In almost every part of the world the fossil remains of animals are found,—animals which the researches of Mons. Cuvier have proved must have been deposited at long intervals of time, between which depositions great floods or catastrophes may have taken place.* … The creation of the world in six successive days and nights, and the creation of man before the floods which embedded the animals in the strata above alluded to, are assertions, the falsity of which, if taken to the letter, is as well proved as the nature of the case will admit. Therefore the doctrine of allegory must now be revived—the doctrine of the ancient Jews, and the earliest and most learned fathers of the Christian Church—a doctrine lost in the darkness and debasement of intellect during the middle ages. It is said that the proof of the allegorical signification is only negative proof; but it is a very peculiar kind of negative proof; for the fossil elephant is found—but in the same strata the positive absence of the remains of man is palpable. The history of Noah and the Deluge being the same in India and Western Syria,** whatever may be the meaning of the one must be the meaning of the other.

That several floods have taken place cannot be doubted; ocular demonstration as well as tradition prove this. Like what has been called early history, the fact was seized on by the priests, and made subservient to the secret religion which every where prevailed. Thus we have a story in India, or Eastern, Syria, Mesopotamia or Chaldea, of the germ or seed of all nature preserved in a ship fastened to the mount of Nau-band-a, or the ship-banded or cabled mount;* in Western** Syria or Mesopotamia or Chaldea, the story of the ark of Noah and his eight sailors. But because the fact was thus converted into a parable, and used for the purpose of preserving a mythos, and the same mythos in both countries, it does not therefore follow that there was not a flood.

Now, if we consider the history of the flood in this point of view, there is nothing improbable in the destruction having been so great over the world as to have left only a very few persons of one or two nations (the Indians and Chinese perhaps) in such a state as to retain possession of their books and records—whence they might be called the inhabitants of the city of Sephora, that is, the city of letters; Sephor, in Hebrew, meaning a letter, or a cipher or figure of notation. No person has ever pretended to find this city, but it has been thought to be Babylon. At all events, I think I have shewn that when the prejudices of philosophers against the nonsense of devoteeism, and the prejudice of devotees for nonsense, are disposed of, and the text fairly understood and explained, there is nothing implied in the flood of Noah impossible or incredible, or that may not rationally be accounted for from natural causes. …

When the first of the great convulsions spoken of above had ceased, I suppose that the world was left with the Mediterranean a great lake, overflowing a head or bank at the straits of Gibraltar; covering with water the Delta, or Lower Egypt, if it then existed, the Poutine Marshes of Italy, and many islands and shores of the Mediterranean now dry. The Aral, the Caspian Sea, the Sea of Asoph or Maietis or Mætis, and the Euxine, were probably one sea, or a series of lakes, exactly like the series of lakes in North America, flowing over the head at Niagara. After a long course of years, the breaking down of the banks which held up these eastern or higher lakes might cause very great local floods, probably those alluded to by Plato,—might cause first the low lands on the banks of the Mediterranean to be flooded, and, at last, by breaking through the barrier at Gibraltar, cause them to be again left dry. All this is within the bounds of possibility, and probability too, if what the traveller Pallas says be true, that the appearance of the surface of the countries between the Aral, the Caspian, and the Sea of Asoph, shews that they have formerly all been connected. In all this we have nothing more than natural effects succeeding to natural causes.*

We are told by Plato, that before the race of people who occupied Greece in his time lived, a previous race had been destroyed by a great flood. Now, I think it may be possible to find a probable cause for this effect : but I will previously make a few observations on the Pyramid and Delta of Egypt, from which I think we may, in our search, gain some assistance.

I shall, in the first place, give an extract from the work of a learned priest of the name of Gab, of the Romish Church, which contains a statement of several curious and unobserved facts. "… But if this deposite of sand is not the effect of the winds, by what agency came it here ? Not by any extraordinary overflowing of the Nile, from which a sediment might be left : for it is known, that river never rose to near the height of that plain of rock, nor are there any kind of shell-fish in the Nile : whereas shells and petrified oysters are found in the sands about the Pyramids.

"And it must be allowed, when this Pyramid of Giza was built, there were no such depths either of sands or of earth upon the rock, as in the time of Herodotus, from the absurdities that would follow such a supposition : since the builders must first have dug out their depth of sand equal in extent of twelve English acres : and when their work was completed, must be argued to have filled in, against the declining sides, to the level of the former surface, and thus have buried a considerable part of their own work.

"From these positions, it evidently appears, this Pyramid must have been erected by the Antediluvians before the universal deluge, called Noah's flood, and the description given of it in Holy Writ will account in a satisfactory manner for the lodgment of sand on the surface of that extensive rock.

"It is natural to conclude the heavier particles of sand, when the waters became tranquil, would sink first, and the lighter particles, of course, both on account of their texture as well as their more exposed situation, would easily pulverize, and be sooner conveyed by the winds to distant places, than the ponderous, compressed layers, intermixed with shells and portions of loam, which more immediately covered the sides of the Pyramid nearer the rock. Of course the reduction of this consolidated mass has been by slow degrees, and its dispersion by the winds so imperceptible as to defeat observation."*

Ancient Giza was, I think, the sea-port before the Nile changed its bed; and the change was probably effected by the inundation of which I shall speak, which at the same time buried the Pyramids in sand, changed the bed of the river, and, in great part, if not entirely, formed the Delta. The flood which, I shall shew, flowed up Egypt, probably covered a considerable part of Lybia, and carried thither shells similar to those found at the foot of the great Pyramid, and on the surface of the sand around the temple of Seva or Jupiter Ammon,* to which it is not impossible the flood extended. …

We learn from Plato, and other Greek authors, that, in a very remote æra, a large island in the Atlantic ocean was swallowed up by the sea, and with it numerous nations, at one moment, drowned. This history does not seem improbable, and will, if admitted, account for many coincidences between the natives of the old and new worlds.

Of the size of this Atlantis we know really nothing. It may have been three times as large as Australia, for any thing which we know to the contrary. …

The first convulsion of which I have spoken is that which made Britain an island, and threw up Mount Blanc and Chimborazo. After that convulsion another might have been caused by the sinking of Atlantis. This may have been caused by that which occasioned the destruction of Maha-bali-pore. Another great change in all the islands and shores of the Mediterranean may have taken place when the opening was made at the straits of Gibraltar, and another great change may have taken place when the lakes Aral, Asoph, and Euxine, broke their banks, by which the flood described by Plato may have been first effected, and the Delta of Egypt, and the shores of Italy left dry, after it had escaped at the straits. All those different catastrophes probably happened. Of their order, except with respect to the first, I give no opinion.

I have lately discovered a geological fact of nature which bears strongly upon this subject. There in Yorkshire, near the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Trent, within the angle which they make before they unite and form the river Humber, a tract of alluvial country of great riches and fertility, which has formerly been covered with oak and fir timber, the lower parts of which yet remain in the ground fixed as they grew. … This country is now defended from the tides by banks maintained at a very great expense; but the fact to which I have alluded is this—the tides now rise at least six feet above the surface of the soil where the remains of these trees are yet found. …

From this it is quite certain that a great change must have taken place in the relative levels of the land and ocean, because these trees could never have grown in a soil where they were daily flooded with salt water. What I have stated with respect to the tides and the remains of the trees which I have seen, are facts which cannot be disputed, and I think they shew that a very great but unsuspected change has taken place, or is taking place, in the relative situations of the land and the sea. Every thing tends to shew, that the surface of the Mediterranean sea, with respect to its shores, has been lowered. The facts stated respecting the trees in Yorkshire PROVE that the Atlantic, with relation to the land of Britain, has been raised, or vice versa, the land lowered. …

… For more information on subjects connected with the series of lakes, or the inland seas of Asia, the reader may consult, among the ancients, Strabo, Lib. i.; Pliny, Hist. Nat. Lib. ii. Cap. 90; and Diodorus Siculus : among the moderns, Pallas, Reise, durch Siberien, Book v.; Klaproth's Survey of the Country North of Caucasus; Mons. Choiseul Gouffier, Mémoire de Institut. Royal de France, 1815; Dr. Clarke's Travels; and Muller's Univers. Hist. Trans. Vol. I. p.33.

The Virgin Mary, in most countries where the Roman faith prevails, is called the Queen of Heaven : this is the very epithet given by the ancients to the mother of Bacchus, who was said to be a virgin. …

In the service or liturgy of the Carmelites, which I bought in Dublin at the Carmelite monastery, the Virgin is called STELLA MARIS; that is, in fact, the star of the sea—"Leucothea"—Venus rising from the sea.

… In the fourth century there existed a sect of Christians called Collyridrians, who made offerings of cakes to the Virgin Mary as a Goddess and Queen of Heaven.*

The Collyridians are said, by Mr. Sayle.* to have come from Arabia. They worshiped the Virgin Mary for God, offering her a sort of twisted cake called collyris, whence the sect had its name. This notion of the divinity of the Virgin Mary was also believed by some persons at the Council of Nice, who said there were two Gods besides the Father, viz. Christ and the Virgin Mary; and they were thence named Mariamites.** …

In many churches as well as in many places in the streets of Mayence on the Rhine, the Virgin is seen having the child on one arm, and a branch of lilies, the lotus, in the hand of the other arm, standing with one foot upon the head of the serpent, which has a sprig of an apple-tree with an apple on it in its mouth, and its tail twisted about a globe partly enveloped in clouds; therefore evidently a celestial globe. Her other foot is placed in the inside of a crescent. Her head is surrounded with a glory of stars. Can any one doubt that this is the Regina Stellarum of the sphere ? The branch of the apple-tree in the mouth of the serpent with the Virgin's foot upon its head, shews pretty clearly who this Virgin of the sphere was—Ipsa conteret caput tuum. The circumstance of the Virgin almost always having the lotus or lily, the sacred plant both of Egypt and India, in her hand (or an angel has it and presents it to her) is very striking. It is found, Sir R. Ker Porter observes,* "in Egypt, Palestine, Persia, India, all over the East, and was of old in the tabernacle and temple of the Israelites. It is also represented in all pictures of the salutation of Gabriel to the Virgin Mary; and, in fact, has been held in mysterious veneration by people of all nations and times."

The worship of the black Virgin and Child probably come form the East. The white one is the Goddess Nurtia or Nortia of the Etruscans. …

There can be no doubt, that the Virgin of the sphere, who treads on the head of the serpent, is the Virgin of the first book of Genesis. This is all explained by Mons. Dupuis.* In some of the spheres we see the Virgin with the lotus or lily, in others with ears of ripe corn in her hand. I apprehend the Virgin with the ripe corn was the Virgin of Taurus : and that the birth-place of this mythos will be found in a latitude where corn will be ripe in August or the beginning of September, and this will fix it to a latitude very far from Lower India or Upper Egypt; to about that latitude where May, or the month of Maia, the mother of the God Buddha, would be the leading spring month, in which all nature would be in its most beautiful attire, and this would be at least as high as latitude 45, or North of Samarkand.

The signs of the Zodiac are not any of them remarkable for being connected with objects of an Indian nature. The twenty-eight Hindoo mansions and the asterisms are almost all named after objects peculiarly Hindoo. This raises a strong presumption against the solar Zodiac being of Hindoo invention. If the solar Zodiac had been of Hindoo or African growth, the elephant and camel would have been found there.*

… All the arguments of Mr. Maurice against Egypt being the birthplace of the Zodiacal signs apply with equal force against India. They must, in fact, have all come from a latitude far higher than Egypt, India, or even Chaldæa. Samarkand is the lowest that can be admitted. …

Wen is acknowledged to belong to the Celtic terms for a woman, from which the Latin Venus is derived.* Then Alma Venus might mean the mother, the mother Venus, the Deity-mother woman, or the female great Deity. This Alma means virgin, because the mother Goddess, though a mother, was always held to be a virgin. From these abstruse, misunderstood doctrines, might arise the idea of some of the Christian heretics, that Jesus was taken from the side of his mother.

M. Dupuis says, the celestial sign of the Virgin and Child was in existence several thousand years before the birth of Christ. The constellation of the celestial Virgin by its ascension above the horizon presided at the birth of the God Sol, or light, and seemed to produce him from her side. Here is the origin of Jesus born from the side of his mother. The Magi, as well as the priests of Egypt, celebrated the birth of the God Sol, or Light, or Day, incarnate in the womb of a virgin, which had produced him without ceasing to be a virgin, and without connexion with man. This was he of whom all the prophets and mystagogues prophesied, saying, "A virgin shall conceive, and bear a son" (and his name shall be Om-nu-al, Om our God). … This is the same virgin of the constellation whom, Eratosthenes says, the learned of Alexandria call Ceres or Isis, who opened the year and presided at the birth of the god Day. It was in honour of this same virgin, (from whom the sun emanated, and by whom the god Day or Light was nursed,) that, at Sais, the famous feast of lights was celebrated, and from which our Candlemas, or our feast of the lights of the purification, was taken. Ceres was always called the Holy Virgin.*

The Christians have a feast called the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. In one of the ancient Gospel histories an account is given of the assumption of Mary into heaven, in memory of which event this feast was kept. On this feast M. Dupuis says, "About the eighth month, when the sun is in his greatest strength, and enters into the eighth sign, the celestial virgin appears to be absorbed in his fires, and she disappears in the midst of the rays and glory of her son." … The Christians place here the assumption, or reunion of the Virgin and her Son. This used to be called the feast of the passage of the Virgin. … As the Christians celebrated the decease or assumption of the celestial virgin into heaven, called by them the Virgin Mary, so also they did her impregnation or annunciation; that is, the information communicated to her that she would become pregnant by the holy ghost. …

… Pelloutier,* as noticed before, has observed, that more than a hundred years before the Christian æra, in the territory of Chartres, among the Gauls, honours were paid to the virgin (VIRGINI PARITUÆ) who was about to give birth to the God of Light. That was really the Buddhist worship, I have no doubt. The Virgin was the beautiful Maya, the mother of Buddha—the Budwas found in Wales, as noticed in my Celtic Druids.**

The worship of the Virgin was in no sense applicable to Mary the wife of Joseph. If this worship had been originally derived from her, or instituted in her honour, she would not have been called a virgin as a distinguishing mark of honour; for she was no more a virgin than any other woman who had a large family : for such a family, after the birth of Jesus, it cannot be denied that, according to the Gospel accounts, she had. Therefore why, more than any other woman, should she be called a virgin ? The truth is, that the worship of the virgin and child, which we find in all Romish countries, was nothing more than a remnant of the worship of Isis and the God Horus—the Virgin of the celestial sphere, to whom the epithet virgin, though a mother, was without absurdity applied.

Plutarch* says, Phylarchus taught that Bacchus first brought into Egypt from India the worship of Apis and Osiris. Eusebius has stated that Bacchus came to Egypt from the Indus. In the temples of Diana a festival of Bacchus was celebrated, called Sacaæ.** Of this Saca I shall treat at large hereafter. Bacchus had generally the horns of a bull, though often hidden beneath a crown of ivy and grapes.*** The Pope is always accompanied by one or two fans made of feathers. The Buddhist priests of Ceylon always have the same,—as Mr. Robinson says, the mystic fan of Bacchus. Bacchus and Hercules were both Saviours, they were both put to death, and rose again the third day, at our time of Easter, or the vernal equinox : so were Osiris and Adonis.

He was also Deo-Naush, or Deva-Nahusha, and Ram or Rama-Deva. …

According to Herodotus,* Bacchus was called Iacchus, in the mysteries. …

… We have seen that Mount Meru was a type or symbol of the Linga or Ioni. …

We have seen above that Bacchus was identified with Mount Meru, the residence of Brahm, where he held his court in the sides of the North. But the reader will not forget that Bacchus was called Broumios. This was the Bruma of the Etruscans. In Ovid's Fasti, Janus anounces that he is the same with Bruma, and that the year began of old with Bruma, and not with the Spring, because Bruma had the first honour. Bruma meant also the winter or the north. All the ancients looked to the north for the seat of the Deity, and I believe in all nations the letters B. R. and P R. conveyed the idea of Former or Creator. Ovid says,

Diodorus Siculus also reports that, according to some authors, he was twice born. Here the renewed incarnation creeps out, as well as the striking similitude to Noah. Bacchus is said, like Noah, to have planted the vine, to have made wine, and to have been the victim of its inebriating quality. M. D'Ancarville* shews that the name of Brouma given to Bacchus was Brama, and that Diodorus calls this name indigenous (egcwrion dialecton). He also shews, in the most satisfactory manner, that Bacchus was brought from India; that the object of his religion was God the Creator of all things, the generative power of which was represented under the form of the Bull.**

Bacchus was called ETOI. This is the IETW, IA W, IAOT, or Yahouh, the same as the IE on the temple of the Delphian Apollo.* Bacchus was also called a Bull, and a Son of God.

I will now submit to my reader some observations, on the origin of the word Jesus, and the opinions of different learned men both on the word itself, and on various points connected with it. …

The God Iaw, %&%* ieue, IHS, Jehovah, was the son of the celestial virgin, which she carries in her arms; the $!& aur, Horus, Lux, of the Egyptians;* the Lux of St. John. It is from this infant that Jesus took his origin; or at least it is from the ceremonies and worship of this infant, that his religion came to be corrupted into what we have it. … From the traditionary stories of this god Iao, which feigned annually to be born at the winter solstice, and to be put to death and raised to life on the third day at the vernal equinox, the Romish searchers after the evangelion or gospel, made out their Jesus. The total destruction of every thing at Jerusalem and in Judæa,—buildings, records, every thing—prevented them from coming to any absolute certainty respecting the person who, they were told by tradition, had come to preach the gospel of peace, to be their saviour, in fulfilment of the prophecy which their sect of Israelites found in their writings, and who had been put to death by the Jews. From all these circumstances he came to have applied to him the monogram of IHS, the name of IHSouj, and to him at last all the legendary stories related of the god Iao were attributed. Jesus was commonly called Christ.

Diodorus Siculus says, that Moses pretended to receive his laws from the God called IAW. This shews that the Greeks considered the name of the Jewish God to be, not Jehovah, but, as I have stated it, &%* ieu, or Ieo. …

"I doubt not but it is the great name of Jehovah, which they learnt among the Jews : and that Evòhe Sabòhe is the Jehovah Sabaoth, Lord of Hosts, in the Scripture; whence Bacchus was called Sabazius likewise. Diodorus Siculus says expressly, the Jews call God Iao; and the learned universally agree that is Jehovah. Evòhe is but another awkward way of pronouncing it."*

… The pious Dr. Parkhurst, as we have just seen in his Hebrew Lexicon, proves, from the authority of Diodorus Siculus, Varro, St. Augustin, &c., that the Iao, Jehovah, or my %&%* ieue, or %* ie of the Jews, was the Jove of the Latins and Etruscans. In the next page, and in p. 160, under the word --% ell, he allows that this %* ie was the name of Apollo, over the door of the Temple of Delphi. He then admits that this %&%* ieue Jehovah is Jesus Christ in the following sentences : "It would be almost endless to quote all the passages of scripture wherein the name %&%* (ieue) is applied to Christ : let those, therefore, who own the scriptures as the rule of faith, and yet doubt his essential deity, only compare in the original scriptures (the passages too numerous to insert), and I think they cannot miss of a scriptural demonstration that Jesus is Jehovah." But we have seen it is admitted that Jehovah is Jove, Apollo, Sol, whence it follows that Jesus is Jove, &c.

The followers of Iao, %&%* ieue, constantly sung the word Hallelujah in his praise. This they did in the temple of Solomon, in the temple of Delphi, and they still continue the same hallelujahs in the temple at Rome. Dr. Parkhurst says, ".*-&-% elulim praises,* %*-&-% (elluie) Praise ye Jah— Eng. Marg. Hallelujah : and so the LXX. Throughout, leaving it untranslated, Allhl8Ža. It occurs very frequently at the beginning and end of Psalms. And from this solemn form of praise to God, which, no doubt, was far prior to the time of David, the ancient Greeks plainly had their similar acclamation Eleleu Ih (eleleu ie), with which they both began and ended their Pæans or Hymns in honour of Apollo, i.e. The Light."**

Jesus in the gospels is always called Lord, or in the Greek Kufioj. This is the word by which the Hellenistic Jews, in translating Hebrew into Greek LXX, constantly rendered the word %&%* ieue. The word Kufioj is derived from the word Kurw, to be, exist, subsist;* and is a very excellent word to use for the Hebrew word %* ie, which has precisely the same meaning. But this word %* ie, as it has been observed, was the name given to Apollo or the sun at Delphi, who is always called Kufioj, and the day dedicated to him cufiach, dies dominica, or the Lord's-day. From some, or from a combination, of these circumstances, Jesus took the name of Lord, the etymological meaning of which will be explained hereafter. …

Shuckford says, "The name Jehovah was, I believe, known to be the name of the Supreme God, in the early ages, in all nations." Again, "Ficinus remarked, that all the several nations of the world had a name for the Supreme Deity, consisting of four letters only.* This I think was true at first in a different sense from that which Ficinus took it : for I question not but they used the very same word, until the languages of different nations came to have a more entire disagreement than the confusion at Babel at first caused."**

It is thus proved by fair deduction and logical reasoning on unquestionable authority, that the God %&%* IEUE Jehovah, %* IE or Jah of the Jews, the God EI, the Apollo of Delphos, The Deus, the Jupiter, Jovis, Jovispiter of the Latins, the god Mithra of the Persians, and all the gods of the Heathens, are identically the same person or being; not merely derivatives from one another, but that they are, with only such trifling apparent differences as may reasonably be expected to arise from the lapse of many ages, and from the inevitable uncertainty of names translated without any definite rule out of one language into another, one and the same; and this same being, the sun, or shekinah of the self-existent Being. In short, that Jehovah was the sun; for if Jehovah was Iao, and Iao was the sun, Jehovah must be the sun. Dr. Parkhurst admits that Jesus was Jehovah; but if Jesus was Jehovah, and Jehovah the sun, it follows that Jesus, that is, the Romish Jesus, but not the Jesus of Nazareth, must be the sun. …

Link to Volume I - Book VII.