must once more remind my reader, that all attempts hitherto made to account for the anomalies of ancient history and mythology, have utterly failed to satisfy any persons, except mere devotees, who, in every nation, are the same, and are always satisfied with what their priests tell them; and that my exertions to discover the truth are in opposition to the frauds of the priests of all religions, as well as the effects of time, which is always aiding them in their system of suppressing evidence and in keeping mankind in ignorance.

Page 552

I must not omit to notice a very extraordinary part of the prophecy relating to Noah and the flood. It says, Ch. lxiv. Sect. xi. ver. 1, p. 163, "In those days Noah saw that the earth became inclined, and that destruction approached."

This is a most extraordinary assertion, that the flood was caused by the disturbance of the axis of the earth, and is so totally original and unexpected that Bishop Laurence has placed it at the end of the book, because, he says, it is an evident interpolation; but he gives no reason for this, and has none, I suppose, except that he cannot give the author credit for the astronomical doctrine of the change of the earth's axis. I look upon it as a very curious and ancient tradition respecting the cause of the flood, which has been considered to have been its real cause by many both of the ancient and modern philosophers. …

Page 553

I think my reader will have no difficulty now in perceiving the general characteristic marks of one system every where prevailing. It has been the great misfortune of the world, that its professors, its Vyasas, Pythagorases, and Platos, have all been deluded with the idea that the doctrine was too sublime for the mass of mankind : this imagination inducing them to conceal it in various ways, afforded an opportunity to their successors to form priesthoods, in fact corporations and corresponding societies, whose interest it became to take care, by keeping the people in ignorance, that the doctrine should always remain too sublime for them. Thus from the days of Bishop Vyasa to the days of Bishop Laurence, the same course has always been pursued; and, with as much zeal and as much system as the improved state of mankind will permit, it is yet continued. Before I conclude this work, I hope I shall be able nearly to strip off the tawdry disguises which have been piled upon both Gentilism and Christianity, and to restore them to the identical system practised in the sacrifice of bread and wine or water, at the shrine of the (* ie, IE or Jah, at Delphi, by Pythagoras, and by Abraham, in the same rite, at the altar of the priest Melchizedek, the King of Justice—of the Dherma Rajah, of the same religion of which Jesus Christ is said to have been declared a priest. I shall shew that the religions of Melchizedek, of Jesus, and of Pythagoras, were the same, and that the celebrated Christian father, Justin the Martyr, spoke nothing but the truth, when he declared that Socrates was a Christian. I am not the first person who broached this doctrine. Sixteen hundred years ago a very celebrated, and probably, all things considered, the most learned of all the Christian fathers, Ammonius Saccas, taught this doctrine—that all the Gentile religions as well as the Christian, were to be illustrated and explained by the principle of an universal philosophy, but that in order to do this, the fables of the priests were to be removed from Paganism, and the comments and interpretations of the disciples of Jesus from Christianity. This philosopher might well be called, as he has been, the ornament of the Christian cause in the second century. But the seed which he sowed fell on rocky places, and brought forth no fruit. He threw his peals before swine. Alas ! his doctrine was much too sublime for the wretched and miserable race which succeeded him. For such men as Iranæus, who saw the statue of Lot's wife, and as the learned Origen, his pupil, (really in languages learned,) who castrated himself for the glory of God, and Augustine the glory of Africa, who says he saw men in Ethiopia without heads, but one eye in the breast. Fabricius and Lardner, as if fearful lest something really good and respectable should be found among their predecessors the fathers of the Christian church, wish to exclude Ammonius from the list; but Mosheim, who was originally of their opinion, saw cause, on further examination, to change it, and, in such change, as Mr. Taylor truly says, shewed the marks of a master mind. But Mosheim had what has been seldom found in the Christian cause, he has sincerity, as well as learning. Although for my system I go not to the support of great names, yet I am not insensible to the value of the opinion of such a man as Saccas, who, in addition to his learning, united the advantage of being nearer to the fountain-head, the origin of things, by no contemptible period—sixteen hundred years.

 

Link to Volume I - Book X.